Douglas Stone > Quotes

“The single most important thing [you can do] is to shift [your] internal stance from "I understand" to "Help me understand." Everything else follows from that. . . .

Remind yourself that if you think you already understand how someone feels or what they are trying to say, it is a delusion. Remember a time when you were sure you were right and then discovered one little fact that changed everything. There is always more to learn.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“The urge to blame is based . . . on the fear of being blamed.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“People almost never change without first feeling understood.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Often we go through an entire conversation – or indeed an entire relationship – without ever realizing that each of us is paying attention to different things, that our views are based on different information.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Explicit disagreement is better than implicit misunderstanding.”
― Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“Learning that you can’t control the other person’s reaction, and that it can be destructive to try, can be incredibly liberating. It not only gives the other person the space to react however they need to, but also takes a huge amount of pressure off you. You will learn things about yourself based on their reaction, but if you are prepared to learn, you’ll feel free from the desperate need for their reaction to go one certain way.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“intentions are invisible. We assume them from other people’s behavior. In other words, we make them up, we invent them. But our invented stories about other people’s intentions are accurate much less often than we think. Why? Because people’s intentions, like so much else in difficult conversations, are complex. Sometimes people act with mixed intentions. Sometimes they act with no intention, or at least none related to us. And sometimes they act on good intentions that nonetheless hurt us. Because”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Paradoxically, there is also considerable persuasion power in inquiry and listening.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Imagine that while scuba diving, you suddenly see a shark glide into view. Your heart starts to pound and your anxiety skyrockets. You’re terrified, which is a perfectly rational and understandable feeling. Now imagine that your marine biology training enables you to identify it as a Reef Shark, which you know doesn’t prey on anything as large as you. Your anxiety disappears. Instead you feel excited and curious to observe the shark’s behavior.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Receiving feedback sits at the intersection of these two needs—our drive to learn and our longing for acceptance.”
― Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“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. Whenever you feel overwhelmed or unsure how to proceed, remember that it is always a good time to listen.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“get curious about what you don’t know about yourself.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“It doesn’t matter how much authority or power a feedback giver has; the receivers are in control of what they do and don’t let in, how they make sense of what they’re hearing, and whether they choose to change. Pushing harder rarely opens the door to genuine learning. The focus should not be on teaching feedback givers to give. The focus—at work and at home—should be on feedback receivers, helping us all to become more skillful learners. The real leverage is creating pull. Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow. It’s also about how to stand up for who we are and how we see the world, and ask for what we need. It’s about how to learn from feedback—yes, even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood.”
― Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“Depending on how we handle them, feelings can lead to great trouble. But the feelings themselves just are. In that sense, feelings are like arms or legs. If you hit or kick someone, then your arms or legs are causing trouble. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with arms or legs. The same with feelings.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Before you tell me how to do it better, before you lay out your big plans for changing, fixing, and improving me, before you teach me how to pick myself up and dust myself off so that I can be shiny and successful—know this: I’ve heard it before. I’ve been graded, rated, and ranked. Coached, screened, and scored. I’ve been picked first, picked last, and not picked at all. And that was just kindergarten.”
― Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“The truth is, intentions are invisible. We assume them from other people’s behavior. In other words, we make them up, we invent them. But”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Telling someone to change makes it less rather than more likely that they will.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Interpretations and judgments are important to explore. In contrast, the quest to determine who is right and who is wrong is a dead end. In”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“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. Talking”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Working to keep negative information out during a difficult conversation is like trying to swim without getting wet.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“One important role pattern is called “accidental adversaries.”3 If two people bump into each other enough and cause each other enough frustration, each will begin considering the other an “adversary.” Each attributes the problem to the personality and questionable intentions of the other. But often the true culprit is the structure of the roles they are in, which are (accidentally) creating chronic conflict. If we are each at one end of a rope and our job is to pull, then merely doing our jobs creates a tug-of-war.”
― Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“We don’t care where the ball lands, as long as it doesn’t land on us.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Control is the unilateral ability to make something happen. Influence is the ability to affect someone else’s thinking.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Studies show that while few people are good at detecting factual lies, most of us can determine when someone is distorting, manufacturing, or withholding an emotion.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Those who handle feedback more fruitfully have an identity story with a different assumption at its core. These folks see themselves as ever evolving, ever growing. They have what is called a “growth” identity. How they are now is simply how they are now. It’s a pencil sketch of a moment in time, not a portrait in oil and gilded frame. Hard work matters; challenge and even failure are the best ways to learn and improve. Inside a growth identity, feedback is valuable information about where one stands now and what to work on next. It is welcome input rather than upsetting verdict.”
― Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“PULL BEATS PUSH Training managers how to give feedback—how to push more effectively—can be helpful. But if the receiver isn’t willing or able to absorb the feedback, then there’s only so far persistence or even skillful delivery can go. It doesn’t matter how much authority or power a feedback giver has; the receivers are in control of what they do and don’t let in, how they make sense of what they’re hearing, and whether they choose to change. Pushing harder rarely opens the door to genuine learning. The focus should not be on teaching feedback givers to give. The focus—at work and at home—should be on feedback receivers, helping us all to become more skillful learners. The real leverage is creating pull. Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow. It’s also about how to stand up for who we are and how we see the world, and ask for what we need. It’s about how to learn from feedback—yes, even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood.”
― Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“Sometimes life deals us a blow that we can’t cope with on our own. What constitutes such a blow is different for each of us. It may be something as undermining as rape or as horrifying as war. It may be a physical or mental illness, an addiction, or a profound loss. Or it may be something that would not disturb most other people but does disturb you. We sometimes ascribe valor to those who suffer in silence. But when suffering is prolonged or interferes with accomplishing what we want with our lives, then such suffering may be more reckless than brave. Whatever it is, if you’ve worked to get over it and can’t, we encourage you to ask for help. From friends, from colleagues, from family, from professionals. From anyone who might be able to offer a hand.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“Listening well is one of the most powerful skills you can bring to a difficult conversation.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

“difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings.”
― Douglas Stone, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most