Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

Whether you're dealing with an under performing employee, disagreeing with your spouse about money or child-rearing, negotiating with a difficult client, or simply saying "no, " or "I'm sorry, " or "I love you, " we attempt or avoid difficult conversation every day. Based on fifteen years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Difficult Conversations walks you through a step-by-step proven approach to having your toughest conversations with less stress and more success. You will learn:

• how to start the conversation without defensiveness
• why what is not said is as important as what is
• ways of keeping and regaining your balance in the face of attacks and accusations
• how to decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversation

Filled with examples from everyday life, Difficult Conversations will help you on your job, at home, or out of the world. It is a book you will turn to again and again for advice, practical skills, and reassurance.

The members of the Harvard Negotiation Project that brought readers the mega-bestseller Getting to YES now show how to handle the most difficult conversations with confidence and skill.

Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen teach at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Negotiation Project. They have been consultants to businesspeople, governments, organizations, communities, and individuals around the world, and have written on negotiation and communication in publications ranging from the New York Times to Parents magazine. Bruce Patton is also a co-author of Getting to Yes. Each of them lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Sheila Heen is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.