Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
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 ack... See more
Sheila Heen • Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
In the “What Happened?” Conversation, moving away from the truth assumption frees us to shift our purpose from proving we are right to understanding the perceptions, interpretations, and values of both sides. It allows us to move away from delivering messages and toward asking questions, exploring how each person is making sense of the world. And t
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Stepping out of your story doesn’t mean giving up your point of view. Your purpose in opening the conversation is to invite the other person into a joint exploration. In the course of that exploration you’ll spend time in each side’s perspective, and then come back to adjust your own views based on what you’ve learned and what you’ve shared.
Sheila Heen • Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
To get anywhere in a disagreement, we need to understand the other person’s story well enough to see how their conclusions make sense within it. And we need to help them understand the story in which our conclusions make sense. Understanding each other’s stories from the inside won’t necessarily “solve” the problem, but as with Karen and Trevor, it
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