Authentic Conversations: Moving from Manipulation to Truth and Commitment

This groundbreaking book takes something people typically thing of as merely functional — ordinary conversations — and demonstrates the power they have to shape our our relationships, our cultures, and our communities.

 We have all grown up in a culture where conversations are viewed as a tool for getting what we want, for winning. This book advocates conversations that shift from self interest to accountability for the whole as a way to get better business results. These conversations can make visible the daily choices we make about accountability, commitment and passion.

The authors provide practical ways to move to honest, authentic conversations. The book includes a hands-on guide, including sample scripts, for dealing with a host of potentially difficult conversations.

Although this book is written for workplace audience, authentic conversations can create friendships, marriages, and family relationships peoplel can believe in.

Book Trailer

The Story Behind This Book

In the summer of 2005, I came home from a fellowship in South America homeless, jobless and not quite broke. From that inauspicious starting point, Authentic Conversations proved to be the catalyst for a job, true love, a husband, and the most amazing, magical partnership I have ever experienced. I met my co-author and now husband, Jamie, on August 16, 2005 at a coffee shop in Phoenix, not far from where we live now. After nearly 25 years in newspaper journalism, I was searching for a new career and a job coach had advised me to interview people who were doing work I might be interested in. Through a mutual friend, Jamie had agreed to meet with me so I could pick his brain about his business consulting practice, which he established in 1989. When he walked through the door and said, "Are you Maren?" I was a little taken aback. He bore no resemblance to what I had imagined a business consultant might look like. He was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. An earring dangled from his left ear and he had a baseball cap on backward. Definitely not what I expected. My first thought was, "Who hires this guy?" About 30 minutes into our converation, I totally understood why people hired him. This bald guy with the silver goatee soon began to defrost my cynical heart. The two hours we spent together in the coffee shop that day was the beginning of a fascinating, authentic conversation that has yet to conclude. He mentioned he'd been trying to get a book written, and asked if I would be interested in looking at a box of materials he had gathered to see if I thought there was a book there. Those materials articulated ideas I had long believed about the ways people should be viewed and treated at work and in life. There was a book there, and I was interested. Within a few weeks I had joined the business, a decision that expanded my world and lead to love. On a perfect day in April 2006, we vowed to take full accountability for each other's success and for the success of our relationship, both personal and professional. We wrote the book in the spring of 2007 in a collaboration that was remarkable for its lack of conflict or dissonance. It was published in 2008. Our partnership is just another example of the wonderful things that can spring from Authentic Conversations. And by the way, when he cleans up to work with clients, he's everything I had imagined a consultant would look like, and more.

Media Mentions

• The Chicago Tribune: Obama to the World, Let's Talk
• New York Times: Talking Politics at the Office
• Wall Street Journal: Coping with the Aftermath of Layoffs
• The Philadelphia Inquirer: Straight Talk Empowers All
• CNNmoney.com: Staying Productive After a Layoff
• Wall Street Journal: How to Manage Layoff Survivors
• Investor's Busines Daily: Give Straight Talk Priority
• International Business Times: Lessons on the Back of a Bike
• The Myth of Accountability and the Parent-Child Relationship
• Minneapolis Workplace Examinar: Seven Simple Steps That Could Save Your Job

Praise and Reviews

Author Interviews

• PODCAST: Susan Stamm interviews the authors

Related Links

• henning-showkeir & associates, inc.