How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable: Getting Your Point Across With the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

by Suzette Haden Elgin

As bestselling author Suzette Haden Elgin proves, you don't have to live your life on red alert. With her Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense techniques, you'll be able to respond clearly to hostile comments from others--or deliver necessary negative messages of your own--without sacrificing your dignity or principles. You'll learn to:
* Keep domestic disagreements from escalating
* Deliver criticism to coworkers, employers, or employees
* Handle aggressive, negative comments about race, politics, or religion
* Provide discipline without increasing hostility
* Use language that reduces tension and creates rapport in every situation

Genres: Self Help, Communication, Psychology, Nonfiction, Personal Development, Relationships, Social

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

Suzette Haden Elgin was an American science fiction author. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages. Elgin was also a linguist; she published non-fiction, of which the best-known is the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series.

Born in 1936 in Missouri, Elgin attended the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in the 1960s, and began writing science fiction in order to pay tuition. She has a Ph.D. in linguistics, and was the first UCSD student to ever write two dissertations (on English and Navajo). She created the engineered language Láadan for her Native Tongue science fiction series. A grammar and dictionary was published in 1985. She is a supporter of feminist science fiction, saying "women need to realize that SF is the only genre of literature in which it's possible for a writer to explore the question of what this world would be like if you could get rid of [X], where [X] is filled in with any of the multitude of real world facts that constrain and oppress women. Women need to treasure and support science fiction." [1]

In addition, she published works of shorter fiction. Overlying themes in her work include feminism, linguistics and the impact of language, and peaceful coexistence with nature. Many of her works also draw from her Ozark background and heritage.

Elgin became a professor at her alma mater's cross-town rival, San Diego State University (SDSU). She retired in 1980.

Reviews

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've filed this book under "self-help" but only because, with it, you can help yourself to avoid escalating hostility in conversations. The author walks us through hostile language, recognising and dealing with one's own fight-or-flight reflexes, empathic listening, choices of metaphors, and arms us some techniques for communicating to avoid and defuse situations (my favourite is the "when you (x), I feel (y), because (z)"). "How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable" is clear, simple, effective, and should be mandatory reading for adults.

Lots of highlights for me!

Hostile English has two primary characteristics: 1. It relies heavily on very personal vocabulary—“I, you, this company, this family, this department, this job,” and on proper names. 2. It contains acoustic stresses—emphasis—on words and parts of words, stresses that aren’t needed for any purpose except to express hostility. If I say to you, “We didn’t leave on the third, we left on the fifth,” you know that the extra emphasis on “fifth” is necessary to contrast “fifth” with “third.” If I say, “Hey, I won the SWEEP-STAKES!,” you know that I need the emphasis on “hey, won, sweep” to carry the message that I am tremendously excited about my announcement. But when I say, “You could at least TRY to get to work on TIME once in a while!,” you know that the emphasis on “try” and “time” has no purpose except to express hostility. You can trust your internal grammar to make such judgments for you, as long as you are paying attention, so that you hear the tunes accurately.

These people aren’t out to hurt you. Either they are ignorant of any other method for handling disagreement, or they use hostile language to fill personal needs for excitement and/or human attention and know no other way to satisfy those needs adequately. Even those who consider conversational combat a sport are only looking for a sparring partner; the only way they know to find one is to attack you so that you’ll counterattack and join them in the game.

It will change your reaction to the language, save you from an emotional hijacking, and give you the ability to stop and ask yourself three essential questions and try to answer them: 1. What is the hostile speaker’s motivation for talking to me this way? 2. What do I actually disagree with in this case? That is: do I disagree with the speaker’s claims, do I think the speaker’s facts are wrong, do I object only to the tone the speaker is using, or is it something else? 3. What is the most effective way for me to respond?

