Difficult conversations

Difficult Conversations, created from the Harvard Negotiation Project, provides a detailed guide to approaching conversations that deal with situations that might cause emotions to rise and are hard to talk about. Difficult Conversations revolves around sensitive issues, from something as simple as a neighbor's barking dog, to dealing with a job or marriage crisis.

In such cases, it is helpful to know how to conduct a constructive discussion, without letting emotions and prejudices cloud the issue. This book helps everyone, individual or business organisations, to learn to to work out the stress in relationships. This involves talking about difficult and confrontational issues, and learning to agree or disagree, as the case may be, and still get along well with each other. Healthy relationships do not avoid difficult situations. They face them and resolve them, or go beyond them to get more out of the relationship.

Difficult Conversations says while having these conversations, people must make an effort to come out of their own viewpoints, and try to understand the other person's views. Another important factor is not to challenge or take away a person's sense of identity, if that is deeply involved in the issue.

The authors ask the readers to go beyond raw feelings in order to have a constructive discussion, that makes an effort to resolve the issue. Another important lesson in the book is to learn when to let it go. If an issue threatens to get out of hand and talking about it makes the situation worse, it is time to let go and move on.

The re-issue edition of this book was published in paperback by Portfolio in 2011.

Key Features:

The book helps readers understand the underlying structure of difficult conversations.
Shows them how to start the conversation without sounding defensive. and explains how to let go of emotions to arrive at productive resolutions.