Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most | Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, ... |...

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most | Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, ... | Best Book on Communication

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Difficult Conversa...

	Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, ... Penguin (Non-Classics), 2000 - 250 pages average customer review:based on 134 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Will you ever have a hard conversation? Sure, you will! Read this book first.

This little book can be a great help. We all have avoided conversations we knew were going to be difficult. Often not talking made things worse, so as things became intolerable we had the discussion and things got even worse. These authors break down the inner structure of difficult conversations and how we often mishandle them. They then show us the ways in which we can turn this into a constructive process that brings more understanding, greater cooperation, and learning that will help avoid repeating the difficulties in the future.

Certainly, I can't recap the whole book in this little review, but I especially like their concept of three conversations happening within each difficult conversation. They are the debate over what happened, the feelings conversation, and the identity issues. In the what happened conversation the problem is that each side assumes it knows the truth, that they know the other party's intentions, and that they know where and how to assign blame. Of course, all this is a fiction and a waste of time. It does nothing to fix the situation or improve the process to avoid the problem in the future. The book then shows you how to have a constructive approach to the same problem. Excellent stuff!

The authors are part of the Harvard Negotiation Project and has a foreword by one of the authors of the famous book, "Getting to Yes". The book is concise, but full of very good information. I recommend it very much.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson - Ann Arbor, MI

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Best Book on Communication

This is the most useful and comprehensive compendium of effective, research validated, communication concepts I have ever seen in one book. Useful for anyone who speaks with other humans, especially significant others, business colleagues and teenagers. If you are a coach, this reading is required. Difficult ideas presented in a way that makes them easy to understand and easy to apply.

Difficult converations

this book is well worth the read,
it is easy to get throught, and does not repeat itself.
You want to read the whole book.
nancy carlson

Quality of Life Must Read

Difficult Conversations, by Stone, Patton, and Heen, is a foundational book in the literature of holding difficult conversations in purposeful ways. I have read it often and use its principles in my teaching and in daily life. Underlying its principles is the simple understanding that we can get better at listening, talking, and acknowledging what is actually going on in our relationships; that we create the reality of our lives by the ways in which we talk about it; and that one conversation at a time, we can choose to work with the energy of conflict instead of avoiding it. There are many good books on this topic. I suggest reading them all, starting here.

Judy Ringer is the author of Unlikely Teachers: Finding the Hidden Gifts in Daily Conflict

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great read

This book is used as a textbook at the Harvard MBA. Good tool for those messy conflicts

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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