Psychologist George Miller said it best, in the statement that I call Miller’s Law: In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it might be true of. (George Miller, in Hall, 1980)

This is not a matter of gender, but of power. Listening is a courtesy that one person offers to another. People who routinely behave like the non-listeners in these two dialogues, whatever their gender, are unwilling to extend that courtesy to someone they perceive as boring and/or having no power to compel them to listen. It’s a dangerous attitude that tends to become a habit, and it’s frequently the explanation for fights—and worse—that come as a complete surprise.

On the football field it’s perfectly okay to pretend you have the ball when you don’t have it, or to pretend you’re going to run one direction and then run the other way. That’s not lying, it’s just “the way the game is played.” It’s not only okay, it’s admired and rewarded. (The same thing is true, with obvious variations, for other team sports that may serve as metaphors, such as cricket and basketball and soccer.) In the traditional schoolroom, on the other hand, if a statement is false it’s a lie. Period; end of discussion. You not only don’t get rewarded for lying, you get punished. Tom is basing his decisions on the rules of football, while Ann is basing hers on the rules of the schoolroom; this makes disagreement and hostility almost inevitable.

The communication metaphors most commonly chosen in our society today for even the most trivial disagreements are these three, with the majority of people choosing the third:
• DISAGREEMENT IS A CONTEST.
• DISAGREEMENT IS A SPORT.
• DISAGREEMENT IS COMBAT.

All three metaphors carry with them this rule: Every disagreement has to end with a winner and a loser.

It’s possible to force other people to say what we want them to say; it’s not possible to force them to mean it.

Suppose you and I are building a bookcase or a barn together. Unless we are pathologically competitive, we’ll do that by cooperating to get the job done, and we’ll consider winning and losing irrelevant to what we’re doing. Only habit and inertia and unawareness keep us from looking upon disagreement as an occasion for building a mutual understanding that can serve as a foundation for future interaction, instead of as a fight to the death.

The clash between the prevailing male metaphor (FOOTBALL) and the corresponding female metaphor (TRADITIONAL SCHOOLROOM) leads to arguments about many other key definitions and concepts beside those associated with lying. On the football field, knocking down a member of your own team who happens to be in the way as you run for a touchdown is not BETRAYAL or DISLOYALTY. Working with another player to achieve a goal is not CHEATING. This is totally unlike the schoolroom. Both the football and the schoolroom metaphors are in operation during disagreements, when the DISAGREEMENT IS COMBAT metaphor kicks in. The results of their combination, as would be expected, are different in the two cases.

For our purposes, disagreements can be divided into three basic message groups:
• “Your facts are wrong.”
• “I object to X.”
• “Your X is/are unacceptable.”
(I’m using the word “wrong” here to mean factual error, not moral error. Please keep that in mind as we go along.)

1. “Your facts are wrong.” This is the message type you use when someone says the plane is leaving at 6:15 and you have reason to believe that it’s leaving at 6:45. Often such disagreements can be easily settled because the facts can be checked and verified. As in delivering bad news, no case can be made for the idea that this requires hostile language. You’re saying to the other person, “I hear your statement of the facts; I disagree with that statement.” You may or may not also be saying that you’re prepared to offer an alternative version of the disputed facts.
2. “I object to/disagree with your claims.” Or your perceptions, your attitude, your behavior, your values, your politics, your religion, etc.—or “I object to you, personally.”
3. “Your work is unacceptable.” Or your performance, your results, your plans, your appearance, etc.—or “You, personally, are unacceptable.”

Step One: Decide exactly what your message is. Do you disagree with the other speaker’s facts, with the emotions being expressed, or both? Do you object to the particular utterance you’re hearing, or to the actions or perceptions it represents? Is your disagreement based on principle, on opinion, or something else? Decide before you start talking. Step Two: Consider the possibility that the message you’ve chosen could take a positive shape. Look for something on which everyone involved could agree, that might serve as the first plank in a negotiated structure everyone could accept and build on.

Virginia Satir was a superb family therapist. In the course of a lifetime of practice, she discovered that when people are trying to communicate under stress their language falls into one of five patterns: Blaming, Placating, Computing, Distracting, and Leveling.

