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The 4 Habits of All Successful Relationships: Improving Your Relationships at Home, at Work and in Life.

The 4 Habits of All Successful Relationships: Improving Your Relationships at Home, at Work and in Life.

The 4 Habits of All Successful Relationships: Improving Your Relationships at Home, at Work and in Life.

The 4 Habits of All Successful Relationships: Improving Your Relationships at Home, at Work and in Life.

Overview

The quality of our relationships impacts just about everything that really matters most. They impact how we “show up” and what we are able to achieve – at home, at work and in life. They impact our health and wellbeing, and ultimately, they determine the quality of our very lives. But successful relationships don’t just happen automatically. They take work. The problem is, often we have no idea what to work on! Every relationship faces hurdles. Our different views, opinions and approaches as individuals mean we have different expectations and when those expectations are not met, we feel frustrated and disappointed. Unaddressed and repeated over time, this frustration leads to broken relationships, broken homes and broken people. So many relationships lose out because we are not equipped to do relationships well before problems arise… until now. Based on over 25 years of working in relationship education, in this book, Dr. Andrea & Jon Taylor-Cummings share four fundamental habits that often distinguish between successful and unsuccessful relationships. Every successful relationship displays them and every failing relationship is missing at least one. By learning the principles, tools and techniques that underpin The 4 Habits© we can all change our behaviours from habits that damage relationships to habits that strengthen them, on purpose. This means we can all learn to “show up” better, have better conversations and achieve better outcomes in ALL our relationships – with our partners, children, colleagues, friends, everyone! These four habits are so fundamental to all relationships that they continue to resonate around the world through their TEDx Talk, which now has in excess of 3 million views: • Habit #1 – BE CURIOUS, not critical is about developing our self-awareness (and other-awareness!) through understanding fundamental differences, giving each other “space and grace” to shine in our own strengths and overcome the frustration of unmet expectations. • Habit #2 – BE CAREFUL, not crushing is about building strong skills in managing conflict, learning to treat each other well no matter how heated the argument, and working towards genuine resolutions so that relationships are strengthened not damaged through conflict. • Habit #3 – ASK, don’t assume is about learning to build mutual trust and respect in relationships by clarifying values and having courageous conversations about things that really matter to us when necessary, overcoming the hurdles of mistrust and distance that can creep into relationships. • Habit #4 – CONNECT, before you correct is about learning to build great rapport, warmth and connection in relationships by consistently communicating appreciation and love in meaningful ways, and to overcome the hurdle of feeling unvalued because of poor communication. Together The 4 Habits provide the practical “how to” for building Emotional Intelligence in general, and Relational Intelligence in particular. When we are each equipped with the skills to do relationships well, we turn up as better versions of ourselves. Our marriages and partnerships are strengthened, our children flourish, our organisations and communities thrive, and our nations grow in health. We can and we must all become intentional about learning to do relationships well, as if our lives depended on it. Because, in reality, they do.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781912863723
Publisher: Malcolm Down Publishing
Publication date: 06/01/2021
Pages: 300
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Taylor-Cummings is the co-founder of 4 Habits Consulting and Soulmates Academy Foundation, through which he and his wife Andrea equip people to build healthy relationships at work AND home. Andrea and Jon have hosted a TEDx talk which has had over 3 million views. 


Dr Andrea Taylor-Cummings is the co-founder of 4 Habits Consulting and Soulmates Academy Foundation. Andrea and Jon have hosted a TEDx talk which has had over 3 million views. 

Read an Excerpt

Learning to be more CURIOUS than critical So many friendships, couples and teams lose out on great relationships because the person who could complement them the most is often their diametric opposite in terms of skills, workstyle and approach. They can be the most frustrating to work with if you don’t understand each other. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner did a survey back in 2018 which concluded that “people don’t leave companies, they leave bosses” and the top two reasons were being overly criticised and feeling micro-managed, two classic symptoms of personality strengths being misunderstood and mismanaged. When our first response is to judge or criticise people instead of getting curious about their different perspectives, we shut people down, kill their creativity and teach them not to speak up or be truthful. We also teach them how to blame rather than learn from mistakes. And we end up with editing and exclusion rather than authenticity and inclusion.

