Through a partnership with VitalSmarts, Southam Consulting is able to
provide its clients with world-class evaluation and training materials.
VitalSmarts provides training around the New York Times Bestselling Books Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations. This Fall, training focused on the new book Influencer will be available as well. Southam Consulting is a Principal Associate of VitalSmarts and Kurt Southam is a VitalSmarts Master Certified Trainer.
To help you evaluate the effectiveness of these materials, the resources
on this page are provided as a free service. Our hope is that they will
get you moving in the right direction and lead you to ask hard questions
about yourself and your organization. We stand ready to help you more clearly
articulate and answer these questions through our executive consulting
and coaching services.
VitalSmarts™ Case Studies
AT&T Case Study (2-page PDF)
Billing costs reduced 90% with Crucial Conversations training.
Lockheed Martin Case Study (2-page PDF)
Crucial Conversations training helps win $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter contract.
MaineGeneral Health Case Study (2-page PDF)
Crucial Conversations Training Improves Patient Safety at Maine Healthcare System.
Sprint Case Study (2-page PDF)
IT department improves productivity 93%.
VitalSmarts™ White Papers
The Human Side of Change (8-page PDF)
People's resistance to new ideas can be inconvenient—it can even be a real pain—but what's the big deal? Is it something you ought to worry about? VitalSmarts' research shows groups who successfully underwent organizational-wide change efforts did two things others couldn't: they used Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations skills.
Silence Kills: The Seven Crucial Conversations for Healthcare
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (2-page PDF)
Full Report (19-page PDF)
Past studies have indicated more than 60 percent of medical errors are caused by mistakes in interpersonal communication (JCAHO). All too often, well-intentioned people in healthcare institutions choose not to speak up when they’re concerned with behavior, decisions or actions of a colleague. The authors provide a series of recommendations for actions leaders can take to improve people’s ability to hold crucial conversations—making it safer for healthcare workers to speak up and eliminate medical errors.
Don't Feed the Hog (37-page PDF)
This handbook outlines the
critical behaviors necessary to obtain peak performance in an organization.
See how the world’s best leaders and performers get results by
holding others accountable while still maintaining respect.
Development: Crucial Conversations (T&D Magazine Reprint; 3-page PDF)
"Everyone has been there. In fact, if you’re like most of us, you’re there right now. You know you need to talk to someone about an important issue, but you haven’t stepped up to the conversation. Not really. You may have danced around the issue or sugarcoated your message. There’s no need to be mean, right? Or maybe you relied on hints, sarcasm, or not-so-subtle humor, but the person missed the message completely. Or maybe she did get it and became defensive and abusive, so you backed off before the discussion spun out of control. Now when you think about re-entering the conversation, you break into a cold sweat…" From the December 2003 Issue of T&D Magazine.
The Books
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(16-page PDF) |
(22-page PDF) |
(27-page PDF) |