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Douglas Stone

Sheila Heen

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most Audio CD – Audiobook, April 6 1999

by Douglas Stone (Author, Reader)

4.5 574 ratings

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Dealing with your ex-husband, who can't seem to show up reliably for weekends with the kids; navigating a workplace fraught with office politics or racial tensions; saying "I'm sorry" or "I love you".

We all have difficult conversations, no matter how confident or competent we are. And too often, no matter what we try, things don't go well. Should you say what you're thinking and risk starting a fight? Swallow your views and feel like a doormat? Or should you let them have it? But--what if you're wrong?

Difficult Conversations shows you a way out of this dilemma; it teaches you how to handle even the toughest conversations more effectively and with less anxiety. Based on fifteen years of work at Harvard Negotiation Project and consultations with thousands of people, the authors answer the question: When people confront the conversations they dread the most, what works?

Difficult Conversations walks you through a proven, concrete, step-by-step approach for understanding and conducting tough conversations. It shows you how to get ready, how to start the conversations in ways that reduce defensiveness, and how to keep the conversation on a constructive track regardless of how the other person responds.

Whether you're dealing with your baby-sitter or biggest client, your boss or your brother-in-law, Difficult Conversations can help.

Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audio
Publication date

April 6 1999
Dimensions

12.85 x 2.79 x 14.96 cm
ISBN-10

0553456121
ISBN-13

978-0553456127
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Douglas Stone
3,588
Paperback
54 offers from $13.02

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Audio (April 6 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553456121
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553456127
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 204 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.85 x 2.79 x 14.96 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #65,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #54 in Management Science in Leadership
- #64 in Negotiating
- #65 in Negotiating Skills (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 574 ratings

About the authors

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Douglas Stone
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Douglas Stone is a principal at Triad (an international corporate education and organizational consulting firm based in Cambridge, MA), and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.
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Sheila Heen
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Sheila Heen has been with the Harvard Negotiation Project for twenty years, teaching negotiation and difficult conversations at Harvard Law School and in Harvard's executive education programs.
She is also CEO of Triad Consulting in Harvard Square, where she specializes in working with executive teams on issues where there is strong disagreement and emotions run high. She has worked with corporate clients on six continents, with the US White House, the Singapore Supreme Court, and with theologians with disagreements on the nature of truth and God.
Visit Sheila and Doug's author page at www.stoneandheen.com, and Triad Consulting at www.triadconsultinggroup.com.
Sheila's husband, John Richardson, also teaches negotiation -- down the street at MIT. He is the author of "Negotiation Analysis" with Howard Raiffa and of "Getting it Done" with Roger Fisher and Alan Sharpe. They are both schooled in negotiation daily by their three children.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

574 global ratings

5 star		67%
4 star		23%
3 star		8%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from Canada

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wanda

good examples

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

This held up to the title of the book. Good examples provided. Good warning signs provided.

Helpful

Pierre Daigle

This is one of the best book to read on dealing with Difficult Conversations

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is one of the best book to read on dealing with Difficult Conversations. I've used some of content in my Conflict Management training programs.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 4, 2021

I loved the book, the audio is ok, but prefer the book version

Helpful

BelleH

Must read for first time managers

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 8, 2012

This book is an excellent read for first time people managers! It helped me to understand how to approach situations and different types of people. There are times when managers too need help and this book gives great tips, ideas, guidelines and a step by step process you can follow.

I would read this non-stop before preformance reviews and before intense coaching sesssions, gave me the tools I needed to enable me to be sucessful in my new roles.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Andrew A. Hoover

Difficult Conversions

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 7, 2003

Stone, Patton and Bruce have written a very useful and critical work on the dynamics of all conversations - the ones we've had and regret; the ones we don't have, because they seem too risky; and the ones we need to have to enhance our personal and professional relationships. They argue that there are three categories of conversations, which encompass every aspect of what transpires in our daily exchanges. They are: (1) The "what happened?" conversation (2) The feelings conversation and (3) The identity conversation. We can become more skilled and efficient in our conversations, if we begin to check our often flawed assumptions about what happened, how we're feeling and how our self-perceptions impact our understanding of what others say. Typically, we assume we are right and others are wrong, we assume the intentions of others, we don't treat feelings as facts, and we associate our identities too closely with the contexts of specific conflicts. To have productive difficult conversations, we need to change the way we talk to ourselves and how we approach our communications with others.
One can't help wondering, however, if the only people reading this book are already self-actualized or so well on their way that they are, in fact, the best communicators among us. The authors' failed to address the lingering doubt left with the critical, reflective reader: that most difficult conversations are the fruits of difficult people, who, unless they read this book, have little capacity or motivation to be anything but difficult. In any case, Difficult Conversations is mostly devoted to explaining and analyzing the three conversations and how one can use these categories to have more productive exchanges. The book has many useful graphic organizers, including a checklist and a roadmap for engaging in difficult conversations.
In effect, Stone and his colleagues argue that we must shift from a perspective of "knowing" to "learning". Meaningful conversations can take place when we don't permit our assumptions to rule the moment, rather when we take control by being curious, open, and self-aware. To find out what happened, we need to explore each other's stories, separate intent from impact, abandon the blame framework, and to consider all conflicts as a system ("the contribution system"), to which every party has contributed in some way. They argue that the blame framework is a clue that feelings are playing a significant role in a conflict. Feelings often get translated into judgements, attributions, characterizations, or solutions. The key to managing feelings is to treat them as facts by acknowledging them, and considering how they are part of the problem and exploring them fully. All too often our feelings emerge from the sense that our identity is somehow at stake. Most of us frame our identities around one or all of three core themes: competence, virtue, or worthiness. When we feel any of these is questioned, we revert to fight or flight. We can best manage the identity issue by understanding ourselves as complex, by knowing we make mistakes, by acknowledging that our intentions are not simple, and by recognizing that all parties contribute to problems. The "learning" must begin within ourselves before we can understand issues or problems with others.
We can affect our own conversational "learning" by engaging in "the third story" conversation, which requires us to consider how a third party would describe and analyze the situation. This sets up a process of internal dialogue, which is necessary to check our own perceptions, feelings, and interests. Further, the authors encourage listening from the inside out, speaking for yourself, and taking the initiative. While the book combines theory, examples, and description, it is also a very handy guide to improving one's communication style in the workplace or at home.

