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

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most | Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, ... | Get a Grip on the Dreaded "Difficult Conversation"

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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 133 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This is a great book for couples, families or business teams

This is an excellent resource for talking about difficult topics, especially in areas that are highly charged e.g. in family life or in a couple.

While it covers the basics of negotiation, it also breaks down crucial conversations into component parts. This book really helped me to understand the underlying emotional dynamics of difficult conversations which are often hidden.

Two good books to go along with this are Getting to Yes and Crucial Conversations. They are all complimentary to each other.

Get a Grip on the Dreaded "Difficult Conversation"

Ever dread having to hold a difficult conversation? I recommend this book as "basic training" for anyone who has faced the prospect of speaking with bosses, co-workers, employees about negative workplace behaviors, skill deficits, attitude issues, interpersonal conflicts, or blind spots.

"Difficult Conversations" first explores the incompatible perspectives that create every difficult conversation and then explains how to deal with them. The authors show how to move from a destructive and frustrating interchange to what they call a "learning conversation." They offer the steps to help shift your perspective and the direction of your difficult conversations. The book is written from a general perspective, applicable to all communications, and it contains many examples from the workplace. Highly recommended.

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tools for your toolkit of life

i recently spent almost $300 of my own hard-earned cash to buy this book from amazon and mail my friends their own copies. yep, it's that good.

Read it once, and again and again

Each time I read Difficult Conversations, I learn something new that is practical. A must read for anyone looking to improve their understanding of family, friends and others.

Review of Audio CD

I'm writing this review of the 5-CD audiobook, not the book. The CD is a must-have, whether you've read the book or not. In it, actual examples are acted out of all kinds of conversations before and after the techniques are used. After listening to the CD I can easily recall what to do when I find myself suddenly in a difficult conversation, because i've actually heard it. Also, as you move through the sessions, the authors go just a bit deeper and deeper until one finds oneself admitting some very personal truths. I think the reviewer below who recommends Dale Carnegie instead didn't hear the CDs -- I didn't get the same result from Dale's books, as I have from listening to these CDs. The ultimate result of having listened to the series a few times? I don't get thrown off balance (their term) so often when I suddenly realize the other person is reacting negatively to what I thought was positive, and vice versa. I just switch into a different mode and many times, the person (either me or my companion) has forgotten they were upset at all.

Now for my complaints, which lost them a star: the CDs are extremely low budget. The packaging has no guide and the content within the CDs is not organized very professionally. There is no heading labeling each track, so if one has to stop listening one won't know where they left off. Also, sometimes a section that should be on its own track begins within a track, somewhere in the middle, so if you want to find where it begins, you have to go back and search for a while for the exact beginning of the idea. How they thought that was logical I don't know. And, they don't have a recording at the beginning of each CD so you know where you are, to help you in remembering so you can refer back to which CD has what you want. Finally, the voices used to herald new chapters/key points, are not consistent - so that it's easy to miss them as they go by, if you're doing something else at the same time. This is a major no-no in radio presentation, which I would have thought the experts at Harvard would be on top of.

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