Acknowledgments

This book draws from many wells.

The stories and conversations we share throughout the book come from our own lives and from our work with a diverse group of students, colleagues, and clients. For variety and to protect confidentiality, many of these stories are amalgams of different people’s experiences that shared common and important dynamics, and as a rule all identifying facts have been changed. We are deeply grateful to those we’ve worked with for sharing with us so generously the conversations with which they were struggling. It is from their openness and their courage to try something new that we have learned the most.

In addition to our own research and reflection, this work incorporates and builds on ideas from many other disciplines. Our training was originally in negotiation, mediation, and law, but this book draws at least as much from the fields of organizational behavior; cognitive, client-centered, and family therapies; social psychology; communication theory; and the growing body of work around the idea of “dialogue.”

This work began in a teaching collaboration with faculty from the Family Institute of Cambridge, who have contributed to it in countless ways. Dr. Richard Chasin and Dr. Richard Lee worked with Bruce Patton and Roger Fisher to develop what we call the Interpersonal Skills Exercise (itself inspired by a demonstration offered by psychodrama specialists Dr. Carl and Sharon Hollander) in which participants are coached on their toughest conversations. This exercise has been at the heart of Harvard Law School’s Negotiation Workshop, and of our learning, for more than a decade. In teaching this exercise with us, Dick, Rick, Sallyann Roth, Jody Scheier, and their associates from the Family Institute have taught us about family dynamics, influence, common reasons people get “stuck,” and how to care for people in pain.

We are also grateful to Chris Argyris and to the partners of Action Design: Diana McLain Smith, Bob Putnam, and Phil McArthur. Their insights into the dilemmas of organizational life and interpersonal structures have proven invaluable to our understanding of conversations – how they go awry and how to put them back on course. A great many concepts in this book, including joint contribution, impact versus intent, and interpersonal intersections, are derived from their work. They are also the source of the two-column tool, the ladder and footprint metaphors, and methods of mapping. The two rules for expressing feelings come from Bob Putnam. Our understanding of how to tell your story and get off to a good start reflects the work of Don Schön and Diana Smith on framing, and input from John Richardson on roles. Diana and our colleagues at Vantage Partners have offered many useful illustrations of how these ideas explain and help with the challenges of organizational life.

From the field of cognitive therapy, we have benefited from the research and writings of Aaron Beck and David Burns. We are particularly indebted to them for their research on how cognitive distortions affect our self-image and emotions. David Kantor, a founder of family therapy and of the Family Institute, has helped us in understanding the landscape of what we call the Identity Conversation and how it plays out in group dynamics.

Insights from social psychology and communication theory are too pervasive to cite. It is perhaps a testament to the power of these insights that many of them are no longer the province of specialists. However, we owe a great debt to the late Jeff Rubin for bringing many ideas to our attention, as well as for his unceasing support and encouragement. Our work on listening and the power of authenticity was influenced by Carl Rogers, Sheila Reindl, and Suzanne Repetto. John Grinder gave us the concept of three viewpoints, or “positions,” that correspond to your perspective, the other person’s perspective, and an observer’s perspective.

In the field of dialogue, we owe a debt of gratitude to Laura Chasin and her collaborators at the Public Conversations Project, to our friends at Conflict Management Group, and to Erica Fox. From them we have learned about the transformative power of telling one’s story and speaking to the heart of the matter, a subject on which Bill Isaacs, Louise Diamond, Richard Moon, and others are also doing important work.

For providing early encouragement and opportunities to teach what we were learning we wish to thank Roger Fisher, Bob Mnookin, Frank Sander, and David Herwitz of Harvard Law School; Rob Ricigliano, Joe Stanford, and Don Thompson of Conflict Management Group; Eric Kornhauser of Conflict Management Australasia; Shirley Knight of CIBC Bank in Canada; Archie Epps, Harvard College Dean of Students; Colonels Denny Carpenter and Joe Trez of The Citadel in South Carolina; and Gary Jusela and Nancy Ann Stebbins of the Boeing Company (and Carolyn Gellerman, who introduced us); Deborah Kolb of the Program on Negotiation; and our colleagues at Conflict Management, Inc. Our friend and associate Stephen Smith helped us develop our work with family businesses and foundations and introduced us to our agent, Esther Newberg, who, along with her team at ICM, has been terrific. We are grateful for their confidence in us and their support over the years.

We are also blessed with a talented and caring group of friends and co-workers, who put aside their busy schedules to read drafts, make suggestions, and cheer us on along the way. Roger Fisher, Erica Fox, Michael Moffitt, Scott Peppet, John Richardson, Rob Ricigliano, and Diana Smith have lived with us and the work for perhaps longer than they would have chosen. By critiquing, rewriting, or outlining alternative sections or whole chapters, each has had a significant and lasting impact on the product. For stories, feedback, and support, we are grateful to Denis Achacoso, Lisle Baker, Bob Bordone, Bill Breslin, Scott Brown, Stevenson Carlbach, Toni Chayes, Diana Chigas, Amy Edmondson and George Daley, Elizabeth England, Danny Ertel, Keith Fitzgerald, Ron Fortgang, Brian Ganson, Lori Goldenthal, Mark Gordon, Sherlock Graham-Haynes, Eric Hall, Terry Hill, Ed Hillis, Ted Johnson, Helen Kim, Stu Kliman, Linda Kluz, Diane Koskinas, Jim Lawrence, Susan McCafferty, Charlotte McCormick, Patrick McWhinney, Jamie Moffitt, Linda Netsch, Monica Parker, Robert and Susan Richardson, Don Rubenstein and Sylvie Carr, Carol Rubin, Jeff Seul, Drew Tulumello, Robin Weatherill, Jeff Weiss, Jim Young, Louisa Hackett, and many others.

Our families have spent years wondering if any such book as this would ever actually come to be. They have read and critiqued drafts, offered unconditional and greatly appreciated advice and moral support, and politely gone along with our versions of family stories, for which we love them all the more and are deeply grateful: Robbie and David Blackett, Jack and Joyce Heen, Jill and Jason Grennan, Stacy Heen, Bill and Carol Patton, Bryan Patton and Devra Sisitsky, John and Benjamin Richardson, Diana Smith, Don and Anne Stone, Julie Stone and Dennis Doherty, and Randy Stone.

We could not have asked for a better editor and team at Viking Penguin. Our editor, Jane von Mehren, is not only intelligent and insightful but also fun and easy to work with. Jane, Susan Petersen, Barbara Grossman, Ivan Held, Alisa Wyatt, and the team saw immediately what we were working toward, and we very much appreciate their commitment to put it in the hands of as many people as possible. Our line editor, Beena Kamlani, and copy editor, Janet Renard, had the courage to take on the three of us, and the manuscript is the better for it, even if we have insisted on using the plural “they,” “them,” etc. to refer to indefinite singular antecedents as a way to maintain gender neutrality. (As this usage has recently grown more common in speech, younger readers may think it quite natural. However, we apologize in advance to those who find it unusual or jarring.) Finally, Maggie Payette and Francesca Belanger, our designers, have done a great job of making the cover and text distinctive, accessible, and beautiful.

As usual, the good things about this book owe a great deal to others while errors and omissions are solely our responsibility.

— Doug, Bruce & Sheila
Cambridge, Massachusetts