I wrote this on a thread off of the original blog post from Coraline. I mentioned the content of a book called "Corporate Confidential" in which a former HR pro

I wrote this on a thread off of the original blog post from Coraline. I mentioned the content of a book called "Corporate Confidential" in which a former HR professional talks about how corporations uses performance reviews as a means to legally fire someone because they cannot fire someone for the real reason. I said it was cynical though others viewed it otherwise. This past week, our small team had brought in an executive coach that works with the material from Crucial Conversations. A wiki summary was circulated around. When I read it, I knew it applied to what was going on with our team as well as personal relationships. Crucial conversations are moments when opinions vary, the stakes are high, and emotions run strong. Being able to have crucial conversations and handle them well allows someone to be effective, influential, and helps out the team and community tremendously. The follow-on book is called Crucial Accountability, which teaches how to deal with people who breaks promises and violates expectations. So I stand by what I said about the cynical view of "Corporate Confidential". Using performance reviews to legally fire someone might sound like a case of corporate greed and that is true to some extent. In addition, I think people are -not- having those crucial conversations. It is easier to plot a way to ease someone out than to have the crucial conversation about what is really going on. Taking that frame with Coraline's story: if seems to me neither Corolaine, nor the github manager was able to have crucial conversations. In some ways, Coraline admitted to it in her blog post. On a larger scale: Github had had various controversies. I wonder how much of that came from not handling crucial conversations? People hold their silence until they can't take it any more and it goes from silence to violence. Very pubilcly. These crucial conversations isn't just about managers being able to take to employees and holding them accountable. It is also about employees being able to talk to managers and holding them accountable too. It is about speaking your truth -- adding meaning into the shared pool -- while still having mutual respect and keeping a friend. It is something I am deep diving now. I'm tired of the merry-go-rounds where nothing seems to move forward, both in my professional and personal relationships. The little bit I am grasping from this seems to be working.