Foreword

The Harvard Negotiation Project is best known for a book on negotiation and problem-solving called Getting to YES that has sold more than three million copies. Since its publication in 1981, readers all over the world have been persuaded that negotiators are more effective when they move away from adversarial posturing and instead work jointly to satisfy the interests of both sides.

The “Harvard Method,” as it is sometimes called, emphasizes the importance of easy two-way communication. Yet in both negotiations and daily life, for good reasons or bad, we often don’t talk to each other, and don’t want to. And sometimes when we do talk, things only get worse. Feelings – anger, guilt, hurt – escalate. We become more and more sure that we are right, and so do those with whom we disagree.

This is the realm of Difficult Conversations , and why it is such a powerful and urgently needed book. It explores what it is that makes conversations difficult, why we avoid them, and why we often handle them badly. Although the inquiry grew initially from a desire to help negotiators, the subject has far deeper implications. Difficult Conversations addresses a critical aspect of human interaction. It applies to how we deal with children, parents, landlords, tenants, suppliers, customers, bankers, brokers, neighbors, team members, patients, employees, and colleagues of any kind.

In this book my colleagues Doug, Bruce, and Sheila take us by the hand and show us how to open the door to greater fulfillment in any relationship. They provide the stance of mind and heart and the skills of expression needed to achieve effective communication across the gulf of real differences in experiences, beliefs, and feelings, whether in personal relations, business dealings, or international affairs.

These are the skills needed to take a serious disagreement within a business organization and transform it from a drag on competitiveness into an engine for innovation. These are the skills we all can use to make a marriage more enjoyable and durable and to make relations between parents and teenagers something far better than a war zone. These skills can heal the wounds that keep so many of us apart. They offer each of us a better future.

Returning from several years in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, I discovered that my roommate, two of my closest friends, and dozens of classmates had been killed in that war. Ever since, I have worked to improve the skills with which we deal with our differences; to improve the prospects for our children’s future; and to enlist others in that cause. This brilliant and compelling book by my younger colleagues at the Harvard Negotiation Project leaves me feeling optimistic that progress is being made on all three counts.

— Roger Fisher
Cambridge, Massachusetts