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Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most

List Price: $14.00
Your Price: $10.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Everybody can benefit from this book!
Review: I have an audiobook copy of "Difficult Conversations" and I just finished listening to it. I felt compelled to come here and put in a good word for it. This book is excellent! I will listen to it many times I am sure, especially when I'm faced with a difficult conversation. The other reviews do a pretty good job describing the content of the book. I just had to say that everyone (and I want to say "should" but that would be stating an opinion disguised as a fact :)) can benefit from this book, and I'm confindent that that is indeed a fact!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If you have DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS (you do) read this book!
Review: This book will help people with conversations we all have. Much of what you read will seem obviously correct even though you are not acting as the book suggests. A key point in the book is not to focus on blame but to look at the contributions of each party (i.e. what is going on that causes the problem.) In doing this you will figure out what needs to be done to solve the problems. This book is excellent! For a Masters in Dispute Resolution, I have read many books and none are better than this one. If you liked Getting to Yes or Getting Past No, You will like this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Would be a pity if it sold any less than "Getting to Yes"
Review: It is a consultant truism that, for change to occur, it must work on three different levels: a rational level, an emotional level and a political level. The change has to be right, it has to feel right and it has to meet the needs of the key stakeholders. In saying this we are exploding the myth of scientific management and of the rational organisation that obeys well defined scientific rules. And with it comes the recognition that organisations comprise of people.

Unlike machines, people need to take part, they need to be informed, consulted and motivated. All these involve conversations, some of which are difficult. Too often we shy away from difficult conversations, thereby leaving critical issues unaddressed.

Difficult conversations are difficult because are a tangle of facts, emotions and perceptions. However small adjustments in our assumptions and in the way we engage can greatly improve the chances of success.

According to the authors, difficult conversations take place at a rational, emotional and identity level. Even at the rational level we make mistakes. We assume that we are talking about what is true and not what is important, and we assume that we know the intentions of others.

This book provides a conceptual framework within which to understand difficult conversations. It also provides the tools and techniques to handle and diffuse a conversation and convert it into a 'learning conversation'. It shows how to use the third story, a neutral statement from the outside, to start a conversation and illustrates techniques for exploring the issues and solving problems. The examples are real and realistic. They showing how the inappropriate responses do lead to escalation and they are used to coach the reader through the alternatives.

In the early eighties, in "Getting to YES" the Harvard Negotiation Project showed us how to negotiate interests and not positions, Ten years later the sequel, "Getting past NO" showed how to initiate such a win-win discussion with a reluctant party, the negotiator who had not read the first book.

"Difficult conversations" is the latest in this series. It tells you how to open the dialogue even when you are one of the reluctant parties. It deals with the conversations we avoid, or which, when we don't avoid them, tend to escalate. This book is useful both in management and in everyday life. "Getting past YES" sold over three million copies. It would be a pity if "Difficult Conversations" sold any less.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Conversations Need Not Be Difficult
Review: Isn't there someone you've been wanting to discuss something with for years and, for one reason or another, couldn't broach the subject? Perhaps the subject is sensitive. Perhaps the other person isn't easy to communicate with. Perhaps you, yourself, want to avoid what you know will be a confrontational situation. I've had this problem for years with someone about a subject that needed clarification. No matter how many scenarios I mulled over in my mind in anticipation of having this conversation, they all pointed to disaster.

Not only did I read "Difficult Conversations" from cover to cover, but have already employed the authors' suggestions in broaching a sensitive subject with a family member. After years of worrying about the potential horrific reactions, I was able to elicit a positive response. The other party didn't become defensive, but, rather, wonderfully receptive to what had been preying on my mind for years.

If you're worrying about having one of those difficult conversations, believe me, it's needless. Pick up a copy of this very clearly written and powerfully effective book and discover that no conversation has to be difficult as long as you have the right attitude and tools.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Strategies for better Communications
Review: If you really want to improve your verbal communications on all levels of your life, look no further. This 5 CD audiobook is the way to go. I've read and studied literally everything out there;this is truly a set of tactics that really work with your work, spouse, kids, anybody. I wish this book had been available ten years ago. I would recommend this work to anyone who really cares about listening and expressing themselves better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This book could save countless marriages
Review: This is an exceptional book. Not since picking up Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" over 10 years ago have I come across a book that is destined to have great impact on both myself and millions of other readers.

In essence "Difficult Conversations" is a practical everyday guide for living and breathing Stephen's fifth habit - "Seek first to understand then to be understood". It can be thought of as a "conversational handbook" - applicable in both your personal and business lives. Recently married couples, parents of teenage children and newly appointed managers will find the book especially powerful.

The concepts are simple and if internalised could for eaxmple save the needless destruction of countless marriages. What excites me most is that it is so very readable and that its lessons are sufficiently simple that although it might take a life time to master - when applied you can see results in your own conversations and relationships immediately.

Although I've yet to find any reference to the discipline of "dialogue" (as developed by the physicist David Bohm) in the book - it falls squarely within this subject area.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Most original piece of work in years
Review: Material is well presented, good examples, well rounded approach. Would be well augmented by a brief understanding of social styles but not dependent on them. Well worth the price and more!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Indispensable for executive & team coaches
Review: This volume hones in closer to the essential wisdom these researchers discuss in their earlier volumes of Building Relationships... and Getting To Yes. It provides sound rational guidance for those irrational experiences we all find ourselves in (and believe there is no hope). Their findings will also be a valuable template for those who coach others in how they might find a better way out of the most difficult situations.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Perhaps the most useful book I've ever read.
Review: I have 3 bookshelves of books I've read, and this is the only one I'm keeping on my desk. If you were intriqued but bored by Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, this is the how-to guide. Simple to read, straighforward, but puts forth a lifelong challenge so you'll want to keep this book close at hand as you begin your learning journey.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best available book on workplace communications.
Review: I use the concepts presented in this book every week in conflict resolution sessions in the workplace. Every person involved in any difficult relationship at work, at home, at play (who isn't?) would benefit from a thorough study of this book.


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