The Art of Manliness - Getting Along Is Overrated

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast a lot of people

00:00:11.640 really dislike conflict and have a low opinion of it they're uncomfortable with disagreements

00:00:15.540 at the office think there's no room for contention at church worry that fighting with their partner

00:00:19.520 means the relationship is destined to dissolve and generally feel that heated arguments tear

00:00:23.320 communities apart my guest today ian leslie used to be one of these conflict diverse people but as

00:00:28.240 he discovered in researching his new book conflicted how productive disagreements lead to better 0.97

00:00:32.220 outcomes conflict not only brings us together the lack of it he says just plain makes us stupider 0.90

00:00:37.280 ian unpacks some of the myths around difficult conversations such as the idea they have to be 0.75

00:00:40.940 done in a strictly rational unemotional way to be fruitful and he offers ways to approach conflict

00:00:45.360 that'll make it more productive especially remembering to prioritize the relationship

00:00:49.200 above all after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash conflict

00:00:58.240 all right ian leslie welcome to the show thank you brett very good to be here so you got a book

00:01:11.360 out called conflicted how productive disagreements lead to better outcomes i'm curious how did you

00:01:17.280 take a deep dive into the nature of social conflict well you know i i think like a lot of things we can

00:01:25.180 blame twitter for it i my last book was about curiosity and i was looking for i guess another

00:01:32.940 aspect of human nature that i thought hadn't been fully investigated or not not in a really interesting

00:01:41.060 way and as i was thinking about this i was both observing and then sometimes participating in 0.78

00:01:48.760 really stupid toxic arguments on twitter kind of futile bickering and again i think that really is

00:01:59.300 what brought it to mind i was thinking there's so much bad argument out there why is that and what can 0.98

00:02:04.740 we do about it and i felt it particularly because i'm a pretty conflict averse person myself i actually

00:02:10.640 try and stay out of conflict or direct disagreement or at least i did but the more i looked into it the

00:02:16.920 more i thought and more i kind of researched this topic the more i came to think that actually

00:02:21.340 the problem is not that we have an excess of disagreement it's actually the opposite the

00:02:27.700 problem is people like me the the problem is that people like me see all this uh the kind of top of

00:02:35.620 the iceberg that the the toxic stuff on social media and on on tv and we think wow this just confirms

00:02:43.180 what i thought which is that disagreement and argument is really something uh to be avoided

00:02:47.340 and i'll do anything if i can to do so but what happens when you do that is you make yourself a little

00:02:56.040 bit stupider to be blunt um you know conflict is one well really the central way disagreement is kind of 0.56

00:03:04.380 the central way in which we do our thinking collaboratively and it's also something as we'll talk 0.97

00:03:11.060 about that that i think brings us together ultimately even if it puts stress on relationships

00:03:14.940 in the meantime so we can't do without it we might pretend we might think we can we might try and avoid

00:03:20.040 it but actually when we try and avoid it things just get worse yeah we'll dig into some of the

00:03:24.280 benefits the surprising benefits of disagreement and conflict a lot of it's counterintuitive from

00:03:29.500 popular advice out there but before we do i think people that do have this in general hunch that okay

00:03:33.700 through disagreement you can do sort of the synthesis right where you can get a new idea

00:03:39.300 and so that's why we we go into debates with that idea it never turns out that way because it becomes

00:03:45.900 acrimonious like you said like twitter is a perfect example and so we think okay to make these debates

00:03:51.380 more productive or these conflicts more productive we got to use some certain techniques and approaches

00:03:57.380 so it's more rational what are some of these popular approaches that people typically take to make

00:04:03.080 sort of corral debate and discussion and conflict and then why don't they usually work well i mean one

00:04:10.700 of them is is just to as you indicated is to become extremely rational is to say look we're going to

00:04:17.260 discuss this let's take all the emotion out of it let's model our discussion on a kind of oxford

00:04:23.680 seminar or something where we just talk about the facts and we talk about reason step by step and that

00:04:29.200 is really first of all it's kind of implausible i mean your emotions are nearly always invested in

00:04:36.880 what you're the point you're arguing to some extent and as much as you try and suppress them they find

00:04:41.900 their way out and people can can sense it right but secondly it's just in a way it's naive because

00:04:48.160 actually your emotions help you to do thinking right we we think with our emotions as well as our faculty

00:04:54.720 of reason and this has been demonstrated many times in different ways by cognitive scientists

00:04:59.520 neuroscientists and so on and philosophers talked about this you know david hume said reason is the

00:05:05.680 slave of the passions and and it should be because when you're emotional you you actually you drive

00:05:12.700 yourself to come up with better answers and and better arguments so i i don't think that taking emotion

00:05:18.080 of it is is a wise idea nor do i think you know falling back on a kind of very strict series of rules

00:05:26.200 about going step by step you know taking one point at a time all this stuff can be useful in in certain

