Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

Stone, Patton, and Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project offer the reader a “how to” handle for every discussion you could imagine, from colleagues, to partners, to loved ones in their book: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most.  Another New York Times Bestseller!  Readers learn about sorting out a conversation before you have it, which can be helpful, I mean IS HELPFUL!  It reminds me very much of Stephen Covey’s Habits, “seeking to understand before being understood.”  We learn not to argue, don’t assume, and abandon blame!  They present the differences between conversations based on feelings versus identity.  The authors propose that our conversations should all be “learning conversations,” certainly disciples of other great teachers and author, one-time NYU faculty member Peter Drucker, the kingpin of learning conversations!  The key to learning conversations as designed by the authors: know your purpose, know when to let go, how to start the conversation, and think of the conversation being told by a third party (I liked this suggestion the best!).   This suggestion makes so much sense as we don’t know what information the other person is missing, and they don’t necessarily know our perspective on how we experienced what happened.  They also suggest that we speak with clarity and power, reframe, reframe, reframe, and always work to attempt to have the conversation move to a place of problem solving.  The authors gave some great examples.  Why not spend time learning how to have better conversations?  Makes complete sense to me as almost every argument I know comes after someone opens their mouth.  Review your week and if you had more than two disagreements this week (who hasn’t?), read this book.  A quick and great read, especially for you young communication majors!