Table of Contents

Why Read This Book & What You'll Get Out Of It

Introduction - The secret to successful relationships 15

Part A Taking Control of Your Relationships

Chapter 1 Managing the WILL to keep relationships alive 33

Chapter 2 Building the SKILL to do relationships well 49

Chapter 3 How our levels of SKILL and WILL impact our relationships 57

Part B Mastering the 4 Habits®

Habit #1 BE CURIOUS, not critical

Chapter 4 Overcoming our in-built tendency to criticize 83

Chapter 5 Mining for strengths in personality differences 97

Habit #2 BE CAREFUL, not crushing

Chapter 6 Why we end up crushing each other… 119

Chapter 7 Strategies for treating each other with care, during conflict… 135

Habit #3 ASK, don't assume

Chapter 8 What's driving our assumptions? 159

Chapter 9 What would be most helpful to ASK for? 179

Chapter 10 Clarifying and protecting what matters most 207

Chapter 11 The art of ASKing well 241

Habit #4 CONNECT, before you correct

Chapter 12 Connection and belonging 269

Chapter 13 Getting better at connecting 285

Part C Taking Responsibility

Chapter 14 Taking responsibility for yourself 313

Chapter 15 Taking responsibility as a leader 325

Chapter 16 Taking responsibility as a society 343

Appendices 355

Footnotes and References 365

Acknowledgements 379

What People are Saying About This

Chris Cummings

The importance of relationships has never been more critical and The 4 Habits provides invaluable and tangible tools and behaviour changes to build successful relationships both at home and at work. The three-part structure makes it easy to digest and implement with strong reference points so the reader can make steady and lasting changes. A fantastic toolkit for us all to build our essential relational intelligence skills.

Dr. John Trent

It’s one thing for someone to hand you a map. It’s another thing to have an expert guide walk you to that next great place. In this case, it’s two guides, Dr. Andrea and Jonathan Taylor-Cummings. Their 4 Habits book can help guide and strengthen your team, workplace, and family, and improve your most important relationships. I’ve been blessed to get to know both Jonathan and Andrea and I highly recommend them and their hugely helpful new book.

Rob Parsons OBE

With the 4 Habits, the Taylor-Cummings have put together a template to help anyone have better relationships – whether in the boardroom or the bedroom! Dotted throughout with real-life examples, they present with clarity well-researched wisdom and strategies to enable anyone to develop their connection and communication with those who matter most. The ideas in this book aren’t just something to read, but to put into practice and reap the rewards.

Dr. Sue Dopson

This book is a treasure chest of rich vignettes, reflective questions and practical exercises that deepen our understanding of factors that can damage relationships and actions we can take to develop healthy relationships. It is not just a book about personal relationships, it offers insights as to how we can build productive relationships in the ever increasing complex work settings we now inhabit. The blend of honest reflection and evidence based research material makes this a wonderful resource.

Andrew Selous

Healthy, respectful relationships focused on mutual flourishing are the bedrock of the lives of couples and families and are vitally important in the workplace as well. This is also a key social justice issue as the evidence shows that healthy couple relationships are a bulwark against poverty, so I warmly welcome this practical book on how we can all keep our relationships in good repair and iron out those bad habits.’

Reading Group Guide

Learning to be more CURIOUS than critical
So many friendships, couples and teams lose out on great relationships because the person who could complement them the most is often their diametric opposite in terms of skills, workstyle and approach. They can be the most frustrating to work with if you don’t understand each other.
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner did a survey back in 2018 which concluded that “people don’t leave companies, they leave bosses” and the top two reasons were being overly criticised and feeling micro-managed, two classic symptoms of personality strengths being misunderstood and mismanaged.
When our first response is to judge or criticise people instead of getting curious about their different perspectives, we shut people down, kill their creativity and teach them not to speak up or be truthful. We also teach them how to blame rather than learn from mistakes. And we end up with editing and exclusion rather than authenticity and inclusion.

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