00:05:33.480 limited contexts but for the most part i think you have to go with the grain of human nature rather than

00:05:39.680 against it all right so this idea of you can take emotion out of a debate that will solve it that's

00:05:45.040 naive and plausible and actually you you make the case and we can talk about this later as we go

00:05:49.400 throughout our discussion it makes discussion or debate kind of impotent kind of limp and it takes

00:05:54.520 some yeah yeah but another thing you you make a point you make about conflict that people often

00:06:00.960 overlook conflict isn't often over facts it's usually about a relationship can you flesh that out a

00:06:08.900 little bit more for us what you mean by that yeah so if you talk to communication scientists

00:06:14.020 psychologists who kind of study communication conversation they they will tell you in in and i'm

00:06:21.260 putting it in kind of very simple terms but there are there are fundamentally always two channels of

00:06:26.680 communication that are open during any tense conversation actually any conversation but they

00:06:31.980 become very apparent when there's some sort of conflict at stake one is the content channel and

00:06:39.540 that's the kind of the content is the thing that we are ostensibly arguing about right right we're

00:06:45.600 arguing about you know who should be running the country or for a home you know we're arguing about

00:06:51.260 who should take the trash out whatever it is that's the content of the of the disagreement and then

00:06:55.880 there's this other level which is actually not verbalized most of the time not articulated but it's the

00:07:02.940 relationship level and that's kind of going on underneath right sort of submerged and that's about what i think

00:07:08.900 about you and what you think about me do you like me do you respect me i'm thinking that and you're

00:07:14.140 thinking that or if it's a group of people we're all thinking that to some extent right and until that

00:07:20.840 relationship level is settled in some way then the the content level is going to be disrupted

00:07:27.400 and it will kind of go off the rails and often when arguments disagreements go wrong

00:07:33.520 and the participants are thinking wow this is going badly you know why is he being so crazy or why is he

00:07:40.600 being irrational why is he not listening to me why is he so sullen why is she being so sullen whatever 0.78

00:07:45.020 it is it's always because there's some unsettled dispute at that kind of invisible

00:07:50.820 relationship level and you need to get to that first and this is where you know the smart

00:07:56.420 disagreeer somebody who's skilled at productive disagreement productive conflict this is what they're good at

00:08:01.820 they're very good at being attentive to that relationship level and working out ways to fix it

00:08:06.440 when it needs fixing once it's fixed and you have a kind of mutually satisfactory relationship in the

00:08:12.240 conversation then you can really get into the content level and have a really vigorous disagreement

00:08:17.180 because nobody is feeling slighted put out ignored and so on so just bearing in mind those those two

00:08:23.340 levels i think is really important yeah i mean i think people will see this in relationships like

00:08:27.520 marital relationships when couples argue about something like you know cleaning out the egg pan

00:08:32.880 after you finish it it's really not about the egg pan it's just about a mutual it's about respect

00:08:38.880 basically i mean i would say more that it's about both and it's always about both at the same time

00:08:45.280 and you kind of have to keep your eye on on both and when people have studied this

00:08:51.580 you know i hate to be kind of to conform to or to confirm stereotypes but it is more often than not

00:09:00.740 the men who are not paying attention to the relationship level of an argument and only focusing

00:09:07.300 on the content so they'll they'll they're usually the ones thinking oh well i'm just being very rational

00:09:13.400 and focusing on the thing that we're arguing about why is she getting so upset and and meanwhile

00:09:18.120 the woman is actually paying attention to the relationship level and she's saying you know why 1.00

00:09:22.920 is he being patronizing to me or why is he bossing me around or why is he not recognizing how much work

00:09:27.560 i do in in this household you know there's some underlying thing going on here that she's attentive 0.94

00:09:31.620 to and the man's not and you get that imbalance now one of the interesting things about that line of

00:09:36.800 research is that it's not that men are hardwired you know to in inverted commas to only focus on the

00:09:44.220 content level because actually when they're given an incentive to do so they actually give the man

00:09:48.960 money to pay attention to it they can do it perfectly well it's just that they're not motivated to do it

00:09:54.640 most of the time and you see that in other contexts too often the person who's on the kind of wrong end of

00:10:00.360 a power imbalance is the person who's really paying attention to that more emotional relationship

00:10:05.620 level and the person who's not is just kind of looking at the surface content level okay so i think two

00:10:12.000 takeaways so far we've gotten is that when you're in a conflict or a discussion that's

00:10:16.160 conflicted don't discount emotions don't discount the relationships you got to keep those two things

00:10:21.740 in mind it's not just about facts and we'll talk about how some advice or i'm not going to call them

00:10:27.440 techniques but principles that you can use to use your emotions in your relationships to make conflict

00:10:35.200 more productive but before we do i think a lot of people have this feeling that you had looking at

