Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm less enthusiastic than the other reviewers. I mean, I really have to laugh on some level. The difficult people I deal with would brush this kind of stuff aside with an effortless swish of the finger. The book curates a number of really very basic ideas that we'd all be familiar with in any case (e.g., using "I" phrases), and then gives a short story/skit in which the technique is demonstrated. And it's just comical. The characters in these skits are not very tenacious, they are impossibly logical and empathetic, they instantly capitulate, they speak in strange, inorganic, stilted ways, and then they have a group hug moment when it's all over. These kinds of epiphanies occur, in the real world, only after Godot does. Anyone who has dealt with truly caustic personalities in the workplace knows that this is a pipe dream. For example, the protagonist (who has been viciously slandered, or outmaneuvered, or ignored, or impugned) says: "Can't you see how what you did there affects me, and even though I now understand that you did mean it in that way, that it still will upset me?" And in Ms. Evenson's universe, the respondant now says: "Yes, indeed, I can see how that would have upset you, and now that my eyes are opened, I will be ever so careful in the future to proactively leverage your feelings. I now see that we are equally important partners in this enterprise, and that I have been hateful. Let us now hug, and seal the bond between us, wherein we now understand each other's equally valid life choices!!!" Anyone that works in a place where important things are done (and hence, has aggressive personalities) knows that this is not reality. I am disappointed in the book. There was nothing here, really, that I could benefit from. It is hard for me to imagine the kind of flaccid, vapid, workplace in which this kind of schlock could be relevant guidance. It is, to me, a fictionalized account of what could be effective in a completely different universe from the one in which we live. I am sure Ms. Evenson is a wonderful person, but she couldn't last ten seconds in any workplace I have been in.