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Difficult Conversations  By  cover art

Difficult Conversations

By: Douglas Stone,Bruce Patton,Sheila Heen
Narrated by: Douglas Stone,Bruce Patton,Sheila Heen
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Publisher's summary

Dealing with your ex-husband, who can't seem to show up reliably for weekends with the kids; navigating a workplace fraught with office politics or racial tensions; saying "I'm sorry" or "I love you."

We all have difficult conversations, no matter how confident or competent we are. And too often, no matter what we try, things don't go well. Should you say what you're thinking and risk starting a fight? Swallow your views and feel like a doormat? Or should you let them have it? But - what if you're wrong?

Difficult Conversations shows you a way out of this dilemma; it teaches you how to handle even the toughest conversations more effectively and with less anxiety. Based on 15 years of work at Harvard Negotiation Project and consultations with thousands of people, the authors answer the question: When people confront the conversations they dread the most, what works?

Difficult Conversations walks you through a proven, concrete, step-by-step approach for understanding and conducting tough conversations. It shows you how to get ready, how to start the conversations in ways that reduce defensiveness, and how to keep the conversation on a constructive track regardless of how the other person responds.

Whether you're dealing with your baby-sitter or biggest client, your boss or your brother-in-law, Difficult Conversations can help.

©1999 Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen (P)1999 Random House, Inc., All Rights Reserved

Critic reviews

“Does this book deliver on its promise of an effective way through sticky situations, whether ‘with your babysitter or your biggest client’? It does.” (The New York Times)

“These talented communicators blend a daunting array of disciplines into highly readable and practical advice.” (Booklist)

“I’m on my third reading. Half the pages are dog-eared. This is a mind-bogglingly powerful book. For life.” (Tom Peters)

Featured Article: How to Improve Your Communication Skills


Knowing how to communicate is one of the most important life skills you can learn, but unfortunately, most of us don't ever receive formal lessons on the topic. Being a good communicator is essential to all aspects of our professional, personal, and romantic lives, so it's important to take the time to evaluate how you communicate, identify areas of improvement, and then strive to apply these lessons in your daily life.

What listeners say about Difficult Conversations

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Talking too much

There's just too much fluff and filler in this book. As usual it suffers like most audio books in not having an index or contents page available so that you can skip over the filler to the sections that adress your particular problem.
As an audiobook it is well presented with clear dialogue. But in terms of content it is poor. Once it gets started on the real content it works well but needs a shorter introduction. Just try not to drift off to sleep before you get to the good parts ;-)

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120 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A must-hear audiobook !

This audiobook will make you understand that different people have different views on a specific situation and they all are right. Unfortunately, they come into conflict due to the fact that they can not imagine the other is "right" aswell ! I urge you to listen to this material several time in order to integrate the fact that, in a lot of situations, developing a conflict is simply inadequate due to the fact that everybody naturally and "rightly" has his own version of the story. The book provides examples of a situation as it is experienced by two people. You think that protagonist A is right, and then, the same story is exposed again, but this time from the perpective of B, and you feel yourself caught because you admit that both A and B are "right". This book makes you a bit wiser and contributes to more peacefull relations with others, colleagues, within your couple, etc. This IS important and I thank you the authors for their work !

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77 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Slow Start - Powerful book

I only listened to the first 20 minutes of this because I didn't have anything else in the car.

BOY, AM I GLAD I DID!

The authors read this, and at first they seem dry and without energy. But their content lured me in. I've learned more in four hours of listening that I have in 20 years of self-help books on active listening and communicating with people.

If you have ever struggled to have a good conversation with a spouse, child, co-worker, or boss, this is worth listening to. I am getting ready to start my second time through.

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53 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Tripled my communication effectiveness

The authors provide number of specific tips which will help you improve your communication:

- the need to understand others logic - what u say makes sense, but what others say also makes sense to them
- the 3rd-party-story technique to ease the tension
- how you can express the feelings without being emotional instead of being emotional without expressing feelings
- how different people have different perceptions -> illustrated with Harvard experiment where two groups were valuating the same company using the same data. The selling group came up with +30% figure while the buying group with -30% figure vs the fair value
- why "identity", "feelings" & "what happened" conversations are difficult
and much more...

The only reason to give 4 stars was a bit annoying/sleepy voice of one of the authors.

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42 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Think carefully before making this selection.

For those who do not communicate well, or who do not understand the basics of communication, it is an excellent choice. You will certainly put some new tools in your belt. The authors use many examples and have some decent insight. If you have difficulties in communicating – especially if you have kids – I would recommend you listen. The program has some pretty good ideas for how to increase communication; the authors go through some role-playing in their examples; and, you might learn how to re-think the way you communicate.

For those who are at least decent communicators, you might find the ideas and examples too juvenile and the narration appropriate for kindergarteners. If you have any training or practical experience in communication, you may still find some interesting insights – if you can get over the puerile presentation. I had flashbacks to grade school. For you, this might turn out to be much longer than the 6 hours you expect. Admittedly, you may get more out of it if you go into understanding its limitations, but don’t expect any great epiphanies - they are not there. I believe the title and description are a bit misleading. It should be entitled something closer to “Basic Communication Skills: How to keep your obstinacy from overtaking your conversation.”

If in doubt, just get it (although I agree with considering the book rather than the audio). You may be pleasantly surprised. Just understand that the perceived quality of the program and your existing skill in communication will probably have an inverse relationship.

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Excellent content, poor naration

The ideas presented and the examples given are very useful. But the naration, particularly by one of the authors, is aweful. His voice drives me crazy and at times is hard to hear. I would be able to concentrate much more on the content if it was done right. I'm a little more than halfway through and may actually have to stop. After listening to over a dozen books, I can honestly say that the naration on this one is significantly worse than anything I have heard. So 5 stars on content, 0 on naration.

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23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent Content - Subpar Audio

I became interested in this book when it was assigned as a required reading for my MBA class. This book provides very practical guidance to improve interpersonal communication in personal and professional relationships. Of all of the "communication" books I have read over the past 20 years, this is one of the top two. I highly recommend it. The only reason I did not give the audiobook 5-stars is because of the narration and production of the audiobook. There were three main narrators and the different voices and volumes were distracting. Further, in the audio production process, the volume was not leveled, and I had to change my volume to compensate.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Silly but helpfull

Examples are downright silly, over simplified, and unrealistic, but I still found this book to be extremely beneficial in both personal and professional applications. Highly recommend.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Great tool but poor narration

This book is very valuable and it provides tactical help in dealing with difficult conversations in business and personal settings.
authors should try to resist the temptation to narrate their own text. Leave it to professionals please... It was slow and the dialogue sounded awkward.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Had an immediate impact on my conversations

I find the model of the "three conversations" to be very helpful. Just listening to this text helped me to adopt a learning stance which makes my conversations more productive. I plan to listen to this book again soon to more fully absorb the many useful ideas.

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12 people found this helpful