Disagreeing respectfully

Watching today’s talk shows has become difficult for me. They seem to orchestrate conflict purely for entertaining our sensation muscle. I meanwhile hardly watch them anymore and find myself missing the days of Alfred Biolek’s insightful, respectful talk show format—those who grew up like me in Germany in the '80s and '90s may remember it.

"Respectfully disagreeing" seems to have almost disappeared today. What happens when people with opposing political views are brought together to discuss? Most of us - myself included - would expect conflict, clashes, and even deeper divides. Perhaps this is one reason why many people try to avoid such interactions.

It was a surprise to me to learn that the opposite is true. In a recent experiment (from Luiza A. Santos et al. still in publication), opponents were brought together to discuss political topics they disagreed on. Surprisingly, participants rated the experience more positively than expected. Pre-measured dislike of each other decreased by 20%. Even without the goal of reaching consensus, empathy and respect for each other increased because the face-to-face meeting was able to stop the typical dehumanization of the other side that increases polarization.

The skill of disagreeing respectfully can be cultivated. Of course, not every conversation will be able to resolve conflicts. But avoiding interaction might actually worsen polarization, feeding our negativity bias and the dehuminaziation of the other side. That’s why Neuroscientist Jamil Zaki, author of Hope for Cynics, outlines four principles of respectful disagreement, that – according to research – is capable to lower polarization effects:

1. Ask questions instead of making statements. Example:“What makes you think that [specific topic] will lead to [specific outcome]?”
2. Move beyond people’s opinions to their personal stories.
   Example: “Why is this important to you?” or simply “Tell me more”. Often, shared values or experiences emerge in the purpose behind people’s opinions. By understanding their underlying motivations, we can empathize with their perspective and find common ground.
3. Seek and acknowledge common ground.
   Most discussions emphasize on differences with the aim that one argument at some stage will beat the other. Only by exploring the reasons behind a viewpoint, we might discover shared intentions. For example, a project manager may reject a particular delivery date set by a steering committee. Asking for the 'why' behind this might reveal that the intention is to ensure a certain quality of output. This reflects a commitment to excellence that a steering committee may share and opens up a common space for agreements.
4. Distinguish between opinions and facts.
   It helps to be clear about what is personal opinion and what is referenced fact. It prevents the presentation of assumptions as facts from leading to incorrect conclusions. For example, a colleague in your coffee corner talks about a recent management decision to allocate significant funding to a particular innovation project, which he considers far too risky and excessive. Questioning the details of this decisions may reveal that the investment would be spread over three years, and will only be effective if certain goals of the project are achieved.

These principles help to move from ‘Yes,but’ to true dialogue. In both peace work and business, true dialogue creates a foundation for mutual understanding and at a later stage shared commitment and responsibility. Embracing these principles of respectful disagreement fosters what I call a "mutual listening experience" - something I've found to be an important ingredient for teams moving from a "yes, but" competition of arguments to a genuine dialogue that allows common ground to be found.

Building a culture of respectful disagreement. Enabling a culture of respectful disagreement, the ability to disagree in a face-to-face situation, is probably the first step. But given that most of our conversations are channeled through some kind of pre-programmed process or digital function, I think we also need to build respectful disagreement into structures and systems. Living in Switzerland, one of the world’s oldest and most participatory democracies, I see e.g. how respectful disagreement can be built into the political system. Every citizen has the right to initiate a referendum on issues they disagree with, provided they collect enough signatures. In that vein, I believe we need more ideas how to design interventions and mechanisms for encouraging respectful disagreement – for more depolarization, peace and partnering for innovation to be successful! Thanks for sharing your ideas on that here, or with me directly.