I thought I would finally take the time to review my friend and associate’s book, ‘Courageous conversations’.

Published by Matador last year, it’s a fairly quick read and I think it’s the perfect introduction to managing people. The only way you can create a high performing team according to Larry is to have good conversations and I agree with him.

He writes about 6 kinds of courageous conversations…

• Giving and receiving feedback

• Setting objectives

• Building trust

• Motivation

• Problem – solving

• Coaching

He provides simple models for having fruitful conversations in all of these areas and also includes excellent examples of the models in action in real conversations. There’s a quick reference summary of all the key models at the back, and a brilliant section at the end of each chapter where he answers frequently asked questions, which I know from my own experience really are the questions likely to be on people’s minds!

He writes in a very down-to-earth style, which sounds exactly like Larry talking and no paragraph is superfluous. He even includes some brilliant tips on how to say sorry well! I would buy a copy of this for all new managers in every organisation if I could, but I’ll stick to just giving it to managers on my programmes.