Learn to Communicate Across Divides

Your book provides concrete instructions on how to engage with someone across a divide. What does that process look like?

The process starts well before you even sit down together, because you have to consider everything you know about the other person or group, think about what you want to accomplish and what it would take to get them to the table. You also have to prepare yourself emotionally, because dialogue on some subjects can be stressful.

When you discuss your disagreement, be patient, do a lot of listening and ask questions even when you’re dying to argue. Make strategic use of stories and emotionally resonant examples, which can often be more effective than facts and figures at helping people see things differently.

And finally, especially with big topics, you have to think long-term, considering ways to take baby steps toward where you want to be rather than expecting the other side to just suddenly agree with you on everything. And you’ve got to give yourself and the other side time to decompress, think about what was said, and learn from the process.

The basics aren’t that difficult, but putting it into practice can be. In the book, I spend a lot of time discussing five common barriers that tend to cause the process to stall and ways to move past them: ego protection, team loyalty, comfort, misinformation and worldview protection.

Your personal experience informs a lot of your expertise. How did you use that to develop your process?

I grew up in a devoutly evangelical home and discovered myself to be gay just as cultural tensions around faith and sexuality were rising in the 1990s. 

I spent years exploring ways to bridge a very difficult real-world divide in my own life. Every time I had a discussion that didn’t go well, I made a mental note of what had gone wrong and started thinking about how I could have handled it better. Bit by bit, I found myself getting better at having productive conversations that made a difference in my life and others’ lives, and over time, I started applying those same principles and techniques to other issues, like political disagreements or personal disputes.

I’ve been doing this now for about 30 years, so this book represents the lessons learned over many, many attempts at dialogue, good and bad.

Your personal experience informs a lot of your expertise. How did you use that to develop your process?

I grew up in a devoutly evangelical home and discovered myself to be gay just as cultural tensions around faith and sexuality were rising in the 1990s. 

I spent years exploring ways to bridge a very difficult real-world divide in my own life. Every time I had a discussion that didn’t go well, I made a mental note of what had gone wrong and started thinking about how I could have handled it better. Bit by bit, I found myself getting better at having productive conversations that made a difference in my life and others’ lives, and over time, I started applying those same principles and techniques to other issues, like political disagreements or personal disputes.

I’ve been doing this now for about 30 years, so this book represents the lessons learned over many, many attempts at dialogue, good and bad.

What advice do you have for folks who have to engage with defensive dialogue partners?

In our polarized world today, we get so used to thinking of people as either for us or against us and then approach them as if they’re evil or stupid for not being on our side.

It’s amazing, though, how powerful listening can be as a tool to get past this. I often give the example of customer service agents who have to deal with angry customers, many of whom are already yelling at them for things out of their control. Just taking a moment to listen and make those angry customers feel heard can go a long way toward calming them down and putting them in a better state of mind to listen in turn.

Similarly, when I’m talking to someone who seems very defensive from the beginning, my first thought is that they’ve probably had other people attack them for their view, so they’re starting out on defense before I’ve even said a word. What helps get past that defensiveness is holding my tongue and letting them speak first, then demonstrating to them that I’ve genuinely heard them. It’s amazing how much farther you can get when you recognize their feelings rather than jumping straight into telling them how awful you think they are.

What do you say to people who are disillusioned or unwilling to engage in dialogue with those who don’t agree with them?

A lot of times, people are skeptical that dialogue will do any good—sometimes for good reason! Not all dialogue is helpful dialogue.

I find that often, when people aren’t willing to dialogue, it’s because they’re fed up with unhelpful dialogue, such as dialogue that doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t accomplish anything, dialogue that asks them to abandon their principles, or dialogue that only delays needed action on an important issue. If that’s been someone’s experience with dialogue, no wonder they don’t want any more of that! I don’t want that kind of dialogue either.

I spend a lot of time discussing what it means to have helpful, strategic dialogue. I find that once people see ways that dialogue can help them advance their cause or find a real, workable way forward, they’re much more open to it.

Your book came out seven years ago but the topic is more salient than ever. How has the discussion on talking across divides changed in that time?

Late last year, I tweaked the text and added an author’s note for this year’s edition of the book, and I was pleased to find that there was very little I wanted to change! And that’s really no surprise, because we’re talking about principles that are as old as human conversation.

The big thing I see changing, though, is growing skepticism about whether we should even try to dialogue. Unfortunately, as we’ve become more polarized, a lot of folks have become convinced that there’s no use in trying to talk to the folks on the other side, because those people are either evil or stupid and talking to them will accomplish nothing.

I’m not advocating giving a public platform to every idea or remaining in dialogue forever with someone who isn’t willing to come to the table in good faith. But if we lose the will to dialogue at all, we’re in trouble as a society, because there are a lot of problems we can’t solve unless we work together. So somehow, despite our huge differences on very important issues, we have to find a way to talk to each other productively.