Just came across this terse piece with v.effective visuals. 9 slides.
Estimated time for this slide show at HBR : 10min
By Sarah Green, based on Failure to Communicate by Holly Weeks
Mistake #1: We fall into a combat mentality.
When difficult conversations turn toxic, it’s often because we’ve made a key mistake: we’ve fallen into a combat mentality. This allows the conversation to become a zero-sum game, with a winner and a loser. But the reality is, when we let conversations take on this tenor – especially at the office – everyone looks bad, and everyone loses. The real enemy is not your conversational counterpart, but the combat mentality itself. And you can defeat it, with strategy and skill.
Addendum:
There’s a good book by this title “Crucial Conversations” that I’d read during my time at Stern. Worth the read if this subject interests you..
