The Power of Positive Confrontation: The Skills You Need to Know to Handle Conflicts at Work, at Home, and in Life

Excellent summary of basics that are desperately needed by all of us. Steps are simple enough that people can actually practice and use them at home and at work.

so far, so good. I'm only about half way through the book, but what I've learned so far has been helpful with situations at home and work!

With Susan Magee, Barbara Pachter carefully analyzes all of the skills anyone needs to resolve conflicts at work, home, and in life. Confrontation is inevitable. Think about it: What REALLY upsets you? How about "road rage" when someone else cuts you off, tailgates, deliberately forces you to the side of the road, etc.? Or how about "office politicians" who lie both to your face and behind your back, thrive on hurtful gossip, and in countless other ways try to advance themselves at the cost of others? Make no mistake about it: Negative Confrontation also has power.Pachter has a specific objective in mind: To enable those to read the book to master the skills needed to resolve confrontation is positive, constructive, and beneficial ways. As indicated in the Preface, she wants each reader to be able to say "I don't feel frustrated any more..." or "In the past I would have sulked or complained until the person got the hint, now I can just say something..." or "Annoying things don't bother me as much because I know I can say something now."The book consists of 16 chapters, ranging from "Positive Confrontation -- What It Is and How It Can Make Your Life Better" to "International Etiquette", with Chapter 16 followed by a "Final 12-Step Pep Talk." Over the course of the book, Pachter covers just about every conceivable situation in which conflict can occur at work, home, and in life. I think this book will be invaluable to individual readers as well as to senior-level executives who can use much of the material to help those whom they supervise to master the same skills.

I've never been very good at confrontation; I always feel like I've said or done the right thing in the wrong way. This book changed that for good. Positive confrontation is something we all aspire to but rarely achieve. I've used what I learned in this book to deal with issues at work and at home -- and it works! Now I handle confrontation in the "right" way, and things work out much better both for me and for the person on the other side of the issue. This is a great book!

Using the techniques I learned in this book, I was finally able to confront my mother in law and my co worker about things that have been bothering me without getting upset. It worked! I found out that I was using self-discounting statements and my body langauge was a problem too. The book explains the WAC'em technique for getting your words together. The "W" helps you define what's bothering you and why.