Avoid the use of personal vocabulary; avoid the use of emphatic stresses that signal hostility; avoid the body language that goes with Blaming and Placating.

If we take the theoretical superiority of Leveling and modify it for use in the real world, the result is our second rule: Rule Two: When it’s safe and appropriate to do so, Level; otherwise, or if you’re not certain what to do, use Computer Mode.

Because one of the identifying characteristics of hostile language is the use of personal vocabulary, a switch to abstraction is always going to be helpful. A great deal of the time the result will also be a switch to Computer Mode, the most neutral of the Satir Modes. The basic principle is: Whenever you want to remove the personal element from a discussion, convert it to a more general issue by nominalizing its predicate.

This is not being a wimp—let’s emphasize that and settle it. The only reason for deliberately causing someone to lose face in a disagreement is to establish two points: You are the winner, and that person is the loser. You may find yourself forced to do that sometimes, but it’s poor strategy to start an interaction that way unless you have excellent reasons for humiliating the person you’re speaking to. Most people construct negative messages as direct negative claims from habit and an unconscious acceptance of the DISAGREEMENT IS COMBAT metaphor; you don’t have to follow their lead. First try more positive structures; if they fail you, you can always move on to Leveling and direct confrontation when that becomes clear.

English has a set of predicates—including “know” and “be aware”—that are called factives because the statements that follow them in a sentence are presupposed to be “true facts.” I explained to the doctor that factives would help him avoid the disagreements and suggested that he use sequences like these: “As you know, many other skin disorders look almost exactly like psoriasis.” “As you are aware, even dermatologists sometimes have a hard time diagnosing psoriasis, because it looks so much like many other skin disorders." "As I know you are aware, psoriasis is a tricky diagnosis—and prescribing for it when the condition is really something else could lead to serious problems."

Here are some more Trojan horses, with examples: • “I’m so glad that you managed to get your grant.” Manage to X presupposes that the individual had a great deal of difficulty getting X done; it’s not complimentary. • “Everyone on the committee was more than willing to humor you about that part of the agreement.” To humor someone is to behave toward them as you would behave toward a child or a person not in full possession of their senses. “Indulge” and “cater to” are just as bad. If you can’t avoid a message like this, say that everyone was willing to “defer to your wishes,” which moves the focus from the individual personally to his or her “wishes.” • “It’s wonderful that you’ve finally been promoted!” The problem here is with finally, which—in a context like this—does the same sort of damage that “I’m so glad you managed to get promoted” would do. Worst of all is the combined hostility of “It’s wonderful that you’ve finally managed to” do whatever has been accomplished; the only possible reason for saying that is to be deliberately hostile.

In “You’re a failure,” “a failure” is the predicate nominative, created by nominalizing “You fail.” And the strong implication of sentences like “You’re a liar” and “You’re a failure” is that the person always does whatever was nominalized. Whether that is precisely what you intended to say isn’t relevant; the implication is there in the language. The child who has told you one lie needs to be informed that that’s not acceptable and won’t be tolerated—but one lie doesn’t make the child a liar. The adult who has failed in business may need to know that you have a negative reaction to that fact—but one failed business doesn’t make the person “a failure.”

We have a whole set of hostile language patterns on automatic pilot that make it easy for us to make spectacles of ourselves.

VAPs [Verbal attack patterns] have two parts: an obvious and open hostile sequence whose purpose is to get the listener’s attention, called the bait; and one or more less obvious hostile sequences that are sheltered in presuppositions. In some of these the division between the two parts is very clear; in others they are mingled in complicated ways. Example: Suppose the VAP is, “If you REALLY cared about your health, YOU wouldn’t SMOKE three packs of cigarettes a day!” The bait is “You smoke three packs of cigarettes a day,” and “If you REALLY cared about your health” shelters the less obvious presupposed insult, “You don’t really care about your health.”

VAPs usually have an identical counterpart—that is, a sequence with exactly the same words—that is not an attack. The difference between the two is not in the words but in the tune the words are set to.

