"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie [1] has some very interesting concepts, despite its terrible name, IMO. There are many takeaways but a couple are that people generally like hearing their name and enjoy talking about themselves.

Then there are two very similar, but IMO, complementary books, "Difficult Conversations" by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen [2], and "Crucial Conversations" by Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Kerry Patterson [3] which helped me learn to embrace being genuinely curious and accept + explain different, sometimes conflicting, emotions. It was especially helpful to help me deal with people who were very confrontational and tried to create conflict, and really difficult situations while conversing.

There have been some more books I've read, which I don't recall the titles for and don't even have notes for, but these 3 and "Never Split the Difference" you've mentioned were certainly the most interesting and helpful in this "area", to me.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-...

[3]: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-...

I hope that helps!

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-... Based on the description. I read this too and it was enlightening. So +1.

I would say both. If you had to pick one, go with DC. However, there were some things in CC that I didn't find elsewhere. As an example, it focuses on how a lot of people don't realize they're in a poor/tense conversation until it's too late, and it emphasizes the need to develop the skill to become aware of this.

OTOH, CC attempts to prescribe how to behave are pretty poor. I would not focus too much effort on emulating those.

At first read, all 3 sound like fairly different books. A year after I read them, I was going over all the notes I had made for them, and was surprised to find out that all 3 are mostly saying the same things.

As for the authors:

Difficult Conversations: https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-...

Crucial Conversations: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-...

NVC is just a tool. There are a number of them that accomplish the same or similar things using similar techniques and principles. Fundamentally, they are just tools for someone who actually wants to move the conversation forward. There are people who abuse the language for manipulation, and it comes across as insincere because they aren't actually trying to solve the problem at hand. I can name a few from my own past. NVC doesn't make people seem more or less selfish than they already are.

It's sort of like a programming language. It won't turn a shitty programmer into a good one, but it will turn a good programmer into a more situationally effective one. The hardest part isn't learning the programming language, it's becoming a better programmer.

The first lesson in the book I learned from, Crucial Conversations (https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-...), is to recognize when you are becoming emotionally driven (angry, defensive, etc.) and to step back from it. Another key lesson is to focus on identifying and solving the collective problem - the key point is that in the vast majority of cases, especially in the workplace, there is a formulation of the problem such that everyone is trying to solve it, but they are just disagreeing on how to approach it. In my own experience that's been consistently true.

These are both introspective processes of first getting yourself into the right mindset and then employing the communication tools. Learning to first be generous to other people was the hardest and also the most crucial change, whether or not I had communication tools to go with it.

Crucial Conversations - https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-...

Crucial Accountability - https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Accountability-Resolving-Expe...

Radical Candor - https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kim-Scott/dp/B01KTIEFE...

Boundaries - https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Updated-Expanded-When-Cont...