by Ian Leslie
Follett told businessmen that people usually respond to conflict, of any kind, in two ways, both of which are erroneous. One is that they seek victory – they try to dominate the other. That might be OK in a competition, but it doesn’t work in any situation where you need to work together. The other mistake is to compromise. Follett didn’t believe in bargaining, in meeting halfway. She believed that when two opposing ideas clash, the optimal solution is to create a third. ‘When two people arrive at a common decision, that decision is only really satisfactory if it represents an integration.’ Follett was writing at a time when Darwinism was heavily in the air. To her, the clash of views was a means of generation and variation.
Follett cherished human differences of any kind. Long before it became the buzzword it is today, it was the unprecedented diversity of the United States that excited her. Millions of immigrants were arriving on American shores every year, and there was a fierce debate over national identity. Follett disapproved of words like ‘fuse’, ‘melt’, or ‘assimilate’ because they implied that people had to give up their identities; mere tolerance was intolerable to her. She wanted any clash of different cultures to lead to ‘something new which neither side possesses’.
To Follett, differences of opinion should give birth to new thinking – to progress. That meant everyone being proud to hold their own opinions even as they listened to those of everyone else. She remarked:
A friend of mine said to me, ‘Open-mindedness is the whole thing, isn’t it?’ No it isn’t; it needs just as great a respect for your own view as for that of others, and a firm upholding of it until you are convinced. Mushy people are no more good at this than stubborn people.
Finding a new solution that meets the goals of both parties, she said, is an essentially creative task, requiring ‘brilliant inventiveness’. The first step to doing so is self-examination. It’s amazing how contemporary-sounding Follett is on this theme. To integrate differences of opinion truly, you must ‘put your cards on the table, face the real issue, uncover the conflict, bring the whole thing into the open’. Your ‘sub-articulate egoisms’ – things you can barely admit to yourself and what we might now call triggers – must be unearthed. You also, said Follett, have to listen to the other party – really listen – to hear the unspoken as well as the spoken. All this requires a kind of emotional honesty that managers today, let alone in the 1920s, find hard.
When I read Follett’s view of conflict it struck a resonant chord. The best disagreements, she showed me, neither reinforce nor eradicate a difference, but make something new out of it. Persuasion is a noble and necessary art, and I like it when I make someone think again, but my ultimate aim is not to get you to agree with me. I want your thinking to improve my thinking; your experience to modulate and enrich my own. I want us to disagree creatively: to make something new and better out of our diverse opinions than either of us could have conceived of alone. That way we both win.
As I write these words, the world is in the grip of a pandemic which has put most of our daily disagreements into humbling perspective, and served as a reminder of just how much energy we waste in futile argument. The best that can be said of it is that it represents a chance to reset entrenched habits of behaviour that have not been serving us as well as they might. I hope that can include the way we disagree.
It is often remarked that we humans must put our differences aside if we are to defeat our existential threats and face the future with justified optimism. I’m not sure that’s quite right. Yes, it is vital we recognise that we sink or swim together. But we must also put our differences to work. Without robust, honest, creative disagreement, any progress we make will be too slow, any unity we achieve superficial. Maybe there is something of which I want to persuade you, after all.
16. Rules of Productive Argument Summarised
First, connect
Before getting to the content of the disagreement, establish a relationship of trust.
Let go of the rope
To disagree well you have to give up on trying to control what the other person thinks and feels.
Give face
Disagreements become toxic when they become status battles. The skilful disagreer makes every effort to make their adversary feel good about themselves.
Check your weirdness
Behind many disagreements is a clash of cultures that seem strange to each other. Don’t assume that you are the normal one.
Get curious
The rush to judgement stops us listening and learning. Instead of trying to win the argument, try and be interested – and interesting.
Make wrong strong
Mistakes can be positive if you apologise rapidly and authentically. They enable you to show humility, which can strengthen the relationship and ease the conversation.
Disrupt the script
Hostile arguments get locked into simple and predictable patterns. To make the disagreement more productive, introduce novelty and variation. Be surprising.
Share constraints
Disagreement benefits from a set of agreed norms and boundaries that support self-expression. Rules create freedom.
Only get mad on purpose
No amount of theorising can fully prepare us for the emotional experience of a disagreement. Sometimes your worst adversary is yourself.
Golden rule: Be real
All rules are subordinate to the golden rule: make an honest human connection.
17. Toolkit of Productive Argument
# Define the disagreement. A surprising amount of disagreements are not disagreements at all but misunderstandings or antipathies in disguise. When you’re stuck in an unproductive argument, take a step back and ask, what precisely are we disagreeing about (if anything)?
# Seek out good disagreers. We are often advised to open our minds and our social media feeds to people who have different views from us. That’s fine in theory but in practice it can be counter-productive. What is crucial is to find people who say things you find objectionable in a way that makes you respect and like them.
# Feel the burn. For those of us who are not naturally confrontational, it’s always tempting to turn away from any conflict. But just as we learn to interpret the pain of exercise as a signal that we’re getting stronger, so we can learn to welcome the discomfort of a disagreement.