People who use VAPs aren’t ordinarily interested in the response they would get if they used the otherwise identical nonattack sequence.

VAPs are based on scripts that we learn as children and that are automatic by the time we reach our teens; they are action chains. Like all action chains, if they are interrupted they are over unless the people involved are willing to start them again from the beginning.

The two simplest and earliest learned VAPs are the “If you/If you really” pattern and the one that begins with a heavily emphasized “WHY.”

Linguistically the procedure for responding to VAPs could hardly be simpler. You have just two rules: Rule One: Ignore the bait, no matter how outrageous. Rule Two: Respond to one of the other presupposed parts of the sequence instead.

You had a plan and a goal: to go to the shopping mall and buy whatever it was you were shopping for. The man who challenged you had a plan and a goal, too: to get and keep your attention and provoke an emotional reaction from you that would be evidence of his power to carry out his agenda. Without your attention and your emotional reaction, he can’t get what he wants.

It’s absolutely critical to remember that any response to a VAP has to be made neutrally—set to a neutral tune. When a response is sarcastic or patronizing or insolent, it’s hostile language, no matter what words it contains.

“When you (x), I feel (y), because (z).” In a perfect three-part message, each of the three empty slots is filled with an item that is concrete and verifiable in the real world. In part 1 that item is the specific chunk of behavior the speaker wants changed. In part 2, it’s the emotion the speaker has toward the behavior. In part 3, it’s the real-world consequence of the behavior that justifies the speaker’s request for the change.

Rule One: Match the Sensory Mode coming at you. Rule Two: If you can’t match the mode, try to use no sensory language at all.

Human beings are primates. Like all primates, they like to mark out their turf and establish its limits, and they always want to know what the pecking order is in any situation. These ancient habits are so deeply ingrained that many people feel obligated to do something to demonstrate their rank and power even when there’s no reason to do it, almost always with hostility and hostile language as a result. When the apes do these demonstrations, called dominance displays, they pound their chests and shriek; most human beings are a little more subtle than that.

You can take advantage of these facts when you interact with others by deliberately providing them with good opportunities for dominance displays. They’ll feel better after taking advantage of those opportunities; you will have sacrificed nothing at all; and a great deal of tension-creating (and resource-wasting) jockeying for position will be avoided.

The last thing you need to worry about is that this will hurt your image, making you look uninformed or careless, or anything of that kind. On the contrary. As long as the items you choose are trivial rather than crucial, it will make you look cooperative and pleasant and rational and charmingly modest. Remember that your goal is not to prove your perfection but to get your material approved, accepted, and so on. Few things provoke more hostility in a group—even a group of only two—than the presence of someone who never makes a mistake.

If there is one basic principle that we can hold on to in the effort to decrease tension and increase trust and rapport, it is this: We train men to be far more afraid of losing face than women are expected to be. A man forced into a corner verbally is therefore more likely than a woman is to do something foolish out of panic, especially if there would be witnesses to his loss of face. Until the sands of gender perceptions shift in ways that lessen this difference, many communication moves need to be chosen with it in mind.

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hostile language is problematic both personally and professionally. Cleaning up our verbal express creates a safe and secure, healthy and successful environments.

Chronic hostile language users typically fall into 3 categories:
1. those who are unaware of other methods for handling disagreement
2. those who verbal hostility fills a strong personal need for attention that they don't know how to fill adequately in other ways
3. those for whom verbal hostility fill a strong personal need for excitement
all are positions of ignorance rather than evilness

Several step model to dealing with what is the negative message?:
1. stay detached (don't take the bait)
- what is the hostile speaker's motivation for talking to me in this way?
- who i actually disagree - with the speaker's claim, the speaker's facts, the speaker's tone or something else?
- what is the most effective way for me to respond?

use 3 part self messages - When you X fell Y because of Z -all needs to be concrete, verifiable and free of moral judgement

2. listening -
In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it might be true of. -Miller

3. choose your metaphor - there are several points of view, disagreement is a fight or disagreement is like carpentry

4. Choose your satir mode - blaming, placating, computing,leveling

5. Using presuppositions - what is not said but embedded in statement "Even Chuck could pass this class." 3 types:
- nominalization - nouns can be subjects but not predicates so this removes the personal element "Laziness can be annoying." can add details to give additional strength.
- "as you know" - if doesn't know then fills in, if does know, have acknowledged
- presuppositions to avoid - embedded insults "I'm so glad you managed to get your grant."

