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jadeyen's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
3.75
I like the focus on deescalating and evolving difficult conversations into chances to learn and clarify, but I did feel like there was a solid amount of repetition and gaps between some of those worn paths. Here’s to more open and successful conversations!
sarahareinhard's review
5.0
Read for work and realized this is a book everyone should read. I’ve marked it with enough book darts to make it weigh a pound more. May reread with a highlighter. Amazing insights that we all need as humans.
spiderelsa's review against another edition
5.0
This is a classic with staying power. It addresses important, touchy, ugly, dangerous topics with a degree of irreverence and care that makes it approachable and relatable. I feel like I should put this on rotation to reread every 18 months or so.
yelafeld's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
meganp2023's review against another edition
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
kendra_maris's review against another edition
4.0
I was extremely cynical about this book for a couple reasons: I knew a colleague who read it, who I experienced plenty of conflict with. I thought, Well, that book can't be all that effective if we keep having these crappy conversations that leave me feeling unheard, invalidated, and gaslit. I also came to finally reading the book through a graduate course about 'conflict management' which I expected to be overly technocratic (I have a more nuanced appreciation of both the book and course).
I was pleasantly surprised by reading this, perhaps most of all because I was able to recognize how I still genuinely struggle with many of the emotional and communicative dynamics of so-called 'difficult conversations.' This was especially apparent when reflecting on relationships in my life dominated by unchecked and unprocessed emotions. I've got plenty of internalized desire to be right or in control all the time, and making my way through this book helped to check that desire (i.e. thinking I'd find this book useless or obnoxious), while also sharing some insights on how to wrangle it in-practice, too (i.e. guess what: that tendency is what's making some of my own difficult conversations so persistently difficult).
I left a star off because I did still find it overly technical or prescriptive at times, I felt it could have spoken more explicitly about how to engage with its suggestions when communicating with people lacking some basic self-awareness or who are struggling with mental health crises, and, has been discussed by others — it includes some problematic examples involving harm. In the 2020s, a version of this that blends or acknowledges a trauma-informed approach might be more useful or resonant.
I was pleasantly surprised by reading this, perhaps most of all because I was able to recognize how I still genuinely struggle with many of the emotional and communicative dynamics of so-called 'difficult conversations.' This was especially apparent when reflecting on relationships in my life dominated by unchecked and unprocessed emotions. I've got plenty of internalized desire to be right or in control all the time, and making my way through this book helped to check that desire (i.e. thinking I'd find this book useless or obnoxious), while also sharing some insights on how to wrangle it in-practice, too (i.e. guess what: that tendency is what's making some of my own difficult conversations so persistently difficult).
I left a star off because I did still find it overly technical or prescriptive at times, I felt it could have spoken more explicitly about how to engage with its suggestions when communicating with people lacking some basic self-awareness or who are struggling with mental health crises, and, has been discussed by others — it includes some problematic examples involving harm. In the 2020s, a version of this that blends or acknowledges a trauma-informed approach might be more useful or resonant.