Successfully navigating a difficult conversation is as important a skill as keyboarding. It is your route to moving your ideas and your mission forward. So, why do important conversations so often go off the rails?  

During important conversations, your bodily responses get involved. Facts fade away and the goal changes from moving the mission forward to “winning” the conversation.  

But we have choices. In these moments, we can be disciplined and use methods proven to advance the mission and protect relationships, or we can crash and burn but “win” our short-term point.