“If you want to reduce the temperature of a conversation, just reduce that tempo. Start by lowering your volume, slowing your pace, and that can be really effective. Another thing you we have found so helpful and I think is so central to enter the conversation, is to really try and get yourself to a place where you realize the other person isn’t wrong, they’re rational. So often we make judgments and we bring those judgments to the conversation.”

Watch the complete interview with Emily Gregory, coauthor of Crucial Conversations, here.