00:10:41.060 twitter i mean they look at it and they're like man this this is just terrible i get into these debates

00:10:47.120 no one changes their mind everyone's angry this was not useful this was not a productive use of time

00:10:53.860 and i think what you talked about you know that we don't always have a strong relationship or any

00:10:59.100 relationship with the people we engage with online is part of the reason for that and then another

00:11:04.860 thing you talk about in the book that i thought was really interesting and that i think can help us

00:11:09.660 understand why online arguments are so unproductive is this idea of high context and low context and

00:11:18.160 online communication is primarily low context can you can you flesh that out for us yeah it's a

00:11:24.180 distinction from anthropology they talk about it in terms of countries and and sort of global cultures

00:11:30.240 but actually you can apply it in in all sorts of ways but but let me explain explain it through that

00:11:35.140 lens so they would say these are two types of communication culture a high context communication

00:11:41.700 culture is an example would be china or japan usually kind of the asian countries are more high

00:11:47.960 context and what that means is the con the social context in which you're in does a lot of the talking

00:11:55.020 for you so a conversation around you know a boardroom table in japan you you would find compared to

00:12:02.000 to a western boardroom there's there's less kind of verbalizing of people's opinions people are

00:12:08.600 really kind of express themselves much closer according to the roles everybody has in the room

00:12:13.960 you don't have to say much everything is said obliquely and you don't really kind of have direct

00:12:20.020 disagreements that's seen as very kind of gauche and rude and disruptive and that can work because

00:12:25.160 everybody understands the context everybody has a very kind of deep immersion in the the kind of

00:12:30.780 relatively homogenous culture of chinese boardroom in a western boardroom or western office or any

00:12:37.580 kind of like western context you have much lower context culture because you have you you know more

00:12:43.060 diverse groups of people from different cultural backgrounds different belief systems different

00:12:47.560 religions religions just different kind of like ways of behaving and speaking thrown together and 0.73

00:12:53.800 everybody has to articulate what they're saying they have that they have to kind of spell things out

00:12:58.960 right when you don't have all that context guiding you in terms of what you can say you actually have

00:13:04.160 to be more kind of articulate more verbal and that leads to the situation where you've got everybody

00:13:09.340 speaking their minds right and when everybody's speaking their minds you're bound to have more

00:13:13.100 clashes of opinion and by the way you know nobody's saying high context is better than low context or vice

00:13:18.500 versa that's completely beside the point these are just two ways of communicating but the the low context

00:13:25.420 way will give rise to more disagreements because you've got yeah as i say lots of people speaking

00:13:30.960 their minds and lots of people kind of talking across purposes because they have kind of different ways

00:13:34.780 of understanding cultural norms now this is a long-term trend right as societies become more diverse and

00:13:42.180 people move to cities and all sorts of different people from different backgrounds meet each other at work

00:13:46.700 and so on but it's been accelerated and amplified by the internet because if you think about it

00:13:51.360 the internet and social media is like the ultimate low context culture you're just you're engaging with

00:13:57.880 and talking to and seeing people you have no idea who they are and all you have is to go on is these words

00:14:04.200 in a box right you have no kind of sense of uh it's very hard to intuitively understand where people are

00:14:10.680 coming from a lot of the time and so no wonder you have this all these kind of disagreements there's just so

00:14:15.560 much kind of you know dry tinder there for things to explode into into toxic conflict yeah with low context

00:14:22.220 online people are typically just responding to the most recent thing yeah and that just causes these flame wars

00:14:27.980 because like they're ignoring or they don't have they're not privy to all the other communication like the

00:14:33.400 unspoken norms that might be in that online social group i think people see this like on on reddits or like

00:14:39.500 you know some internet forms where there might be a community there where people have been together

00:14:44.140 talking to each other for a long time so they kind of they know each other they have some sort of

00:14:48.360 unspoken ground rules yeah and then a new person comes in yeah and that new person that you typically

00:14:53.560 don't go through the archives and see what everyone's been talking about you just throw something out

00:14:58.520 there and it's typically often inflammatory or it breaks this unspoken rule and everyone just gets upset

00:15:05.120 by it and then the person who did the initial bomb throwing is like well i don't know what the

00:15:08.780 problem is i just want to talk about this and exactly and it's because it's low context like

00:15:13.140 there's it's a low context communication medium exactly and so you know what that means is well

00:15:20.820 first of all it means social media is just always going to be hard for productive conflict right i don't

00:15:24.480 think there's a kind of answer to that i just think in a sense my art my suggestion to a lot of people

00:15:29.020 is don't get into too many conflicts on social media or over email whatever it is or

00:15:35.020 on slack you know try where you can to try and have your disagreements in person or over video

00:15:39.980 where you can get more kind of a richer sense of of the relationship channel right your richer sense

00:15:45.960 of the other person's background and context or you know where you are encountering people who are from

