Episode 138 - Listen To This If… You Want to Disagree with Someone Effectively

Transcript

Jen (00:00:10)

Welcome to another episode of Listen to This If, from us, the team at Let's Talk SciComm. I'm Jen, and as always, I am here with the wonderful Dr. Michael Wheeler. And in these episodes, we tackle just one thing that you may be managing at the moment in your incredible science communication endeavors.

And Michael, today I think we've got quite a curly one. Today, we want to talk about how do you manage disagreements effectively? So we're imagining that whether it's somebody who is vaccine hesitant or denying climate change or whatever it is, it doesn't need to be something as big and controversial as that. But if you do need to disagree with somebody, how do we do that in an effective, respectful, productive way? Because we don't all have to agree, right? You and I don't always agree on what the best breakfast is. Let's be clear.

Michael (00:01:04)

Yeah well... It's definitely eggs, scrambled eggs.

Jen (00:01:08)

But in summer, some fruit, some yogurt.

Michael (00:01:12)

Okay, let's agree to disagree.

Jen (00:01:16)

Let's.

Michael (00:01:16)

But yeah, you're right. I mean, you know, we all have those encounters from time to time. Maybe it's, you know, Christmas Day and it's cranky uncle or whoever it might be.

Yeah, look, I think that a good mind frame to have is that you're not going to change someone's mind. But maybe it's important to open their eyes to a different perspective. And you're not necessarily going to change their mind with facts.

But if you make it okay for them to maybe think about an alternative perspective, I think maybe that's the best that you can hope for. And I think what you can do to make it [a] bit less confrontational is to let them know like you've heard what their point of view is and maybe repeat that back to them or paraphrase it.

Then maybe ask them for permission to share an alternative view. And all of that just gets them thinking, Okay, you know, I've been listened to. Okay, they're going to share an alternative view. You know, it gives them a little bit of time to prepare for it. And then share, you know, your opinion. And try and focus on the ideas, not the person.

Jen (00:02:32)

Yeah.

Michael (00:02:32)

Yeah. What do you think?

Jen (00:02:34)

I think that's all really good advice. And, you know, it sounds like that is a way of modelling really respectful discourse, which I think is important. And I think the last thing you said is probably one of the most important things to keep in mind. You know, is the disagreement over an idea? So kind of facts, in which case you probably can have quite a productive, respectful conversation doing exactly what you said. Acknowledging their position, trying to understand why they think that and gently kind of exploring some other options.

But being really clear, if the thing you're disagreeing about is not so much ideas, but rather deep-held values or even identity, you might just have to accept that you are never going to agree and they're, you know... having a respectful, useful conversation might be great.

But if the thing you're disagreeing on is fundamental to this person's identity, I kind of think no matter how great and effective a communicator you are, it's unlikely that you're going to change their mind. At which point I think you really need to think about how is this conversation going to make the other person feel? And how do I want things to be between me and this person after this encounter or this discussion? You know, it's having ongoing mutual trust and respect actually more important than agreeing on this thing.

Because no one... You know, you're never going to agree with everybody in the world. And maybe actually, it's important to have an ongoing healthy relationship with this person rather than work, work, work, try, try so hard to agree with them because that just may never happen.

And so I sort of think we need to ask ourselves, you know, what does "winning" in inverted commas look like in this interaction? Maybe you don't need to be right. Maybe you don't need to win. Maybe you don't need the other person to in this imaginary scenario turn around and say, "Oh, Jen, I've never, ever thought about it that way. Clearly you're right. And I've rethought my whole position". Like that's not going to happen.

So what would winning look like? Winning might just be we explored a little bit. We interrogated each of our experiences. We realised that we're never going to see this thing the same way but we've come out of it still respecting one another and being able to have an ongoing relationship with one another.

But I think it's tricky, because you don't want to just want to say, step back and say, "Well, you know, no one's ever going to be convinced about the science here, so I won't even try". So I think this is really nuanced. And yeah, we've got to think about what end point is acceptable rather than necessarily ideal, because the ideal outcome from your point of view may actually be impossible.

Michael (00:05:23)

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that's really good advice. And it is tricky. It is, it is very tricky.

Sometimes you, you know, the temptation is just to change the topic as well, you know. And maybe that's an okay option. But maybe it's not. I don't know, if you have an opportunity to kind of anticipate these interactions beforehand, that might also be helpful. And then you can kind of think about, Okay, what am I going to do if, you know, if we start talking about this topic?

Jen (00:05:54)

Yeah, but I think this is a real opportunity to learn about ourselves, learn about other people, learn about their motivations, really improve our own communication skills.

I don't think shying away from disagreement is the right approach. We just have to bear in mind what the possible outcomes could be and be prepared to work with something that is a bit murky, a whole lot of grey areas, potentially a bit messy.

But that's what being human is I think. So we wish you all the best with your tricky conversations and yeah, seeing them as an opportunity for us all to learn.

Michael (00:06:27)

Yep. Great advice. Good luck.

Michael (00:06:36)

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And also a big thank you to our production team, Steven Tang and Madeleine Kelly.