[Douglas Stone] Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most Paperback【2010】 by Douglas Stone Office Product

Though as a Sociologist I had long resisted, the twin grinds of pandemic lockdowns and middle age finally brought me to my knees before the American God that is the self-help book/podcast. Along with my other favorites, such as Catherine Price and the Nagoski twins' contributions, "Difficult Conversations" is among the self-help resources that I find quite useful and somewhat sociological. I like "Difficult Conversations" because it seems to me to encapsulate what lawyers have learned about humanity, which is far, far more useful than the devastation that common-law lawyers wreak upon humanity in the practice of law. If only common law, and the Antienlightenment American judiciary, were liquidated, replaced with institutions for democratic development, and the profession of law set instead upon this Enlightenment project of coaching people to understand themselves, people, and human communication better, in order to improve our relationships ourselves, like adults with only one life to live.What lawyers know about humanity comes down to this: From the ersatz "god particle" POV of lawyers, we are all part of the problem, all the problems. If even lawyers, with their two or three years of graduate education, can paint any individual human as at fault in any problem--And they can. That is what they do for a living.--then we all can face our own implication in the reproduction of relational messes. Prioritizing reintegrating human relations, we can tell our important relations how important they are to us, and show them how important they are by recognizing and affirming their brand (the identity they instrumentally and emotionally cling to), and by being curious about what they have to say about what's gone wrong, only after which, we can then tell our story.I know what some of you are thinking: This book is wildly tone-deaf in a cancel-culture era vibing off the hallowed traditions of capitalist debt shame and the grueling legacy of shame-based religious population control. Yes. Yet if we want to have better relationships with important people in our lives, we need to get right with what it means to be a social human: We are all implicated, though certainly to varying degrees, given social hierarchy. But in the important *micro* relations that we live in--like work, family, and friend relationships, we tend to be a bit more equally implicated in the mess. It's just what it is to be social, to be human rather than an autonomous, mythical angel or demon.To extricate ourselves from dehumanizing relationship incapacity, we learn to overmaster our fear of shame, blame, and righteous affect. People grip their self-righteous identities, which they have borrowed from aging political and commercial campaigns, and they use them to jockey for resources. But we also hope that people in our lives will take the responsibility to prioritize reason and caring above righteous affect. We can be that leadership.I thought about "Difficult Conversation's" insights, and tried the communication recommendations. It feels a lot better than drowning in myopic, psychological-warfare storytelling with someone you need. It's not a one-shot deal, though, to reintegrate a long-bruised relationship. It's multiple conversations over time, in each of which it can be helpful to gird yourself to take on conversational responsibility. Imma keep this book around. Perhaps with practice, I will incorporate the approach and be able to more skillfully conduct difficult, reintegrative conversations--whether heading off trouble or restoring broken relationships-- with the important individuals in my life.

Conversations make up a significant portion of many of our days. Minor or major clashes can lead to issues at work and home, and may ultimately contribute to significant problems in our marriages, jobs, and friendships. Wishing for positive outcomes or for other people to be more reasonable seldom works.“Difficult Conversations,” written by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, offers constructive tips on how to navigate through those encounters. The authors tell us that “…human interactions are complex. Trouble arises from the intersection of styles, behaviors, assumptions, and interests, not because one person is all good and the other all bad.” In a potentially volatile conversation, it is normal to hear what we think is being said without fully understanding the other person, which can lead to defensiveness and blame. At other times, we believe so strongly that what we are saying makes sense that we fail to recognize that what the other person is saying makes sense, too.Authors Stone/Patton/Heen offer up new paradigms in easily understood explanations. Countless examples of different conversations are offered, some demonstrating how many of us instinctively react followed by demonstrations of how we can turn the discussion around. While ideas like reflective listening are included, the authors target the problems that prevent us from achieving positive interaction, explaining how things like emotions can get in the way and how to deal with them. Reducing blame, managing what is referred to as The Three Conversations, and other helpful tips like reframing are fully explained in such a manner that it seems easy to add these tools to our repertoire and begin using them right away.The authors, however, recognize that these conversations are not always easy, and they also address those stumbling blocks with multiple examples. In the end, Stone/Patton/Heen can’t prepare us for every possibility to come alone, but if we perform the preparations outlined in the book, we can’t help but continue to improve and become more adept at using the ideas they have shared. If you would like to improve any of your work or personal relationships, this is a fantastic book. Five stars.

I agree with the observations from many of the 5 star reviews, this book provides a number of valuable insights about one possible way to view, understand and approach difficult conversations. However I do have one comment that I didn't see from the reviews I looked at - they provide little data about how well their approach works. It is after all just one approach, and while elements of the approach seem like they would be helpful and effective, there are other approaches to difficult (and not so difficult) conversations that also have a certain element of appeal to them (e.g. transactional analysis, warm fuzzies/cold pricklies etc). The authors claim to have worked through difficult conversations with a number of participants. It would really add tremendously to the book to have some data about how things turned out say with 500 couples going through counseling where 250 read the book and 250 didn't and then comparing the divorce rate or some such. Furthermore there's definitely a skew here where the outcomes are likely to be better if both parties have read the book, which generally won't be the case. Some data on how well these techniques work when only one party is practicing them would also (hopefully) strongly support their approach.

Super