Ron McMillan

Ron McMillan co-founded the Covey Leadership Center, where he served as vice president of research and development, before joining Patterson, Grenny and Switzler to found the training company that became Crucial Learning. He co-authored its books and taught its programmes for decades.

Crucial Conversations grew out of the authors' research at their training company, VitalSmarts, later Crucial Learning, where they studied people whose colleagues named them as unusually good at high-stakes conversations. The book, published in 2002 and revised in 2012 and 2022, became the standard corporate text on dialogue and was followed by Crucial Accountability and Influencer.