# Frame your opponents positively. You might have to fake it at first, but it always helps a conversation go well if you like and respect your interlocutor – and if they feel it. George Thompson, a former cop, used to say, ‘The moment they sense you dislike them, they can ignore what you say.’
# Feel the steel. It’s sometimes said that we should argue with the strongest case for the opposing view, not the weakest. Instead of a straw man, build a ‘steel man’. But this can’t just be an intellectual exercise. Let yourself feel the emotional force of the other side’s position – inhabit it somehow, if only partially and fleetingly.
# Beware reactance. People are fiercely defensive of their own agency and autonomy, and in a tense conversation, any attempt at correction can trigger a reaction. Psychologists call this ‘reactance’. It’s why the righting reflex is counter-productive and it’s behind the backfire effect. When primed for threats, people focus on the relationship signals and disregard the content. To be heard, you need to work harder at sending the right signals.
# Preview the disagreement. To avoid triggering a threat state in the other person by taking them unawares, let them know you’re about to disagree before getting into the disagreement. Acknowledge that you may be wrong and they may be right. This gives them a chance to adjust mentally before hearing you out (this can be particularly useful when disagreeing with a more powerful person).
# Resist negative reciprocation. When a person is aggressive or hostile or sarcastic towards us, our instinct is to reciprocate. If the conversation is to stand a chance of being productive, someone needs to break the circuit.
# Create a culture of positive
argument. Whether it’s at work, in a sports team or with your partner, make it normal for everyone to challenge decisions, speak up about doubts and address annoyances. When you’re used to tackling the small issues this way, the big ones are less likely to tear you apart.
# Reward dissenters. People who speak up in meetings to offer different views are often punished, albeit in subtle ways, for doing so. Leaders should make an effort to show they genuinely value challenges to a prevailing view, even when they disagree or overrule them.
# Don’t tell them what to do or how to feel. Never in the history of the world has anyone responded well to the imperative ‘Grow up’. As with all injunctions (‘Be reasonable’; ‘Calm down’) it simply annoys. Telling people how to behave, or worse, how to feel, nearly always backfires. Be alert to what’s behind the other person’s view: are you in an argument with their position or their emotion? If the latter, your clever arguments will not break the deadlock. Perhaps you need to acknowledge their underlying feelings.
# Be wary of ‘you’. In the midst of a disagreement, the word ‘you’ can trigger an identity threat in your interlocutor’s mind (‘You do this, you seem to think that . . .’) Although it’s not always possible to avoid it, use ‘you’ sparingly in tense conversations.
# Cut the ‘but’. As with ‘you’, it’s unlikely you will be able to eradicate ‘but’. But – hear me out – ‘but’ tends to snag on the other person’s defences. Just replacing it with ‘though’ can soften a sentence’s edge.
# Go to the heat. At the workplace, conflicts are often avoided nobody wants to confront them. But that allows tensions to fester. Leaders should be unembarrassed about acknowledging conflicts and they can organise meetings specifically to air them. Perhaps over beer.
# Lead with weakness. Often the other person feels as if you’re trying to dominate them or prove your superiority in some way (and, let’s face it, often you are). To allay that suspicion, show vulnerability, admit anxiety, confess uncertainty, even – or especially – if you’re in a position of authority. Unilaterally disarming is your best chance of getting others to lower their defences.
# Check for understanding. So if I’m hearing you right, what you’re saying is . . . The practice of checking in with your opposite number like this is good for both of you: you get clarity, and they are reassured that you’re listening. Done honestly, it can open up the conversation.
# Reverse the emotional polarity. It can be good to articulate your emotions directly in a disagreement, but to avoid escalation you can do so in a calm and even tone. Conversely, when discussing factual information, you can infuse some life and passion into it, so that you don’t sound like you’re holding forth from a chilly plateau of intellectual superiority.
# Spot the truth in the other’s mistake. Therapists dealing with delusional patients say that there is usually some kind of truth in the delusion, even if it’s just an emotional one, and that part of their job is to identify what it is. In arguments, when you’re encountering views with which you strongly disagree, make an effort to find a kernel of truth in what’s being said. At the very least it will help you respect your interlocutor.
# Stop trying to be right. Of course, we all love being right, but it’s a cheap satisfaction compared to learning about something or someone, and it often gets in the way. Try not to let the urge to win the argument dominate your attitude to the conversation. Conversely, nobody wants to be told they’re wrong, so if you first convey to the other person that they are in some way right they are more likely to be open to your point of view. After all, what matters is not that you are right, but that we are right.
# Acknowledge expertise. You shouldn’t always defer to experts, because sometimes experts are wrong. But when your interlocutor knows more than you about the topic at hand, either through experience or learning, it’s wise to start in the one-down position and acknowledge their epistemic authority. That way, you’re more likely to learn and they’re more likely to listen.
# Practise losing. I can’t put this any better than Stephen Llano, an associate professor of rhetoric at St John’s University in New York: ‘Losing an argument is a very important democratic art that we never practise. It’s vital that we learn how to live with our persuasive failures. There’s no great secret to it, just practice. The more time we spend arguing with one another in low-stakes situations, the better we will be when the situation calls for serious consideration.’
