Difficult Conversations Audiobook By Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, Roger Fisher - foreword cover art

Difficult Conversations

How to Discuss What Matters Most

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Difficult Conversations

By: Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, Roger Fisher - foreword
Narrated by: Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen
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The 10th-anniversary edition of the New York Times business bestseller—now updated with "Answers to Ten Questions People Ask"

We attempt or avoid difficult conversations every day—whether dealing with an underperforming employee, disagreeing with a spouse, or negotiating with a client. From the Harvard Negotiation Project, the organization that brought you Getting to Yes, Difficult Conversations provides a step-by-step approach to having those tough conversations with less stress and more success. You'll learn how to:

· Decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversation

· Start a conversation without defensiveness

· Listen for the meaning of what is not said

· Stay balanced in the face of attacks and accusations

· Move from emotion to productive problem solving

©1999 Douglas Stone, Bruce M. Patton, Sheila Heen (P)2023 Penguin Audio Communication & Social Skills Management Management & Leadership Personal Development Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Business Leadership

Critic reviews

“Does this book deliver on its promise of an effective way through sticky situations, whether ‘with your babysitter or your biggest client’? It does.”—The New York Times

“These talented communicators blend a daunting array of disciplines into highly readable and practical advice.”—Booklist

“I’m on my third reading. Half the pages are dog-eared. This is a mind-bogglingly powerful book. For life.”—Tom Peters
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The content in this book is immediately applicable across multiple domains. The inclusion of multiple examples and role-played conversations was immensely helpful in understanding the dynamics being discussed.

Immediately Applicable

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Finally a book that breaks down complex interactions, and then offers ways to address disagreements in an attempt to address the issues. Excellent examples that are concise.

Concise and applicable

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the book took several very simple bullet points, and then made them so very overcomplicated if you get lost in the wordiness of the book. also the voice actors that they used were difficult to understand it parts. some had very soft and Scratchy voices. they were not very clear.

An overcomplication of simple points

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Overly drawn out scenarios and discussions. No revelations beyond basic principles. Many of the chapters, while the authors tried to discuss different topics, had much overlap.

Difficult reading

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This book is super fluffy. Over half of it is filler, like the literary equivalent of elevator music. Or an overlong build-up to a joke. I buy books to learn useful information, not to hear someone waffle on and on in a friendly-but-useless way.

The narration wasn’t great, either; the narrator tended to mumble, so I had to raise my volume above the usual level to make out what he was saying.

I regret spending a credit on this.

Too much filler, and the narration was mumbled

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They obviously have good intentions but the delivery was way too political for me. I felt like they used the stories to push an agenda. I couldn’t finish the book.

Too political for me

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This book could potentially teach you something, however if you've ever worked in customer service, retail, or sales, the information and techniques are all just long winded variants of the skills any half decent corporations will teach you. listen, paraphrase, and ask questions. undue weight is placed on emotions, intentions, and sincerity.

The real issue with the book is it was done by academics. There is undercurrents of toxic ideologies such as DEI throughout the entire thing. The most damning is praising and quoting 'the wise, Ibrim X Kendi of anti racism infamy. To include material from a person well known as a grifter and someone who ducks difficult conversations in a book on the subject is the height of hypocrisy

Hypocrisy

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Other reviews have said it: a weird political blurb in every chapter, and the authors should have hired a voice actor rather than doing it themselves

political nonsense, and bad voice acting

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