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We all run into difficult conversations at work, even when we try to avoid them. Indeed, avoiding them will often result in a more difficult conversation later, because emotions have been building and an explosion is triggered.

Because two people are involved, it seems impossible for us to avoid such conversations degenerating into totally unpalatable affairs. But communications specialist Holly Weeks insists that we can reset the course of a toxic conversation unilaterally. Even though you can't control what your counterpart will say, you can steer the conversation to decent results.

Difficult conversations have three basic traits. The first is a combat mentality: We treat them as battles in which there will be winners and losers. And we want to be a winner, so we seek to trample our counterpart (except we don't view him or her as a counterpart, but as an opponent). The conversation becomes a battleground, which is the prime reason for the lasting damage such conversations precipitate.

Difficult conversations also carry heavier emotional loads than normal conversations, notably anger, embarrassment, anxiety or fear. And those emotions get in the way.

Finally, in difficult conversations it's hard to understand what is happening. "It's hard to read the other side's intentions. And it's hard to tell how our counterpart is taking what we say, and then how he feels in reaction," she writes in Failure To Communicate.

The key to avoid falling into turmoil, she says, is respect. That comes in three forms: Self respect, respect for our counterpart, and a healthy respect for the problem that the conversation itself poses to you.

Self-respect helps brace us against the pull of our emotions. It helps us to stay away from self-righteousness, and to see that it's in our interest to move the conversation forward effectively. It's important to have self-respect, because we probably won't be sensing much respect from our conversational counterpart.

Yet, even if the other party isn't showing respect for you, it's vital that you respect them. "Respect for them is vital because disrespect takes such a toll on reputations and relationships. Respect for our counterparts is a strong advantage to us. It's not a gift to them, and it's not contingent on their respecting us in return," she stresses.

Finally, instead of seeing the other person as responsible for the problem, you must focus on the conversation itself as the problem that must be dealt with. Rather than charge ahead, you need to step back, and think of the lay of the land.

"Three-way respect takes us away from the combat mentality, lightens the emotional load of tough conversations, and allows for differences between perceptions and intentions on both sides," she explains.

As well, we have to avoid an either-or confrontational attitude. The tendency in combat is to go to extremes. Instead, she suggest you seek balance — a middle ground that opens up new options.

You also need to develop a strategy for the conversation — either before it occurs, or as soon as you are enmeshed in the discussion if it arises unexpectedly.

First, work out a preferred outcome — where you hope to go with this conversation. That helps you to retain forward motion and protects you from aiming for an unrealistic outcome.

Second, you must imagine a preferred working relationship with your counterpart. Sharing with the other person how important to you a good working relationship is and how you want it to look can keep the two of you from skidding into fierce combat.

Finally, determine what is interfering with that working relationship. "Notice the slant that the two categories together — preferred working relationship and interference — put on our strategy. They ask not what is amiss between us and our counterpart, but between us and our own preference," she says.

Early in the book, Ms. Weeks says any book on difficult conversations must be simple so that you can apply it in the heat of the moment. Her book fails that test. It has many sensible ideas — I have given only a taste of them — and wonderful examples that she keeps coming back to as she adds new insights. But simple it isn't. I certainly understand difficult conversations better after reading it and might fare slightly better with the next one, but without the time to skim through her book before each sentence of such a confrontation, I'm not willing to bet the results will be as preferred.

Also noted: If you prefer fiction to non-fiction to stir your thinking on business, Robert Coles, a retired professor of social ethics at Harvard University, and literary agent Albert LaFarge have collected classic writing in Minding the Store: Great Writing about Business from Tolstoy to Now (The New Press, 303 pages, $28.50). The compilation includes works by luminaries such as Raymond Carver, Joseph Heller, Franz Kafka, John Updike, Flannery O'Conner, Leo Tolstoy, and, of course, an almost-obligatory excerpt from Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman. While it's great writing, as the book title promises, it is not really in most cases great writing about business, with the connection often tangential, and fiction being fiction, the dramatic slant seems to present business as solely composed of con men and cheats (the few selections of non-fiction in it are no more flattering). There is one story that works particularly well, however: John O'Hara's The Hardware Man, which confronts us with a story of a young, energetic entrepreneur triumphing over an older hardware store owner who refuses to change, until at the end, we are forced to revise our thinking. The collection was part of a course by Prof. Coles intended to get business students to think about life, but Questions of Character, by Harvard Business School Professor Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr., published three years ago, does that better, exploring eight provocative themes through literature.

Just In: 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade (McGraw-Hill, 304 pages, $31.95) by public relations executive Richard Laermer promises you a time machine to the future as he picks out some important trends to profit from.

Marketing consultant Martin Lindstrom explores the factors influencing our purchase decisions in Buy·ology (Doubleday, 240 page, $27.95)

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