How to Work with (Almost) Anyone

Transform Your Work Relationships with MBSs Essential Relationship Framework!
Michael Bungay Stanier’s “How to Work with (Almost) Anyone: Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships” is a game-changing resource for anyone looking to cultivate resilient and vital work relationships. With a practical and insightful framework at its core, this book provides the essential tools you need to navigate challenging conversations and foster safe connections.What sets this book apart is the free toolbox that accompanies it, offering valuable resources to enhance your journey. From practical conversation starters to actionable strategies, this framework is a must-have companion for creating and maintaining vital and safe relationships in the workplace.Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting your career, “How to Work with (Almost) Anyone” is a must-have addition to your personal development library. Get ready to transform your work relationships, foster a collaborative environment, and achieve professional success.

Take What’s Useful and Use It
I am a huge fan of MBS. I’ve read The Coaching Habit and How to Begin and got so much out of both of them. I bought How to Work With Almost Anyone because, even though I am a solo business owner, I do have employees and contractors and I knew I would find something useful in the book. The good news is I did. It got me thinking a lot about the working relationships I have (and had) in my almost 45 years of adult life. I appreciated all the free resources the book offers at bestpossiblerelationships.com, especially the demonstration video of the Keystone Conversation. I watched it with awe and not a small amount of envy as I thought, “no boss I’ve ever had would even consider a conversation with me like this!” And alas, that is the rub, for me, about this book. Admittedly this is my perspective but when I think back on all the employers I ever had, with the exception of perhaps one, I am hard pressed to imagine having the Keystone Conversation with any of them, let alone even asking for one. Chalk it up to life, but the array of emotionally challenged, narcissistic, drug-addicted, ladder climbing, self-absorbed, hostile, predatory, and downright stupid employers I’ve had, made my experience of reading HTWW(a)A feel like a naive pipe-dream at best and, at worst, something short of – “Yeah, right! Not going to happen in the corporate world that I was a part of, I guarantee it!” As an employer now, with a small team, and several contractors, I can see how having a Keystone Conversation could be valuable, provided it happens from the start. There was something else that bothered me about this book. It assumes one has a lot of time to do all the deep work and exercises. I know this is part of MBS style, and it’s worked for me in other realms, but for this book it bordered on self-help psychology that made me feel like, “Hey I’m looking to you for the answers here!” There are some good “actionable, tactical, strategies,” to quote Brene Brown’s quote, but I can’t really see how they would work with an employee/employer who is a real d**k from the get-go! If you are lucky enough to work with great people, this book could be for you. But if that was not the hand you got dealt, not sure you will find what you are looking for here. To leave on a positive note, I do very much appreciate (and am somewhat in awe of) the amount of books MBS reads and recommends at the end of the book, with short descriptions of their value. Also, there are a lot of other tidbits of wisdom that I do find myself thinking about. (e.g., The Curse of Competence and TERA) The book is like a cake with several really good ingredients but for some reason just didn’t hold well together coming out of the oven.

Wisdom…that sticks
Others, notably Brene’ Brown, Seth Godin and Amy Edmondson have commented on MBS’s ability to distill much needed wisdom in ways that are fun and accessible. In How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, Michael is at it again with a topic that I had not previously considered – starting any working relationship (as an employee, consultant or coach) with a Keystone Conversation that focuses exclusively on how to best work together in order to do what needs to get done.The five questions that constitute the Keystone Conversation may sound like common sense, but in my experience are not common practice. MBS skillfully delivers content blended with quirky anecdotes that make you think (and smile) followed by exercises that challenge you to apply what you learn in real time to real working relationships.I applaud Michael’s ambition to improve 10 million working relationships. I bought the book weeks ago and it’s already impacted a dozen or so of my relationships. Buy the book and join the movement!

Makes difficult concepts and actions feel easy and feasible

MBS’s latest book provides a refreshing, thoughtful approach to a topic that lies at the heart of our personal and professional lives—relationships. This book achieves something remarkable: it distills myriad complex concepts into actionable sensibilities, doing so without sacrificing any nuance or depth. It is evident that a great deal of care, consideration, and intellectual rigour has been invested into this work, resulting in a book that is as insightful as it is practical.As an introverted rogue scholar, this book has helped me to see the many ways in which I can improve the relationships I have with those I work with. And not in some mechanistic way—it’s warm, wholesome and abundant. I find myself enthusiastic to work with people once more! How unbecoming.If you are wise enough to suspect that there are relationships in your world that could do with some wholesome invigoration—read this book. It is a gift to you, and all who know you.