Something’s Troubling Me

Posted On August 30, 2024

Andy’s new book, Something’s Troubling Me, will be available on Amazon and through other distributors from 10th September …

Something’s Troubling Me provides a new perspective on Difficult Professional Conversations, helping you to navigate their complexity with understanding and serenity. Using simple terminology, illustrated beautifully by Philippe Tur’s emotional troll, the book explains how to manage a candid exchange—the key to resolving a difficult conversation.

Something’s Troubling Me arose from Andy’s many years of industry experience in contributor and leader roles and as a coach and trainer of professionals from different companies, countries, and cultures. It draws on theory and best practices from a particularly wide range of sources. In addition, the annex provides a unique set of exercises and examples based on 12 film scenes, allowing you to practice safely by writing or playing improvisations of the scenes, individually or in groups.

Something’s Troubling Me gives guidelines and wisdom for each of the four main stances of a candid exchange—pausing, asking, listening, and explaining—teaching you what to do next in almost any circumstance. Also, accepting that you cannot bring every Difficult Professional Conversation to a satisfactory conclusion, it discusses the possibility of failure and what to do about it. Given the unpredictable nature of difficult conversations, this is what you need!

Written by Andrew Betts

Consultant, trainer and coach specialising in client communication practices (inter- and intra-company). As a facilitator, I use training, coaching and mentoring in due measure. I enjoy developing original programs and creating new tools, and begin with the assumption that the people I meet are doing their best in complex circumstances. The rest depends on where they’re starting from and where they want to go. As a sales consultant, I strive to walk the talk, applying the values and beliefs that underpin my facilitation work to the techno-commercial domain. I agree with Frankl about the importance of meaning, and believe that this generally comes from work with and/or for others – human animals are wired that way! For myself, I’ve noticed that when I’m working towards the transmission of knowledge and skills, then I feel the greatest sense of fulfilment/flow. I am also rather attached to the Schutzian notion of truth as a fundamental enabler, and to Isaiah Berlin’s idea of plurality – the complex and unfortunately rather dull opposite of extremism – as a sensible approach to the problems of the world.

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