Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
by Douglas Stone
30 popular highlights from this book
Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most:
“Interpretations and judgments are important to explore. In contrast, the quest to determine who is right and who is wrong is a dead end. In”
“The truth is, intentions are invisible. We assume them from other people’s behavior. In other words, we make them up, we invent them. But”
“Telling someone to change makes it less rather than more likely that they will.”
“The single most important thing [you can do] is to shift [your] internal stance from "I understand" to "Help me understand." Everything else follows from that. . . . Remind yourself that if you think you already understand how someone feels or what they are trying to say, it is a delusion. Remember a time when you were sure you were right and then discovered one little fact that changed everything. There is always more to learn.”
“difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values.”
“The urge to blame is based . . . on the fear of being blamed.”
“People almost never change without first feeling understood.”
“Often we go through an entire conversation – or indeed an entire relationship – without ever realizing that each of us is paying attention to different things, that our views are based on different information.”
“Learning that you can’t control the other person’s reaction, and that it can be destructive to try, can be incredibly liberating. It not only gives the other person the space to react however they need to, but also takes a huge amount of pressure off you. You will learn things about yourself based on their reaction, but if you are prepared to learn, you’ll feel free from the desperate need for their reaction to go one certain way.”
“intentions are invisible. We assume them from other people’s behavior. In other words, we make them up, we invent them. But our invented stories about other people’s intentions are accurate much less often than we think. Why? Because people’s intentions, like so much else in difficult conversations, are complex. Sometimes people act with mixed intentions. Sometimes they act with no intention, or at least none related to us. And sometimes they act on good intentions that nonetheless hurt us. Because”
“Paradoxically, there is also considerable persuasion power in inquiry and listening.”
“Imagine that while scuba diving, you suddenly see a shark glide into view. Your heart starts to pound and your anxiety skyrockets. You’re terrified, which is a perfectly rational and understandable feeling. Now imagine that your marine biology training enables you to identify it as a Reef Shark, which you know doesn’t prey on anything as large as you. Your anxiety disappears. Instead you feel excited and curious to observe the shark’s behavior.”
“No matter how good you get at reframing, the single most important rule about managing the interaction is this: You can’t move the conversation in a more positive direction until the other person feels heard and understood. And they won’t feel heard and understood until you’ve listened. When the other person becomes highly emotional, listen and acknowledge. When they say their version of the story is the only version that makes sense, paraphrase what you’re hearing and ask them some questions about why they think this. If they level accusations against you, before defending yourself, try to understand their view. Whenever you feel overwhelmed or unsure how to proceed, remember that it is always a good time to listen.”
“get curious about what you don’t know about yourself.”
“Depending on how we handle them, feelings can lead to great trouble. But the feelings themselves just are. In that sense, feelings are like arms or legs. If you hit or kick someone, then your arms or legs are causing trouble. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with arms or legs. The same with feelings.”
“Working to keep negative information out during a difficult conversation is like trying to swim without getting wet.”
“Control is the unilateral ability to make something happen. Influence is the ability to affect someone else’s thinking.”
“Because good listening requires an open and honest curiosity about the other person, and a willingness and ability to keep the spotlight on them. Buried emotions draw the spotlight back to us. Instead of wondering, “How does what they are saying make sense?”
“Studies show that while few people are good at detecting factual lies, most of us can determine when someone is distorting, manufacturing, or withholding an emotion.”
“When competent, sensible people do something stupid, the smartest move is to try to figure out, first, what kept them from seeing it coming and, second, how to prevent the problem from happening again. Talking”
“Listening well is one of the most powerful skills you can bring to a difficult conversation.”
“difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings.”
“We don’t care where the ball lands, as long as it doesn’t land on us.”
“Sometimes life deals us a blow that we can’t cope with on our own. What constitutes such a blow is different for each of us. It may be something as undermining as rape or as horrifying as war. It may be a physical or mental illness, an addiction, or a profound loss. Or it may be something that would not disturb most other people but does disturb you. We sometimes ascribe valor to those who suffer in silence. But when suffering is prolonged or interferes with accomplishing what we want with our lives, then such suffering may be more reckless than brave. Whatever it is, if you’ve worked to get over it and can’t, we encourage you to ask for help. From friends, from colleagues, from family, from professionals. From anyone who might be able to offer a hand.”
“Simply by changing your own behavior, you gain at least some influence over the problem.”
“We Ignore the Complexity of Human Motivations”
“Our Assumptions About Intentions Are Often Wrong”
“I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me.”
“The Dilemma: Avoid or Confront, It Seems There Is No Good Path”
“This is important to me, I want to find a time to talk about it, and right now I’m not able to.”
