This is an interesting book looking into behaviours individuals engage when interacting with other people and classifies the behaviour as assertive, non-assertive and aggressive. The goal is to use assertive behaviour as much as possible in order to protect our own rights and advance our preferences, without being aggressive. Most people become non-assertive since they think any assertion might have consequences or they would not want to be seen as aggressive. Some others think the only way to achieve results is to be aggressive, but this is old thinking and it is no longer correct.

The authors show different ways to act assertively in our relations, mostly in the workplace. There are exercises and techniques to accomplish this.

Although this is not rocket science, I found it quite instructive and it led me to think about the engagements I have in my daily work and how I could improve this to accomplish the results I would like to have.