Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters MostDouglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen (Penguin, April 3, 2000)Reviewed by admin Mon 24 Nov 08 Bob's Rating: In Difficult Conversations, the authors Stone, Patton and Heen set out to de-mystify the problems we get into in our daily conversations. I found this book both enlightening and difficult. Enlightening because of the simple concepts and principles one should adopt when handling difficult conversations. For example, classifying all conversations into: • The “What Happened ?” Conversation • The Feelings Conversation • The Identity Conversation All of these made sense and will be very useful for me from now on. There were also plenty of examples to illustrate. And that’s where I found this book difficult. For me, there were too many examples and sub sections of sub sections – I had to go back a number of times to make the various connections. Having said that, conversations are a difficult topic to write about. Once a spoken sentence is put onto a page, it can be interpreted in a number of ways. I would have liked to have seen more “big picture” frameworks and diagrams to keep me on track and connected to the author’s current point or topic. Recommended for serious students of communication. |
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