6. avoid and defuse verbal attack patterns (VAPs)
"if you" - ignore bait, respond to 1 of the presupposed parts or go into such detail as to be boring

7. reduce tension/ build rapport - back to metaphor and 3 part massages, use sensory modes,

[southernmyst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of techniques. It's concise, so it doesn't take long to read; I'm glad I've bought this book, so I can refer back to it as I try to put these ideas into practice. It's also very readable, engaging book. Most chapters are illustrated with an example conversation that goes badly at the beginning, and then the author takes apart what went wrong, and then puts it a better way at the end. She tries to include the tune of the words with use of underlining, italics, and all caps; she explains this towards the beginning. Starting with chapter three, there is a clear structure to the book (the first two chapters are introduction) that helps greatly.

This work has confirmed so many things that I've felt for years, but found others dismissive of, starting with "It's not what was said, but HOW it was said." The tune of the words and the body language, Dr Elgin tells us, make up 90% of the message in the English language, so this is true - even though when I've said it, I've often had people roll their eyes at me. She also gives us a short list of "trojan horse" words: words that may seem innocuous on the surface, but can very easily be meant or taken as hostile language. "Admit" is at the top of her list: "people only 'admit' things about which they feel guilty and/or ashamed." Amen! So many times I read "admit" used willy-nilly, as in, "She admitted she would be vacationing in Spain this year," where it doesn't make any sense, and should instead be "said" or "told us" or something else without that connotation of shame. It is very good to finally find someone put in clear English these vague feelings I've never been able to pin down properly.

I really like the author's coined phrase "hostile language," as this missing phrase in our language to describe most of the yelling and so forth that we come across. Without this phrase, we only have normal talking, neutral language, and then it skips to verbal abuse/psychological abuse/emotional abuse/verbal violence, "but the heavy semantic weight of the Abuser/Victim concept frequently makes them a poor fit". So she comes up with "hostile language" - to include body language as well as spoken words. It's a much better fit than the "verbal abuse" I usually hear it called here in the UK. Verbal abuse is levels beyond simply yelling one thing at someone once, or a variety of other things that aren't verbal abuse at all but are covered nicely by "hostile language".

For me, personally, I shall have to combine this with other work on myself to fully reap the benefits. The core idea seems to be to let go of the ideas that disagreement is combat, that there must be a winner and a loser, that you have to be right, etc. The author explains (in various ways) why these are bad ideas, and how they hurt, and better ways to communicate - but she skips over how to let go of these. So embedded are they in our culture and our psyches that it's not as easy as just seeing that it causes harm and deciding to not do it, after all - collectively, we do lots of things that continue to cause harm despite knowing this and knowing of better alternatives. I suppose that perhaps the author might have felt such a topic was outside the scope of this book - and perhaps it is, but some guidance towards some others to peruse would've been appreciated. (The bibliography at the back is unannotated.)

All in all, a good read; recommended. Needs a companion book, though.

[Dannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked it up because the title amused me. Actually turned out to be thought- provoking and insightful. And had some very relevant info on WHY arguments can spiral out of control. Good for workplace situations.
E.g. If someone is trying to gossip with you about someone else, and you try to end it by just changing the topic, they won't understand your message and might dislike you because they don't know what you are thinking of them. One better method is to gently disagree with the premise, "I don't know that she is late more than anyone else. She's always been available when I need her." The other person might disagree with you, but at least they aren't left wondering if you're morally condemning them for gossiping.
Here's another example. Bad: "(Child), your screaming at the dinner table is driving me crazy!" Better to depersonalize it. "People enjoy mealtimes more when it is calm and quiet." (Helps child save face.)

