Connect

A transformative guide to building more fulfilling relationships with colleagues, friends, partners, and family, based on the landmark Interpersonal Dynamics ("Touchy Feely") course at Stanford's Graduate School of Business The ability to create strong relationships with others is crucial to living a fulfilled life and becoming a more effective manager and leader. Yet many of us find ourselves struggling to build solid connections at work, with friends and at home, or unable to handle challenges that inevitably arise when we grow closer to others. When we find ourselves in an exceptional relationship--the kind of relationship where we feel fully understood and supported for who we are--it can seem like magic. But the truth is that the process of building and sustaining these relationships can be described, learned, and applied. David Bradford and Carole Robin taught interpersonal skills to MBA candidates for a combined seventy-five years in their legendary Stanford Graduate School of Business course Interpersonal Dynamics (affectionately known to generations of students as "Touchy Feely") and have coached and consulted to hundreds of executives for decades. In Connect, they show readers how to take their relationships from shallow to exceptional, along the way offering time-tested strategies for giving feedback, negotiating boundaries, and working through disagreements. Through stories of people navigating tricky moments in relationships--all based on real dynamics Bradford and Robin have witnessed or experienced--we see the six hallmarks of an exceptional relationship in action: authenticity, vulnerability, honesty, a willingness to ask for and offer help, a shared commitment to growth, and an ability to deal productively with conflict. Filled with relatable scenarios and research-backed insights, Connect will be an important resource for anyone hoping to improve existing relationships and build new ones at any stage of life.