Difficult Conversations Book Summary

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Who Should Read This

What You’ll Learn

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Difficult conversations happen at every stage of life. In this book, Harvard Law Professors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen develop a framework to help you prepare to make the most of each one. These versatile communications skills teach us how to understand what we’re trying to achieve in difficult conversations, and how to avoid the tendencies that make them so scary. By understanding the mechanisms behind these conversations, we can approach these situations with less fear and with the tools to repair interpersonal conflict in business, life, and love. 

Don’t avoid difficult conversations out of fear. 

Is there a conversation you’ve been avoiding having with someone? Does the thought of having it make you so queasy that it’s hard to be around that person? The authors write that it’s normal to experience this repulsion— in our experience, hard conversations are extremely uncomfortable. The stakes are high, leaving us vulnerable. Most often, we conclude that the potential consequences are scarier than an improved situation. 

Avoiding difficult conversations can only make the problem at hand worse. In the majority of situations, having these conversations will be worth the effort and over a lifetime, confronting your interpersonal problems on a regular basis can add up in a life-changing way. In this book, the authors outline ways to stop living in fear of the consequences and start getting through the toughest conversations with calm, success, and no regrets. 

Know the three sub-conversations that make up any difficult talk: “what happened”, “feelings” and “identity”.

The authors write that every conversation is made up of three parts. By understanding how these parts are working, you can organize your conversation and help you avoid being blindsided by these sub-conversations that arise as difficult conversations run their course. 

The first component is the “What Happened?”. This is normally the beginning of a conversation where participants start pointing fingers and assigning blame. It’s easy to get stuck in this stage as feelings get hurt.

The second part is “Feelings”. Oftentimes conversations don’t directly address each person’s feelings, despite the way these emotions inform the issue at hand. 

The third part of a conversation is “Identity”. In conversations, particularly after an argument, people struggle with questions like was I right or wrong? Am I to blame? Do I still deserve love? By understanding that conversations are partially about this, you can avoid the conversation threatening your sense of self. 

Once you know these three components, you can equip yourself to improve at each stage. 

In the “What Happened” stage, don’t assume you know where your opponent is coming from. Use the opportunity to learn more about it and understand what each person contributed to the problem.

The “what happened” stage of the conversation is normally consumed by blaming and finger-pointing. Each party...

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