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really glad to have read this book. It is quite different from so many self-help books that I have tried and failed to read. It teaches the reader how to notice specific linguistic cues in dialogues of disagreement, and also gives several techniques for defusing intense interactions. Linguistics has fascinated me since my college days. Elgin's work (she has a series of books on what she calls the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense) appeals to the scholar and the wordsmith in me. Not to mention the very large part of me who hates conflict!

[Omar Khodr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I greatly benefited from this book, it helped me better frame verbal argumentation and confrontation as a constructive process rather than an adversarial one.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book has a fantastic bit of information. I've become really interested the past few years in communication and how we accomplish it, whether there are ways to optimize into less violent modes of speaking and relating. I think this author has a wonderful start to that.

The book is fairly easy to grasp, and for the most part stays in territory that will be accessible to the layperson. It also seems like the author has spent an immense amount of time on this subject.

The only real problem I have with this book, and the reason I'm keeping it at 4 stars, is that I think the author simplifies just a bit too much when it comes to how to address certain modes of communication. I really rankled at some of the later sets (the one with the parents in law berating their daughter-in-law about a move and not having grandchildren) and the fact that the author did not address the issue of abuse.

As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I saw the issue of abuse handled much at all in this book. While knowing good verbal self-defense to diffuse a situation, this is not always possible or recommended in situations where the "hostile language" is in itself a pattern of abuse. The way the book is written kind of presupposes all the same things that authority figures did when I was bullied as a child. It mainly boiled down to, "now everybody play nice and figure out a way to sort your differences." If both parties are *just* being petty, this is one thing. In cases of bullying or abuse, there are definitely other factors at play and I'm kind of disappointed that the author didn't include any of this information in the book.

People who are regular targets of hostile language need to know that it isn't okay for people to speak to them like that, and that all the diffusion skills in the world don't make it so that hostile language isn't abusive. It would be nice if the author at least acknowledged this and included a section that advises the help of a professional, or even educates on basic boundary-setting.

I like where this book is going. I think it needs to be more robust. As someone socialized as female in an emotionally abusive household, I have been using these kinds of techniques for most of my life without knowing it. They work, and they keep situations from escalating *in the moment.* I'm not sure that they offer any longer-term solutions, or ideas for when to tell that simply always diffusing a situation isn't enough.

[أحمد حلمي · Rating 3 out of 5]

#ريفيو_كتاب_كيف_تختلف_مع_الآخر_دون_أن_تكون_مجادلا

المؤلفة:سوزيت هاديت إلجين
دار النشر:مكتبة جرير
عدد الصفحات:218ص

مادة الكتاب:
هذا الكتاب يتحدث عن اللغة العنيفة في الحوار وخطاب الكراهية واللغة العدائية ويلقي الضوء على لغات الجدال بمناقشة وسيناريو لكل فصل في قمة الابداع فهو كتاب يجعل المحاور يعبر عن أراءه من خلال الفن المهذب ودون جدال.

في كل باب يطرح الموضوع بطريقة سؤال ثم تبدا المناقشة وكيفية الارتقاء فى الحديث...فهو كتاب يتألف من ثلاثة أجزاء:
الجزء الأول(مقدمة وفصلين)نظرة عامة للمشكلة ( اللغة العدائية)مع عرض المصطلحات والمفاهيم الاساسية،ثم بعد ذلك ينتقل إلي السؤالين الأولين:هل اللغة العدائية سيئة ؟وهل ضرورية؟

أما عن الجزء الثاني من الكتاب يتكلم عن الأساس الذي يجب وضعه إذا أردنا ان نزيل اللغة العدائية من حديثنا ومحاورتنا،وكذلك يطرح سؤال لماذا يستخدم الناس اللغة العدائية؟
وبعد ذلك يقدم معلومات هامة جدا بها يتجنب المرء الاستجابة لتلك اللغة بطريقة انفعالية تغذي العداء وتزيد الامور سوءا.
وفي فصول الجزء الثاني الكثير من المهارات في الاستماع وغيره من ��وة التعبيرات المجازية في تشكيل أفكارنا وسلوكنا...

