Book Review: Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen
Difficult Conversations promises to help you ‘manage your feelings, emphathize, avoid the blame game and really listen’.
I’ve found it to be invaluable at shining a mirror at my own dialogue, and demonstrating that there’s a lot more I can do to facilitate constructive conversation. The book’s use of case studies help ground the theories into everyday reality making the advice practical and actionable.
Recommended if you want to:
- learn how to have more constructive and open conversations
- improve your confidence when approaching intimidating social situations
- communicate your perspective while also acknowledging and respecting other points of view
- form stronger and more honest relationships with those around you
Main Points:
Learning Conversations
Be open to persuasion and develop a genuine interest in other points of view. This involves active listening, paraphrasing and justification.
Pay Attention to Emotions
Emotions often underpin many difficult conversations, yet are rarely directly addressed. Instead of correlating impact with intent (“you offended me therefore you are a bad person”), talk about how actions affected you emotionally. This also requries you to be more honest with yourself. Why are you angry? Maybe it stems from a deeper anxiety or fear?
Three Stories
There are three stories to every conversation: your story, their story and an independent mediator’s story. Try to start at the third story and then work your way in.
Identities
Difficult conversations threaten our identity. These are questions that underpin who we think we are as a person, such as ‘Am I competent?’ or ‘Am I a good person?’. When conversations challenge our own sense of identity, it can have a huge impact and knock us off course. The key is to ground yourself and focus on being more self aware to deal with these hurdles.
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