Book Reviews
Go To Hopkins & Company Homepage	Go to Executive Times Archives Go to Book Review List
How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey Recommendation: •
Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com
Sez Who? If you’re ready for more personal and collaborative transformation, a new book by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey titled How the Way we Talk Can Change the Way We Work, could be just what you’re looking for. Personally, I found it annoying and useless. That could be because I refused to do any of the many exercises that would certainly have enhanced my appreciation of what the authors wanted to improve about me and my methods of communication. If you see anyone in your Human Resources Department reading this book, get ready for a small group transformation meeting to come your way, jam packed with new tools for you to use, and a PC police fanatic ready to help you improve yourself. The chapter titles give you a hint of what to expect: From the Language of Complaint to the Language of Commitment From the Language of Blame to the Language of Personal Responsibility From the Language of New Year’s Resolutions to the Language of Competing Commitments From the Language of Big Assumptions That Hold Us to the Language of Assumptions We Hold From the Language of Prizes and Praising to the Language of Ongoing Regard From the Language of Rules and Policies to the Language of Public Agreements From the Language of Constructive Criticism to the Language of Deconstructive Criticism The book is replete with examples of what the authors mean. For me, it was mostly psycho-babble and I had no interest. Here’s an excerpt: “How can we sustain a relationship to our inner contradictions and Big Assumptions so that they can become ongoing resources for our learning rather than conditions of our mental captivity? What kinds of learning and changed behaviors may result if we do? The activities of the first four chapters in this book constitute a new king of learning technology, built to facilitate people’s personal learning. Use of the four languages illuminates our own dynamic equilibrium, the forces that keep it in place, and the possible means to transcend the power of this third force, our immunity to change. The mental machine these languages build allows us to make important aspects of our mental life the focus of our attention (object in our knowing) rather than the means of our attending (subject in our knowing). We are temporarily able to make our inner contradictions and Big Assumptions what we look at rather than what we see through.” If you really, really want to be transformed, don’t miss this book. Otherwise, avoid it like the plague. Steve Hopkins, September 12, 2001
ã 2001 Hopkins and Company, LLC