Communicate with Courage: Taking Risks to Overcome the Four Hidden Challenges

by Michelle D. Gladieux

Overview

"A straightforward and compassionate guide to engaging in more effective conversation."
—Kirkus Reviews

Winner of 11 awards in its first year including: the 2023 PenCraft Best Book Award for Nonfiction, 2023 Nonprofit Authors Association Silver Award, 2023 Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal Award for Business, the 2023 Dan Poynter's Global Ebook Awards Gold Award for Communications, and the 2023 PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence.

Clear communication requires the courage to confront the psychological blocks that hold you back. Learn how to become a more fearless and peerless communicator.

Raising your game as a communicator is one of the best ways to make a difference in the world, but it takes courage to open up to others and invite others to open up to you. As a lifelong communication coach, Michelle Gladieux has discovered four sneaky obstacles that can keep you from becoming the best communicator you can be:

• Hiding—Fear of exposing your supposed weaknesses
• Defining—Putting too much stock into assumptions and being quick to judge
• Rationalizing—Using “being realistic” to shield yourself from taking chances, engaging in conflict, or doing other scary but potentially rewarding actions
• Settling—Stopping at “good enough” instead of aiming for something better in your interactions

These challenges all have something in common. They require taking risks—to reveal yourself, question your beliefs, take a leap of faith, or move out of your comfort zone. Each chapter includes a real-world practice called a Pro Move and an exercise, both carefully crafted to help you overcome hang-ups and take more joy in communicating.

Courageous communication requires self-knowledge, practice, and a desire to grow. It is a full-body, full-mind, and full-heart effort. This book is like having a caring, expert coach along with you for the journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523003129
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	726,728
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Michelle Gladieux is President of Gladieux Consulting, a Midwest-based team known for the design and presentation of seminars in communication and leadership topics around the U.S. She facilitates strategic planning and executive coaching for clients in diverse industries, in governments, at non-profits, and in academia. She has 18 years of collegiate teaching experience at three universities in her home state of Indiana, accepting her first faculty position at age 23. She's worked as a Human Resources and Training Director in the cold storage, robotics, and construction industries and enjoys visiting conferences as a keynote speaker and workshop presenter. She's dedicated her professional life to helping employees at all levels GROW.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Strength invulnerability (Saying "Nobody's Perfect," and Meaning It) 7

Chapter 2 Understand Risk to Improve Your Relationships and Career 27

Chapter 3 The Hunt for Hidden Challenges (The Blind Spots You Most Need to See) 39

Chapter 4 Hidden Challenge #1: Hiding from Risk 53

Chapter 5 Hidden Challenge #2: Defining to Be Right 65

Chapter 6 Hidden Challenge #3: Rationalizing the Negative 77

Chapter 7 Hidden Challenge #4: Settling for "Good Enough" 89

Chapter 8 Risks Not Worth Taking 101

Chapter 9 The Most Important Conversations to Have 111

Chapter 10 The Complete Risk-Taking Communicator 127

Conclusion 139

Notes 143

Gratitude 147

Index 151

About the Author 159

Editorial Reviews

Communicating with courage is life changing. Michelle draws from extensive experience to provide immediately actionable Pro Moves. Her extraordinary empathy comes through with relatable examples from diverse worlds, from music to business to sports. You’ll read this book more than once because it will help you transform your relationship with yourself and other people.”
—Jillian Ihsanullah, PhD, leadership and inclusion researcher and former Senior Vice President, Right Management
 
“I wish I had read this book decades ago. Michelle provides immediately useful ways to shine a light on habits we often can’t see that get in the way of effective communication. An indispensable read.”
—Jonathan Walker, MD, founder of Modestly Mindful LLC
 
“I wanted to make sure my performance evaluations with my senior leaders were meaningful. I hired Michelle to help, and she taught me some of the Pro Moves in this wonderful book. You will benefit greatly from applying them to your own personal and professional life.”
—Karl W. Einolf, PhD, President, Indiana Institute of Technology

From the Publisher

2024-03-19
Consultant, coach, and speaker Gladieux offers a series of exercises and concepts designed to improve communication skills.

The author writes in the opening pages of this brief book that she intends it to be a “bravery manual”—one that will instruct readers on how to embrace risk in a wide array of circumstances and turn it to their advantage. She draws on her decades of professional experience as a communications specialist and an executive coach as she puts forward the concept of “brave communication.” This approach involves confronting what she calls the four “hidden challenges” that one encounters in personal and professional dialogues, which include “Hiding From Risk,” “Defining to be Right,” “Rationalizing the Negative,” and “Settling for ‘Good Enough.’” She expands on the nature of each idea in dedicated chapters. She also explores what she calls “Pro Moves,” or ways “to send or receive messages more deftly than the average bear.” Such moves include such practical tips as “Don’t wait for someone else to celebrate you—reward yourself” as you strive to meet new communication challenges. Each chapter includes an “Exercise” that’s designed to assist readers in implementing a specific type of risk-taking communication; one suggests that readers “ask a few open-ended questions to someone you perceive as different from you….This exercise requires courage to admit that you’ve got a limited perspective on many things in life.”

This combination of straight talk and personal challenges runs through the whole of Gladieux’s book. She not only champions aspects of direct communication but also practices them in the text; she frequently presents hard lessons she’s learned while facing her own limitations before launching into discussions of how readers may overcome the same obstacles. Readers are also likely to find her blunt assessments of the importance of her subject to be appealing throughout: “I’ve never stood at a memorial service and heard anyone fondly recall how the departed was great at going along to get along and managed to never make any waves,” she notes at one point. She’s refreshingly plainspoken about the inevitably uncomfortable elements of any important conversation, whether one is speaking with a colleague or with a family member, and she consistently peppers her broad discussions with small nuggets of practical advice to help readers find value in difficult talks. Her tips include recommendations to avoid using the phrases “you always” or “you never,” which are inherently confrontational and frequently inaccurate, and to “ask others for changes in behavior, not changes in their often long-held beliefs.” Gladieux skillfully works in her own stories of coaching clients, and she also offers inspiration from historical figures: “To call forth courage,” she writes at one such point, “I often think of how aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart framed it: ‘Decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.’” Readers who’ve worried about tough dialogues of any kind will find many moments of useful wisdom here.

A straightforward and compassionate guide to engaging in more effective conversation.

Kirkus Reviews