# Believe less. Outside of religious faith, believing is not an end in itself. People who enjoy believing tend to stop reflecting on why they believe what they believe. They also tend to lose the ability to listen to other views. The fewer beliefs you hold inviolate, the more cognitive freedom and empathy you have.
# Be sceptical of your own tribe. Nearly all of us are aligned with groups, formal or informal, who share a similar set of opinions. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when you follow the script of your group too closely, you surrender some of your own ability to think. That’s not good for you and ultimately it’s bad for the collective intelligence of your group, too. Use your disagreement skills to probe the beliefs of your own side, as well as those of the other.
# Don’t just correct – create. Following Mary Parker Follett, don’t simply try to impose your view, and don’t be satisfied with a compromise. Instead, seek out the integration: the alchemic reaction that occurs when opposing views collide and transform into something new. It’s not always possible, but it’s the prize.
Acknowledgements
This book is the product of many illuminating conversations and useful disagreements. My primary debt of thanks is to the practitioners and scholars who generously contributed their time, expertise and stories. They include Robert Agne, Ellis Amdur, Rob Bardsley, Emma Barrett, Teresa Bejan, Agnes Callard, Peter Coleman, Bill Donohue, Bertis Downs, Catarina Dutilh Novaes, Eleanor Fellowes, Clementine Goldszal, Ben Ho, Neil Janin, Steven Klein, Jeremy Lascelles, Terje Rød-Larsen, William Miller, Simon Napier-Bell, Mike O’Neill, Miriam Oostinga, Nickola Overall, Emmanuelle Peters, Gabrielle Rifkind, Jake Rollnick, Stephen Rollnick, Michelle Russell, Alan Sillars, Lloyd Smith, Nathan Smith, Elisa Sobo, Elizabeth Stokoe, Garry Tan, Paul Taylor, Kal Turnbull, Gregory Trevors, Bill Weger, Simon Wells, Jonathan Wender, Alfred Wilson, Warren Zanes. Thanks to Emily and Laurence Alison for sharing their work and their insights with me. Thanks to the Memphis police department, and to all the highly impressive officers who attended the Polis training and did not object to the presence of a weedy Englishman with a notebook. Thanks to Don Gulla and his team for their warmth and hospitality and for fascinating conversations over spare ribs and fried chicken. Special thanks to Susan Bro for talking to me, so eloquently, about the life and death of her remarkable daughter Heather Heyer.
Thank you to my agent Toby Mundy, who patiently helped me shape my inchoate thoughts into a viable book proposal. Thank you to everyone at Faber & Faber, especially Laura Hassan for her confidence in this book and her sustaining enthusiasm; Rowan Cope for the care and attentiveness she showed the manuscript, and for cracking the title; Marigold Atkey for her brilliant notes and moral support; Donald Sommerville for his assiduous copy edit. Thank you also to the highly professional team at HarperCollins, especially Hollis Heimbouch for positive energy and straight talk. I am lucky to have had an absurdly talented team of informal readers. Thank you, first of all, to the indispensable Stephen Brown, my emergency manuscript doctor: without you this book would not have made it out of its first draft alive, let alone become fit for publication. Thanks to Tom Stafford for science-checking a draft and for his helpful notes. Thank you to my brilliant friends Helen Lewis and Oliver Franklin-Wells and to Oli in particular for his notes on the opening chapter. Thank you to Jonathan Shainin and David Wolf of The Guardian, who commissioned and helped shape an article on interrogation which became the starting point for this book. Thanks to Teresa Bejan and Agnes Callard for reading and improving the chapters in which I cite the
ir work. All errors are my own.
Profound thanks to Clydette de Groot, Audrey Chapuis, and the marvellous team at the American Library in Paris. I am so grateful for the opportunity to take up a fellowship there – working on this book in Paris is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. The library and its community proved vital sources of inspiration. Thanks to Pamela Druckerman and Simon Kuper; to Simon in particular for pointing me to John Carlin’s book on Nelson Mandela. Thank you to the many friends, too many to mention here – also I’m scared of leaving someone out – who have talked through ideas, shared insights, or simply provided encouragement. Thank you to my mother Margaret and brother Stephen, who, along with my late father Bryan, grounded me in the arts of disagreement. Thank you to my children Io and Douglas, life; without you would contain fewer disagreements and yet be so much less agreeable. Thank you, finally, to my best editor and best friend, Alice Wignall, to whom I am lucky enough to be married. Alice, I love you and I look forward to many more arguments, productive and otherwise. Oh, and thanks for letting me take up that fellowship, it puts me for ever in your debt. You’ll always have Paris.
Bibliography
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Agne, Robert R., ‘Reframing Practices in Moral Conflict: Interaction Problems in the Negotiation Standoff at Waco’, Discourse and Society, 18 (5), 2007
Arnold, K., and Vakhrusheva, J., ‘Resist the negation reflex: minimising reactance in psychotherapy of delusions’, Psychosis, 8 (2), 2015