Quick answer
The closest matches are Crucial Conversations and Difficult Conversations, which turn hard talks into a step-by-step method, and Getting to Yes, which separates what people demand from the interests behind it, much as Rosenberg separates strategies from needs. Further down the list are Rosenberg’s own teacher, a Zen monk, a couples therapist and an FBI hostage negotiator who uses empathy to win.
8 books to read after Nonviolent Communication
Crucial ConversationsClosest match
Written by the four co-founders of the training company VitalSmarts, this business self-help book covers conversations in which stakes are high, opinions differ and emotions run strong. It has been revised in 2012 and 2022.
Why read itLike Rosenberg, the authors treat a tense exchange as a skill that can be broken into steps and practised, rather than a matter of temperament.
Difficult ConversationsClosest match
Three members of the Harvard Negotiation Project argue that every difficult conversation is really three: the ‘what happened’ conversation, the feelings conversation and the identity conversation. The book shows how to handle each.
Why read itIts feelings conversation does the work of Rosenberg’s second step: it insists that emotions be named rather than smuggled into accusations.
Getting to Yes
The founding text of ‘principled negotiation’ from the Harvard Negotiation Project: separate the people from the problem, focus on interests rather than positions, invent options for mutual gain and use objective criteria. It also introduced the BATNA, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement.
Why read itIts split between a position and the interest behind it closely mirrors Rosenberg’s split between a strategy and the need it serves, and it came first.
On Becoming a Person
Subtitled ‘A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy’, this collection sets out Rogers’s person-centred approach, built on empathic understanding, unconditional positive regard and congruence between the real self and the ideal self.
Why read itRosenberg studied under Rogers at the University of Wisconsin; this is where the empathic listening at the centre of Nonviolent Communication comes from.
Hold Me Tight
The clinical psychologist who co-developed Emotionally Focused Therapy builds the book around seven guided conversations for couples, starting with recognising the ‘Demon Dialogues’ that trap partners in the same fight. Its premise is that partners are emotionally attached to and dependent on each other.
Why read itBoth books hold that a quarrel is usually a disguised plea for connection, and both teach people to say the plea out loud.
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames
The Vietnamese Zen teacher, who died in 2022, offers Buddhist practices for meeting one’s own anger and for repairing relationships with others. Deep listening, which he promoted as a nonviolent answer to conflict, is central.
Why read itRosenberg starts with the words people choose; Thich Nhat Hanh starts with the attention behind them. Read together, they show the inner and outer halves of the same practice.
The Courage to Be Disliked
Written as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, this Japanese bestseller introduces the psychology of Alfred Adler. It argues that people can shape their own lives, free from past experience and other people’s expectations; the English edition followed in 2017.
Why read itWhere Rosenberg asks readers to attend closely to other people’s needs, the philosopher here argues that what others think of you is their task, not yours: a useful counterweight.
Never Split the Difference
A former FBI chief international hostage negotiator, who worked more than 150 international hostage cases before retiring in 2007, adapts crisis-negotiation techniques for business and everyday bargaining.
Why read itIt complicates Rosenberg: Voss also listens for feelings and reflects them back, but as a tactic for getting what he wants, which raises the question of when empathy stops being connection and becomes leverage.
Frequently asked questions about books like Nonviolent Communication
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More from the shelf
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