Whether you're dealing with an under performing employee, disagreeing with your spouse about money or child-rearing, negotiating with a difficult client, or simply saying "no," or "I'm sorry," or "I love you," we attempt or avoid difficult conversation every day. Based on fifteen years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Difficult Conversations walks you through a step-by-step proven approach to having your toughest conversations with less stress and more success.

You will learn:

-- how to start the conversation without defensiveness

-- why what is not said is as important as what is

-- ways of keeping and regaining your balance in the face of attacks and accusations

-- how to decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversation

Filled with examples from everyday life, Difficult Conversations will help you on your job, at home, or out of the world. It is a book you will turn to again and again for advice, practical skills, and reassurance.

Sheila Heen has been with the Harvard Negotiation Project for twenty years, teaching negotiation and difficult conversations at Harvard Law School and in Harvard's executive education programs.

She is also CEO of Triad Consulting in Harvard Square, where she specializes in working with executive teams on issues where there is strong disagreement and emotions run high. She has worked with corporate clients on six continents, with the US White House, the Singapore Supreme Court, and with theologians with disagreements on the nature of truth and God.

Visit Sheila and Doug's author page at www.stoneandheen.com, and Triad Consulting at www.triadconsultinggroup.com.

Sheila's husband, John Richardson, also teaches negotiation -- down the street at MIT. He is the author of "Negotiation Analysis" with Howard Raiffa and of "Getting it Done" with Roger Fisher and Alan Sharpe. They are both schooled in negotiation daily by their three children.