Comments on: Book Report: Difficult Conversations

By: Bernadette Balla

Bernadette Balla — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:44:06 +0000

First of all, why aren’t more people responding to this blog?

Goes to show how people avoid “difficult conversations”

What works for me is that I always approach talking to a person about other casual things BEFORE I tell them what’s troubling me.

Why? Because people need to feel validated and not criticized. You want to start a warm conversation and not get the other person to be defensive. You want results. And you both want the conversation to end with benefits, so both of you can start understanding each other.

Not animosity. If you talk to someone from the place of compassion and motivation, however difficult the conversation can be, it USUALLY (keyword usually) establishes a stronger relationship.

This almost always works for me.

By: Shaping Youth

Shaping Youth — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:52:26 +0000

Hey Noah, thanks for this, it’s been in my queue.

Along these lines, “Choosing Civility: 25 rules of considerate conduct ” by Johns Hopkins Prof. Forni (workplace/relationship ethics/his site: http://web.jhu.edu/civility/index.html was really helpful to me during my freakin’ ‘Target/NYTimes/blogosphere debacle, the ultimate ‘difficult conversation’…reframing to folks keying off visual data without READING the original context. Coulda used this one!

‘Civility’ reads a bit wonkish and scholarly at times, but digs deep and has some cool “aha” moments…

I figure since he’s in the Dept. of Romance Languages/Literatures he’s gotta have some communication chops worthy of a look-see. Which reminds me, any big communication/cultural barriers in Argentina for you? Seems you’re fluent/conversant in both social & workplace comm…

By: R Kang

R Kang — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:28:12 +0000

Just shared this with my girlfriend. Should help with communicating.

By: Nicole Price

Nicole Price — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:56:52 +0000

Books like these make a great read. Level of patience and compromise is declining in general. These kind of books are a good reminder lesson.

By: frank

frank — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:55:12 +0000

omg yes! i totally read (half) that book as an assignment for a psyche class. i must say, i felt it was very insightful. i feel it’s a book that the reader will feel is very informative or feel that’s it’s total crap. depending how open-minded they are and their philosophy on life, i suppose. but yes… i feel there are many concepts in that book that are valuable. in most difficult conversations, we do assume a lot and altho there are many “legitimate” reasons for ppl to get angry at each other, i feel using the concepts in this book will at least decrease the chances of that happening due to miscommunication. i highly recommend. )