Helpful

island reader

A must for every library

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 5, 2011

If you are breathing you need this book. We all encounter difficult conversations on a daily basis. Whether with co-workers, clients, family, friends, spouse, your doctor, lawyer, or salesperson; we are often in a conversation that could have a conflict in it.
I am not a counsellor but I found this book in the library where I work. What a Godsend! I had to purchase my own copy. I have since been able to practice the steps in this book with many important relationships in my life.
This book is a must for any library and a must read for anyone. It should be required reading in high schools.

Helpful

Mrs. Emma L. Elsey

ESSENTIAL Life-Skill Reading - For Your Personal Life or Career!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 28, 2009

Who it's for: If you ever avoid difficult conversations, or launch into them and then wish desperately that things had gone differently, then this book is for you.

Conflict is inevitable. But in business and life we often avoid essential conversations like asking for a well-deserved raise, giving feedback to a touchy staff-member or confronting a friend who has been undermining us.

It doesn't have to be that way. This invaluable book gives you the lowdown on a rare life-skill that will help you:
- Shine as you move up the corporate ladder (and preserve your sanity too!)
- Move more easily through your personal relationships (think friends, parents, children, partners)

While the book is quite left-brained, the concepts are straightforward and well developed. You can keep going back to this book - ESSENTIAL READING!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

buyersballad

Cogent, well-written, concise and very useful

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 14, 2004

Having researched numerous books on this subject, I found this to be one of the best. The book is structured well: the introduction gives an apt overview, the writing is simple and to the point, with excellent examples and an outline provided to assist with a final review.
One of the book's strongest points is its focus on the underlying problems that create situations where conversation becomes difficult. The temptation to digress and meander into a quagmire of various psychological/environmental/biological explainations can be great, but the writers stays the course, using only pertinent examples and explainations, keeping the book fairly short and to the point.
Many works of this genre focus on superficial fixes. Some of those do work, particularly for short term situations. However, the topics covered in this book go a little below that superficial surface, often seriously questioning common behaviors that often contribute and prolong difficult conversations/situations.
A caveat: the recommended techniques hold great promise, but using them requires quite a bit of work. Unlike the many fixes from other sources, there are no promises of immediate success. Instead, there may be many obstacles both from the self and from others that will come up.
However, perserverance does seem to pay off. I work at a large law firm and the perpectives and solutions offered in this work has made my work easier and more productive.

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Alessandro

Semplice e prolisso

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on July 17, 2019

Verified Purchase

L'ho trovato un po' banale in quanto i suggerimenti forniti sono quelli del "buon padre di famiglia" che vive civilmente nella società. Inoltre, la descrizione è un po' prolissa e non necessaria in quanto il concetto espresso spesso è ovvio e semplice da capire.

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Cliente Amazon

Nice book!

Reviewed in Spain 🇪🇸 on July 20, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great book!. Patton talks about the conversations and their issues. World could be better if all people read this book.

One person found this helpful

Filippo

super

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on November 3, 2019

Verified Purchase

Iper-consigliato: pratico e interessante

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Svetlana Simkina

Thanks for your book!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 16, 2006

Verified Purchase

This book is incredibly interesting and has given me Insight that I never had prior to reading it. A new vision has opened in my life of the Truths that it carries that I felt with my Soul. It has allowed me to transform from within with enormous Love and Understanding. Each word in this book illustrates a beautiful feeling, and has penetrated to every aspect of my being, creating happiness and understanding from within. The exercises in the book "My Happiness -From God!" work for me very well and have helped me change, as I consciously understood Galina's knowledge and her truly amazing life story.

Svetlana,

Chicago

antropofago

Grundlagen einer erfolgreichen Diskussion

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on April 18, 2023

Verified Purchase

Dieses Buch ist eine verbesserte Version der 2. Aufl. Es zeigt auf: alle Gespräche finden auf 3 Ebenen statt: Eine inhaltliche Ebene, eine emotionale Ebene und ein Dialog über sich selbst. Das Buch zeigt auf, welche Fehler man auf den einzelnen Ebenen begehen kann, und durch welches Verhalten man die Fehler vermeiden kann. Guter Einstieg in die Gesprächsführung!

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Follow the Authors

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most Audio CD – Audiobook, April 6 1999

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About the authors

Douglas Stone

Sheila Heen

Customer reviews

Top reviews from Canada

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Top reviews from other countries