51 Books Like The Crossroads of Conflict

I recommend this book because it taught me that every hard conversation has three layers: what happened, what’s felt, and what that means to each person.

Before reading it, I often got stuck on the “facts” and missed the emotional undercurrent, especially for my communication partner.

Now, I approach challenging discussions with a mental checklist from Difficult Conversations that helps me listen for what’s beneath the words. It has saved me from countless misunderstandings and made me a much better listener and collaborator.

This book changed how I think about language, particularly during high-stakes conversations that involve ethics.

I didn’t just learn about nonviolent communication—I started noticing all the subtle ways judgment, blame, and assumptions creep into everyday communication. Rosenberg’s approach made me more curious and less reactive, which has been a gift in my professional and personal life.

When I apply the book’s principles, I feel like I’m speaking in a way that builds connection instead of walls. It’s not always easy or comfy, but it’s always worth it.

My mantra used to be, "Being in relationship is hard!" I thought that having a healthy relationship meant non-stop effort. What I didn't realize is that relationships become easier when you have the right skills. 

David Richo breaks down the necessary skills for effective relating in a way that honors your past, your humanity, and your compassion. Finding this book was like finding a key that unlocked happiness in my personal and business relationships. With thoughtful explanations and practical skill building, this is a must-read for those who are done suffering with painful relationship patterns.

The theme of this book is growing up and relating in a way that honors your own integrity.

Menakem is a relationship therapist and a long-time married person who promotes the idea of clean pain vs. dirty pain. Clean pain is doing the hard work of speaking what is true for you in your relationship. Dirty pain is blaming or manipulating your partner.

With a rare and rigorous honesty, I learned from this book that conflict is actually necessary for healthy relationships. 

Collaborative Divorce is not new, it has been around since the mid-1990s. It is an alternative to litigation when mediation is not going to be enough support. The core of the approach is respect, honesty, transparency, and concern for the entire family. Mediation and Collaborative Divorce are both confidential processes that avoid litigation but there are significant advantages to Collaborative Divorce. Mediation is with one neutral facilitator (mediator) but in a Collaborative Divorce, each person has their own specially trained attorney to guide them through the divorce. In addition, each person has their own divorce coach (sometimes just one neutral coach), and often a child specialist brings the voice of the children to the negotiations. This book describes how Collaborative Divorce works and will help readers decided whether this would be a good process choice for them. The goal is to help families avoid court and avoid ongoing conflict. The… show more.

Susan has helped a lot of people come together to work out their differences and achieve a common goal, even in the face of deeply-held conflicting values. She calls the kinds of processes she helps to design: civic fusion. Because she is a skilled mediator who has worked in all kinds of situations in many places, she is able to explain and illustrate how adding a “neutral” facilitator can overcome fundamental obstacles to agreement. The cases that she talks about, like a city that has gone bankrupt, thrown out its elected leaders and had to write a new charter to redefine the kind of democracy it wanted to be, actually pulled that off. 

She played a role in bringing together pro-life and pro-choice leaders for a private dialogue in which they were able to find common ground. Passion, power and conflict generate energy; Susan describes ways of channeling that energy… show more.

In contracting, lawyers are often the heavies that swoop in at the end of the negotiation with risk-averse and protective conditions that can delay or derail a strategic business relationship. This book is the top pick on my list because Kim Wright advocates for organizations (and lawyers themselves!) to make the shift to a holistic, problem-solving approach. I am a strong believer in a kinder, gentler legal involvement at the beginning of the negotiation designed to help contracting parties solve problems and issues jointly. Wright eloquently makes her case on why the shift is needed. After you read this book you too will see the need for the shift of focus away from traditional contracting paradigms.

While this book is written for lawyers, it is a must-read for anyone who is a professional negotiator. I love how this book stresses that traditional hard-bargaining negotiation tactics can lead to run. The book artfully makes the case that a lawyer should serve the client's interests rather than merely papering the deal or making sure the contract will win in court. I especially like the emphasis on the need to shift from conflict to collaboration and how Mnookin and his co-authors focus on not just negotiating the deal – but how to make a deal sustainable so it avoids a Pyrrhic victory. I was also glad to see the chapter on professional ethics – something many negotiators often overlook in their quest to get the best deal. 

It’s not either/or: You can get a good deal and improve your relationship with the other side, at the same time. I loved Getting to Yes when I first read it in Roger Fisher’s law school class, and I still love it today, because it taught me I could solve difficult problems or deal with difficult people, and do it in a principled way. Whether it is a transaction for a Fortune 500 company, negotiating for a raise, or working on an international boundary dispute, the concepts and tools are the same, and they don’t start by requiring the other side to lose. Whether you are a negotiation expert, or just starting out, start here.

This book provides good crisp and short distillations of what the field of negotiation theory and practice offers for practical advice in legal negotiation settings. It covers deception and candor, information sharing issues, cultural and communication issues in negotiation, dealing with clients and others, the new media of online and email negotiations, and particular issues relating to different kinds of negotiating relationships and contexts. Lots of useful advice for the practical negotiator, as well as for high-level diplomatic and even hostage negotiations. Very useful for its specificity on a range of issues. Useful even for non-lawyers!