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This episode is step eight in the 10-Step Toolkit to Having Critical Conversations featuring Dr. Alison Wood Brooks, a Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School who was recently named a Best 40-Under-40 Business School Professor by Poets & Quants. Her book TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves will be published by Crown (Penguin Random House) in January 2025.

Her research on the science of conversation has been published in prestigious academic journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Science, as well as in popular media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The New York Times, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review.

In this episode, we discuss:

• how to build a secure identity
• the power of hedging and receptive language
• mechanisms for holding accountability in conflict
• ways to move away from small talk
• tangible tools to release defenses in conversation
  
  

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Timestamps:

02:11 The Influence of Being a Twin

04:40 Exploring Self-Talk and Its Impact

06:32 Defining Conversation and Defensiveness

08:24 The Complexity of Conversations

10:29 The Dance of Communication

16:01 Navigating Sensitive Topics

19:39 Layers of Conversation Conflict

27:15 Building a Secure Identity

29:46 The Power of Receptive Language

32:21 Personal Reflections on Defensiveness

35:07 Accountability in Conversations

38:45 Navigating Difficult Conversations

44:41 The Art of Deep Conversations

51:28 Practical Tools for Better Conversations

54:48 Three Captivating Things

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