الجزء الثالث (الأساليب)يقدم مجموعة من البدائل البسيطة والعملية للغة العدائية-أنماطا ومهارات يمكننا استخدامها لنقل كل رسائلنا السلبية الضرورثة بدون رجوع إلي اللغة العدائية.

في هذا الكتاب تجد الانطباع المنتشر آلان وهو ان النوع(الذكر والأنثي)يلعب دورا مهما فى اللغة العدائية وان ثمة شيئا خاصا فى التواصل المشترك بين الجنسين يتطلب أهتمامنا،يناقش الكتاب هذه القضية بطريقة جديدة.

الكتاب به الكثير من الحكايات والامثال،فأسلوب الكاتبة تذكرنى باسلوب ديل كارنيجي

وفي نهاية الكتاب قائمة مراجع مفصلة للمصادر الأصلية ومصادر لمعلومات إضافية.

#مميزات
أظن موضوع الكتاب وطريقته وطرحه تكفي في ان تجعله مميزا.

#العيواب:
الحشو وكثير من الأمثال التي ربما تشتت القارئ الغير منتبه قليلا.

تقيمى:5/3.5
نصيحة للقارئ:هذا الكتاب معالجة للتعليقات والخطابات السلبية المتعلقة ببعض امور الحياة والانضباط...

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its a lot like her other books but it has some new stuff in it I enjoyed.

[Dylan Kochan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good tips/observations I will be applying!

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The format of the book prevented me from getting to deeply into it.
The repeated use of lengthy conversations and anecdotes turned me off.
The author also promoted some strategies that seemed unrealistic, scripted, and not abstract enough.
Perhaps there is good information here that I missed, but I have enough work to do to implement "Nonviolent Communication"s recommendations to spend too much time digging here

[Bonnie Jane Wyatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely valuable information

Great ideas, a wonderful read. The lack of editing makes this book difficult to read. I have read other books by this author, and they helped me improve my communication skills.

[MAHMOUD A.SHAHEEN · Rating 3 out of 5]

لو امكن للقارئ الحصول علي ملخص لهذا الكتاب يكون افضل لان نسبة المادة المهمة والفعالة في الكتاب مقارنة بالمواقف والامثلة والحوارات تكاد تكون ضئيلة ومشتته للقراءة
افكار الكتاب من الممكن ان تتلخص في ورقتين فقط

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s great to see common scenarios broken down and analyzed for you.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! Great insights, techniques and tips. Short book but lots of value.

[Sarah S · Rating 4 out of 5]

(library mini-review)
What's your goal? Do you want to make something happen or do you just want to "win"--no matter what the cost? Learn to make (needed) negative comments and respond to them without increasing hostility.

[Candyg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this very helpful in my personal development early on in my career. Very good tips for both men and women.

[Jeremiah John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book is amusing unless you actually are stuck in situations where people are insane. Definitely helps one understand how to communicate better if one relates to the title.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book I read years ago and then forgot all about. In fact, since then, I've even learned how to AGREE in a disagreeable manner.

[Rosemary W · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book to recommend to someone who has a tone-deaf ear to human interactions. I've used some of the items suggested and they worked well for me.

[DDog · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expect this will be a very useful book. There are several people in my life with whom I get sucked into hostile loops and having some tools for building more peaceful conversations.

[Patti Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very helpful book, especially for those of us who are not as sensitive to confrontation. Provides insight and tips for softening our approach.

[Kazango · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good content. The Kindle edition (which I read) is a disaster of un-proofread OCR, though. They left the print index sans page numbers but also without hyperlinks...what is the point of that?

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts by defining abusive language and describing the harm that it causes.
Then presents techniques for giving someone bad news without being abusive about it.
Worth reading.

[Ferran Barcelona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent text about psychology.
Recomendación de Victoriano.