Good Talk: How to Design Conversations that Matter
Life is built one conversation at a time. Learn which conversations matter, how to transform those conversations, and balance them all while leading change.
Human beings are conversational animals. Every day we're in constant communication with ourselves, other people and the world around us, and while not all conversations may seem important, they all have the potential to transform our personal, professional and cultural lives for the better. This book explains how conversations work and offers practical advice on how to improve the quality of our exchanges.
Take a moment and collect all of the crucial conversations in your work and life. Think of the big conversations you're building and the small ones. Gather up those happening inside and outside of your organization...and inside and outside of yourself. How many conversations are there? What are you focusing on? What's working? What needs to shift?
To lead change, make an impact, and communicate well with others, Daniel Stillman, a thought leader, consultant, podcaster, and speaker in design thinking, presents a framework to keep all of the important conversations on track and provides tools to reframe what's missing and confusing.
Reviews (29)
Good Talk helps leaders acquire the mastery of designing conversations.
Frameworks in this book will help successful teams align on a vision, debug a problem, or create a creative and inclusive team culture.
A must read for organization leaders
Deep and delightfully simple…Organizations need more leaders who start with conversations. The Conversation Operating System offers a unique perspective - that conversations can be designed and that there are simple ways to make them work better. I highly recommend this book!
Fantastic Book!
Excellent book! I highly recommend it!
Required reading for every leader and facilitator!
We're always so focused on the success of our meetings, projects, and relationships. But the furthest we often go is to plan out our agenda and set clear expectations of what needs to happen. We neglect to think about who will be in the room with us, what their stories are, the space we'll gather, and the interactions that need to happen between everyone. I love that Daniel shares a career's worth of his experience, stories, inspiration, and tools for designing meaningful and actionable conversations - the core of what makes or breaks our meetings, projects, and relationships. Every chapter is filled with so many important ideas to integrate into my work. It's literally a guidebook to help you become a better conversationalist, facilitator, and leader.
A great book for life in general!
I met Daniel when he facilitated a fantastic workshop around conversations and design thinking for an event I planned - it was by far the most enjoyed part of the conference. Daniel's continues to share his brilliance and energy with "Good Talk." The book that will guide us all to listen more and better and build more productive conversations. Something I will refer back to again and again.
Must read for anyone who facilitates conversations - whether at an event or in the office.
When talking about gender, the conversation can be emotional and sometimes tricky to navigate. Daniel gets it. He's written a book that will give you the insight you need to design events and interactions that can help you build community in a purposeful way.
Powerful and hands on
Daniel Stillman remains true to his purpose: this amazing book supports the reader with powerful questions and practical tasks to create the conditions for transformative conversations. We are all limited by what we don't talk about. Let's start now!
Designing conversations could be the answer to everything!
Insightful and written in a way that makes immediate sense. I’ve used it primarily to inform conversations that need to be avoided and move into purposeful participation and self inquiry.
A user's manual for the most fundamental human medium
If you've listened to Daniel Stillman's podcast, The Conversation Factory, you'll know he starts it with the phrase, "our lives are literally built one conversation at a time" and yet so often we talk at cross-purposes, misalign, accidentally offend or take offence, and generally fail to be aware of the power structures, turn taking (or not), cadence and triggers in our conversations, particularly in the workplace where we quite often use completely different language. It's a marvel anything gets done at all. Daniel Stillman's Good Talk provides a user's manual to that most everyday of things – conversations. First of all he describes the how and why of conversations and why they matter. Because they are so everyday, we tend to think we have them down. But we don't. Most of us are just muddling through and Daniel describes how we often end up in a default mode. Then he describes the structure of conversations – not in a linguistics sense, but in a social sense. In the second half of the book – chapters 3-5 - he reveals a way to map out that structure and become more aware, more mindful of it, especially if you are in the business of facilitating conversations in some way. Using the Conversation OS canvas will be hugely useful to anyone leading meetings and workshops, but also to anyone who needs to have a difficult conversation. In short, anyone who wants to think beyond the default and to design better conversations. And we're all conversation designers. Highly recommended for anyone in leadership, management, design, facilitation and in situations at both work and home where conversations need to shift from their default patterns and ruts into something more positive.
A practical way of looking at how we make our conversations better. Daniel Stillman delivers a win.
As someone who has built a career on 'Conversations', I was really excited about what Daniel Stillman had to share with GOOD TALK. I was not disappointed. The big takeaway for me was that all of us have a role to place when it comes to communication. I have to make sure I'm doing my part to empower the listener and make my thoughts and intentions clear. The other party need to be able to express themselves and get an understanding in the process. If we are doing more listening than responding we are not only going to be able to achieve more in the short-term, it will help us to stand out with others as good communicators. If you are looking for a book that is easy to digest and full of practical information that you can start using right away then Daniel Stillman delivers a win. GOOD TALK delivers on its premise.
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