VitalSmarts Releases Crucial Conversations Training 4th Edition

VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and organizational performance, released the fourth edition of Crucial Conversations Training, one of the training industry’s leading courses in teaching high-leverage skills to improve dialogue, relationships and bottom-line organizational results.

The two-day training course is based on extensive research including 10,000 hours examining thousands of opinion leaders in team meetings, high-stakes discussions and face-to-face confrontations. Through this research, VitalSmarts’ authors found the specific behaviors and skills of high-leverage interpersonal dialogue demonstrated by the most influential leaders. The research is also published in the long-running New York Times best-seller Crucial Conversations, which has sold more than 2 million copies.

Since 2003, more than 640,000 people have graduated from Crucial Conversations Training and Fortune 500 organizations around the world have used the course to improve results in quality, efficiency, satisfaction, safety, etc. Results include:

• Productivity & Quality. Sprint Nextel saw a 93 percent improvement in productivity and a 10 to 15 percent improvement in quality, time and cost metrics.
• Teamwork. Employees at MaineGeneral Health were 167 percent more likely to speak up and resolve problems with colleagues after being trained in Crucial Conversations.
• Relationships. Franklin Pierce College reduced passive-aggressive behavior amongst employees by 14 percent and increased trust levels by 15 percent.
• Efficiency. AT&T reduced billing costs by 30 percent and Sprint Nextel reduced customer care expenses by $20 million annually.

Joseph Grenny, co-founder of VitalSmarts, said Crucial Conversations 4 builds on the high-leverage skills that have produced bottom-line results for the past decade.

“The new features and research in Crucial Conversations 4 provide an enhanced learning experience for participants and seamless delivery for trainers,” said Grenny. “The training teaches skills to foster open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional or risky topics in an even more powerful and relevant way.”

Crucial Conversations 4 includes the following new features:

• Video Refresh. 62 original videos including updated videos from previous editions and new videos that reflect today’s workplace challenges.
• Updated Model. The Crucial Conversations model has been reformatted into a linear step-by-step process.
• Robust Skill Rehearsals. Participants practice specific skills in the context of their real-life crucial conversations, while getting feedback from a coach.
• Streamlined and Revised Content. By reducing redundancies and sharpening the focus of key exercises, the course better accommodates the two-day schedule as well as allows more time for practice and application.
• New Instructional Platform. The new VitalSmarts Instructional Platform (VIP) 2.1 enables trainers to train all four VitalSmarts courses from one platform, suppress slides and create custom tracks.
• New Post-training Tool. Participants receive a free, one-year premium subscription to the online behavior change platform, ChangeAnything.com.

Crucial Conversations Training has received several training and development industry awards including an ASTD Excellence in Practice Award in 2008, Training Product of the Year in 2004 and a Corporate University Cubic Award in 2004. VitalSmarts’ network of 7,400+ trainers and 19 licensed international distributors provide training to organizations in 36 countries.