BIFF at Work: Your Guide to Difficult Workplace Communication

by Bill Eddy, Megan Hunter

Hostile emails, letters and conversations can drain inordinate amounts of time, emotional energy and expense in the workplace. For over a dozen years, the BIFF method of communicating has helped thousands of people calm conflicts and create clear communication in response to misinformation, blame, and unnecessary anger in writing or in-person.

This new book focuses exclusively on workplace conflicts―internal and external, with instructions in how to use the four-step method with numerous examples of what works and what does not work to demonstrate potential pitfalls. It also includes tips on how to coach co-workers and others on writing effective BIFF responses to customers, clients, employees and managers―instead of becoming consumed in unhealthy back-and-forth conversations. Using BIFF with toxic teammates, workplace bullies, and with threatening customers and clients can reduce risk of lawsuits and complaints and make everyone feel more confident in workplace relationship.

BIFF is simple, practical, and can help you get the communication outcomes you want by diffusing tension, containing conflict, and establishing professional boundaries. Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. Use BIFF to lower your blood pressure, turn down the conflict flame, and restore your confidence.

Genres: Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

Published April 13, 2021

About the author

Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, mediator and the President of High Conflict Institute. He developed the "High Conflict Personality" theory (HCP Theory) and has become an international expert on managing disputes involving high conflict personalities and personality disorders. He provides training on this subject to lawyers, judges, mediators, managers, human resource professionals, businesspersons, healthcare administrators, college administrators, homeowners’ association managers, ombudspersons, law enforcement, therapists and others. He has been a speaker and trainer in over 25 states, several provinces in Canada, Australia, France and Sweden.

As an attorney, Bill is a Certified Family Law Specialist in California and the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center in San Diego. Prior to becoming an attorney in 1992, he was a Licensed Clinical Social worker with twelve years’ experience providing therapy to children, adults, couples and families in psychiatric hospitals and outpatient clinics. He has taught Negotiation and Mediation at the University of San Diego School of Law for six years and he is on the part-time faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law and the National Judicial College. He is the author of numerous articles and several books, including:

High Conflict People in Legal Disputes
It’s All YOUR Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything
SPLITTING: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder
BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns

He is also the developer of the “New Ways for Families” method of managing potentially high conflict families in and out of family court. He is currently developing a method for managing potentially high conflict employees titled “New Ways for Work.”

Reviews

[CatReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Eddy is a lawyer and mediator who's espoused the concept of BIFF communication (brief, informative, friendly and firm) to deal with HCPs (high conflict personalities) and difficult communication in general, with the goal of deescalating heated situations to restore (more) functional dynamics. 2021's BIFF at Work (written with Megan Hunter, who coaches on dealing with difficult communications) is a follow-up to Eddy's previous book, 2011's BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns, that focuses on BIFF communication in the workplace setting.

I appreciated that this is a very practical and succinct book. Much of the book consists of Eddy and Hunter presenting various challenging scenarios, writing an off-the-cuff response that many of us would be tempted to send (much of the book focuses on written communication, though a few vignettes at the end focus on verbal communication), analyzing why these reactionary responses are not BIFFs in a methodical, logical manner, and then re-writing them in BIFF style. The checklist they use to determine if a response is a BIFF or not:

- is it necessary to respond in this situation? (if no, then don't respond)
- is it brief?
- is it informative?
- is it friendly?
- is it firm?
- does it contain advice, admonishments, or apologies? (if yes to any of these, it's not a BIFF, as these are sticking points that may further escalate rather than deescalate the situation)

In the final section, Eddy and Hunter present brief tips on coaching others to write BIFFs -- basically, it's asking them the questions above, as well as asking them to predict how the other person is likely to respond to the message, and if this predicted reaction is likely to lead to escalation or deescalation.

Definitely a useful book and method that I'll be working to implement in my own communications.

My statistics:
Book 112 for 2025
Book 2038 cumulatively

[Arianna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible. Simply a waste of words

[Steve Brock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was Stevo's Business Book of the Week for the week of 6/20, as selected by Stevo's Book Reviews on the Internet and Stevo's Novel Ideas. A game changer for dealing with high #conflict people. One of the most important points is that you need to develop a professional ethics that becomes the core of your overall communications strategy.

Find more Business Books of the week on my Goodreads Listopia page at https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9..., and find many more recommended books on my Amazon Influencer page at https://www.amazon.com/shop/stevo4747 or by searching for me on Google.

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good point of reference for work.

Gives scenarios and examples of when to intervene and when to do something else.