Join getAbstract to access the summary!

Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen

Difficult Conversations

How to Discuss What Matters Most

Penguin, 2000

15 min read

10 take-aways

Audio & text

What's inside?

You know that difficult conversation you don’t want to have? Here’s how to have it.

auto-generated audio

1×

auto-generated audio

Editorial Rating

Qualities

Innovative
Applicable

Recommendation

You will face difficult conversations throughout your life, but now you can learn how to cope with them. This book provides a framework and various strategies for achieving better outcomes from hard exchanges. Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen use principles, illustrative stories and charts to teach you how to understand the components of challenging conversations, and how to prepare for them and transform them into something constructive. The language of the book is clear, insightful, concise and always helpful. You can use these principles in business, but the stories also concern relationships in your everyday life. getAbstract says everyone from teenagers to mature adults can use the communication skills discussed in this wise book.

Summary

The “Three Conversations”

Do you ever avoid certain people because you don’t want to have a conversation that you need to have? As you imagine how the conversation might play out, do you feel queasy and apprehensive? This is a normal reaction, but avoiding difficult conversations is not the solution. In fact, often it will make things worse. Yet, experience tells you that having the conversation will create a very uncomfortable situation. You wrestle with different approaches and look for just the right diplomatic language to avoid a confrontation.

However, certain methods can help you deal with this circumstance. Every conversation has a three-part structure, even if the participants don’t realize that such an underlying framework exists. The structure is built on conversations within the conversation. Understanding these internal conversations can help you avoid the pain of letting difficult talks run their usual course.

The first part of a conversation is “What Happened?” This section, which is about assigning blame and fault, and asserting dominance, can lead to struggles and bad feelings.

The second part is about “Feelings.” Whose feelings are appropriate...

About the Authors

Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen are professors at Harvard Law School and are part of the Harvard Negotiation Project. They have each written, spoken and consulted on negotiation and communication.

Comment on this summary

Sign in to share your opinion
J. M. 3 months ago

Good
M. Y. 9 months ago

Every sentence is valuable and true wisdom. I have bookmarked and downloaded these recommendations and will listen to them over and over again.
S. P. 2 years ago

人間の価値に対して考え直すチャンス

More on this topic

By the same authors

Video

Thanks for the Feedback

Book

Thanks for the Feedback

In our Journal

3 years ago

Journal Article

What to Say?

A reading list about all kinds of conversations: light, naked, difficult and otherwise. Conversations are the building blocks of business, because all business starts with relationships. Most common is small talk, but at the highest levels, companies seek to engage with their customers, employees and shareholders in large, purposeful conversations. Small Talk Is a […]

3 years ago

Journal Article

How Can I Support Employees Who Are Experiencing Burnout Due to Stressors from All Aspects of Life?

Most people, at some time in their career, experience burnout. And while work/life balance often is the main culprit to blame, research shows it’s not the only one when someone’s trying to regain a balance. “Many of our customers are experiencing new forms of burnout, at the same time as their employees,” says Mildred Rivas-Aiken, […]

3 years ago

Journal Article

What Can I Do, Starting Today, to Set Boundaries at Work to Support More of a Balance in My Life?

Even if the culture at the office enables these boundaries, each employee has to be confident in setting them. Here is what you need to know when taking work-life balance into your own hands. “Many of our clients face blurred lines regarding when to begin and when to stop work hours,” says Fernanda McElravy, customer […]

3 years ago

Journal Article

How to Deal with Political Discussions in the Workplace

In functional democracies, political discussions among citizens are a regular part of interpersonal exchange. That this causes problems in the workplace is a topic as old as democracy itself. But how about solutions? When the tension is high, and this is always the case before elections, cases of politically motivated conflicts in the workplace also […]