rberenguel's review against another edition
3.0
It was mostly OK. Having read a bit about NVC, though, this seems very close. Also I have the nagging feeling it could be _significantly_ shortened by having less (verbose) examples, roundabouts and repetitions.
dom_millennium's review against another edition
3.0
◦ This book will help you turn difficult conversations into learning conversations by helping you handle each of the Three Conversations more productively and improving your ability to handle all three at once. Learning conversation: what happened from their point of view, learn about your feelings and their feelings, understand the underlying identity issues.
◦ Why is it so difficult to decide whether to avoid or to confront? Because at some level we know the truth: If we try to avoid the problem, we’ll feel taken advantage of, our feelings will fester, we’ll wonder why we don’t stick up for ourselves, and we’ll rob the other person of the opportunity to improve things. But if we confront the problem, things might get even worse. We may be rejected or attacked ; we might hurt the other person in ways we didn’t intend; and the relationship might suffer.
◦ And punishment is rarely relevant or appropriate. 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.
◦ 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.
◦ Contribution vs blame: Contribution asks a different set of questions. Contribution asks: “What did I do that helped cause the situation?” You can find contribution even in situations where you carry no blame; you did contribute to being mugged. How? By choosing to walk alone at night. If you’d been somewhere else, or in a group, getting mugged would have been less likely. If we are looking to punish someone for what happened, we would punish the mugger. If we are looking to help you feel empowered in the world, we would encourage you to find your contribution.
◦ Taking responsibility for your contribution up front prevents the other person from using it as a shield to avoid a discussion of their own contribution.
◦ In addition to the stance of curiosity, there are three primary skills that good listeners employ: inquiry, paraphrasing, and acknowledgment.
◦ 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.
◦ “At first, as I considered whether to raise this issue again, I thought, ‘Well, what if Michael thinks it’s not important, or just brushes it off? Then I’ll feel foolish, or like I failed.’ I played with the idea of not raising things, but I would have been running away rather than making a clear-headed choice to let go. “So I wanted to raise it, but I was nervous. Then I remembered the advice about not trying to control the other person’s reaction. I’m raising it because I think it’s important, and I’m going to do it as well as I can, and if Michael isn’t interested in talking, or if he isn’t open, well, at least I tried, and I can feel good that I stuck up for myself.”
kirstens_corner's review against another edition
5.0
Took me more than two years to finish this, probably because this book makes you relive every difficult conversation you've had in your life, but it's definitely a great and useful book!