Difficult Conversation Between Patton And Sheila Heen

For this reflection, the assigned reading was from Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. The first part of this chapter broke down difficult conversations into three different conversations, including conversations about the mistake or issue, how each person feels about the issue, and how the conflict makes each party feel about themselves. The conversation about what happened is exactly like it sounds, each party tries to figure out who made the mistake and who is to blame. The feelings conversation examines how each person is feeling and if those feelings are valid and if they should be acknowledged or ignored. Finally, the identity conversation, is a harder conversation that each side has with themselves. They analyze the conflict and determine how that affects what kind of a person they are and how it affects their …show more content…
The biggest culprit of turning a conversation south is assigning, instead of sharing, the blame (Stone, Patton, Heen 2010). There is always an issue with the other person and when both sides believe this, the result is arguing. In difficult conversations, disagreement is inevitable, but arguing happens when neither side is willing to see the others perspective, and this leads to nothing changing. I have been able to witness this in my own family. Parents and children disagree, it’s part of life. In the most recent argument that my parents and I had there was a lot of arguing and yelling, nothing was resolved in the end. I can now see my own fault in this because I only saw and heard what I wanted. I did not really listen to what they were saying and so I was unwilling to change. The same could be true for them. They were unable to see my perspective as well. I hope that with this new information the disagreement can be resolved, and something can be