About the Difficult Conversations Project

The Difficult Conversations Project is an initiative to help people engage in the kind of dialogues that can actually heal divisions and strengthen relationships — allowing us to work together on the many challenges of our time.

The initiative was born following a one-month conversation road tour I took with my son in January, 2017 to better understand our nation’s divide. The conversations we had affirmed for us the unifying power of dialogue, when we have the skills we need to work through the inevitable conflicts and emotions that arise.

The workshop — Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together — was launched in the summer of 2017 to help people gain those skills.

Since then I’ve led the workshop more than a hundred times with people who span our nation’s rich social, political, racial and ethnic diversity. Encouraged by the consistently enthusiastic response to the workshop, I’ve turned it into a book to extend the reach and depth of its central concepts.