About the Book

"Move your organization from lots of conversations going nowhere to the right conversations moving in the right direction. Richard’s book is essential for leaders navigating an ever-changing environment"

Hank Izzo

GM and CMO, Mars Inc.

Navigate The Swirl: 7 Crucial Conversations for Business Transformation

How often do people in your company ask themselves, “Why are we stuck…I know why…just can’t say it out loud? ‘Do you know where we are going?’ ‘Why is every priority, priority one?’ ‘How do we move forward effectively?’ ‘What does this change mean for me?”

In many organizations, these questions go unanswered because leaders and their teams are just too busy keeping up to take the time to address and focus on them.

This, unfortunately, is the Swirl – an absorbing state of inertia that is common in many organizations. There is always another problem to solve, pain point to acknowledge, issue to fix, turf battle to win, drama to ameliorate, or political challenge to overcome.

The Swirl causes people to have a hopeless sense of working without purpose – and keeps leaders awake at night feeling ill-equipped to resolve these critical issues or make the most important business decisions.

Our new book, Navigate the Swirl by Richard Hawkes, CEO of Growth River, is the antidote to the Swirl. It provides a navigational chart for moving beyond this state of stagnation to build highly engaged, high-performing organizations and teams.

The book, like our core process, centers on the Seven Crucial Conversations, a series of ongoing, intentional conversations that help people align and reimagine the “social systems” in which they work.

Richard Hawkes takes readers on a step-by-step journey, showing them how to apply the Crucial Conversations – Activating Purpose, Driving Focus, Shifting Mindset, Specifying Roles and Capabilities, Streamlining Interdependencies, Aligning Strategies, and Implementing Initiatives – to build thriving, adaptable organizations.

"Richard’s insightful frameworks link strategy, structure, capabilities, and roles. For leaders faced with the ‘Red Queen Principle’—where all run faster but get nowhere—here is a valuable toolkit to realign for growth"

Ravi Aron, PhD,

Professor, Senior Fellow, CT Bauer College of Business, University of Houston

Media Coverage

Kirkus Book Review

This is Why You Always Get Sucked into Office Drama
By Stephanie Vozza

Richard Hawkes Discusses Team Leadership
Modern Professional Magazine

Try to Change it: Interview with Richard Hawkes, Founder and CEO of Growth River
By Adam Mendler

7 Crucial Strategies to Facilitate Competitive Business Transformations
Inc. Magazine
By Martin Zwilling

The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

Crucial Conversations for Business Transformation
Kevin Eikenberry & Richard Hawkes
Is change coming so fast that you and your team can’t keep up? Listen to my recent conversation with Kevin Eickenberry about how to rise above the chaos and transform your team into a smoothly functioning, high performance powerhouse.