The most consequential challenges leaders face are rarely about strategy. They’re about people.
For more than 25 years, Triad has helped leaders handle the conversations and relationships that determine whether important work succeeds. Our frameworks are used by executives around the word, taught in leading MBA programs, and have helped shape the field itself.
Our Guiding Principles:
01We combine rigor with practicality.
Our work is grounded in decades of research, but it only matters if it works in your world. We adapt proven frameworks to the realities of your culture and business.
02We bring grounded authority and real curiosity.
We know the work deeply, but we don’t arrive assuming we know your answer. We listen hard, ask good questions, and create the conditions for people to engage honestly.
03We partner with empathy and candor.
We listen carefully, stay close to the work, and are willing to say the thing that may be hard to hear.
04We practice what we preach.
We ask for feedback, surface hard issues, and stay open to changing our own view. The same habits we help clients build shape how we work with them.
Our Story:
Built from, and for, the conversations that matter most.
1993
Doug Stone and Sheila Heen met at the Harvard Negotiation Project in 1993, working with negotiation icon Roger Fisher on how people negotiate, disagree, and make hard decisions.
Their pioneering approach was grounded in practice, always focused on a simple yet powerful question: what works? They taught, advised, and worked directly with people facing real problems—from executives to diplomats—and kept refining their approach to the conversations that matter most based on what actually helped real leaders solve real challenges.
1999
In 1999, Doug and Sheila, with Bruce Patton, published Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Now in its third edition, the New York Times bestseller still sells as strongly as it did when it first came out.
Their ideas had universal appeal and immediate impact. People started asking for help, and they founded Triad Consulting Group as a way to serve clients and communities. The firm grew mostly through word of mouth: “I think this can help.”
2014
We kept learning, and the work kept evolving. In 2014, Doug and Sheila published a second bestselling book, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, based on years of seeing where existing approaches to feedback—its own kind of difficult conversation—were falling short.
It introduced a simple but important shift: effective feedback is not only about how well it is given. The receiver has a role—if not the most important role—in the success of a feedback conversation.
Beyond the books, Triad’s work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, NPR’s Hidden Brain, The New York Times, The Tim Ferriss Show, Oprah and more.
Today
Today, Triad continues to build on our groundbreaking ideas with clients around the world. Our frameworks routinely shape global conversations on leadership, while evolving in real-time, shaped by new challenges and what we continue to learn from the people using them.
The core idea remains the same: how people handle the conversations that matter can change what happens next.
Hear us in conversation with leading thinkers.
It all starts with a conversation.