00:15:51.800 a different kind of micro culture it doesn't have to be a completely different culture but as you say

00:15:56.040 it can be just somebody coming into it to a forum where people have established norms and not

00:15:59.620 understanding them help them understand it quickly like get them up to speed on the rules don't just blame 0.96

00:16:03.940 them for being rude or stupid and so on just say look this is this is how we do things here 0.97

00:16:08.100 quickly try and establish some context where there is none we're going to take a quick break for your 0.99

00:16:12.980 word from our sponsors and now back to the show okay so you made this point you know when people

00:16:20.120 see conflict people who are conflict avoidant they're like i just don't i want to opt out i'm just

00:16:25.100 going to avoid conflict as much as possible but as you said earlier when you do that you miss out you

00:16:30.060 become stupider and then there's also you miss out on strengthening relationship through conflict 0.53

00:16:34.820 let's talk about this idea that conflict can actually strengthen relationships because this 0.99

00:16:38.720 seems counterintuitive it's like well conflict's the thing that separates people that's why people

00:16:43.320 get divorced all right it's conflict about an issue so how can conflict bring people closer

00:16:49.160 together it is counterintuitive and it's it kind of goes counter to our feelings about things

00:16:54.520 because disagreement direct disagreement with people is a little bit stressful it does put stress

00:17:00.140 on the relationship but i think about it in terms of exercise right i mean i i am not necessarily

00:17:06.840 enjoying myself when i go to the gym and i can feel uncomfortable and and and sometimes i'm in pain

00:17:13.720 but i i go back every week whatever it is because i know that actually the muscles grow back stronger

00:17:20.760 and and ultimately and it's same same with relationships they need some kind of stress

00:17:26.140 in order to grow back stronger there's a really interesting line of research from scientists who

00:17:31.260 study marital relationships or you know long-term couples where and and and in this field it used

00:17:37.600 to be thought the norm was that couples who argue a lot are the couples who who split up because

00:17:44.860 they'd look to couples who split up and they said did you argue a lot and they said yes i mean actually

00:17:48.780 and they started doing more kind of sophisticated experiments of this they got a different story

00:17:53.440 and what they do is just briefly to explain you know the model of this research is they'll they'll

00:17:58.840 get couples into the lab and they'll say you know can you just discuss an issue of contention a long

00:18:06.620 running bone of contention in your relationship um we'll leave the room leave the camera on and you

00:18:11.260 two just talk about it and actually couples usually get into it pretty pretty quickly and and start

00:18:16.600 talking and kind of forget that the camera's on and and then they track the progress of that

00:18:22.640 relationship over the coming weeks months and years so these are kind of longitudinal studies

00:18:28.160 and what they have found this has really only become apparent over the last sort of 10 years

00:18:32.360 or so is that the couples who are quicker to rise to argument and and have quite often quite kind

00:18:38.560 of heated back and forth are the ones who are more likely to stay together over the long term

00:18:44.740 and to be happier and to have solved the the problems that they are discussing so number one

00:18:51.540 you know i just think that's hilarious and and and great you know some of my favorite couples are

00:18:57.340 are the ones who just really have no hesitation in kind of getting into it and having a big row but

00:19:02.220 still love each other right i i think that's kind of really interesting but also you know begs the

00:19:07.180 question what what is that what's going on there and when i asked one of the psychologists who run

00:19:12.800 these studies runs these studies about that she said conflict is information and what she meant by

00:19:20.000 that was when you're in an argument you're really learning about what the other person really thinks

00:19:26.480 and really feels right you're getting a little glimpse into their soul the veil of politeness or

00:19:33.980 just passivity is dropped and you say oh right wow i didn't realize you cared about that so much or

00:19:40.280 that's that's what you think is it my goodness right and in the moment it can be quite uncomfortable

00:19:45.440 and stressful but you're updating your model of your partner and it's a really important thing to do

00:19:51.460 because if you don't do that you have this stick with this model of your head of what your partner

00:19:54.860 is like you think you know them really well you know them better than they know themselves

00:19:57.880 five ten years down the line turns out they're completely different from the person you had in

00:20:02.280 your head and the relationship comes to an end so arguments and conflict are giving you information

00:20:07.640 about what your partner is thinking and feeling they're keeping you up to date on on their emotions

00:20:11.520 and ultimately bringing you closer together and that can showcase like how not arguing can cause

00:20:17.480 relationships to go south because you have all those emotions kind of seething beneath the surface

00:20:22.460 and there's a lot of resentment and then there might express itself in passive aggressiveness

00:20:27.340 yeah i mean so the psychologists and you know organizational psychologists look at this as

00:20:33.140 well right people who study workplaces and so on that they will talk about how different kinds of

00:20:38.540 aggression are productive in different ways you know depending on direct aggression versus indirect

00:20:44.040 conflict and so on the one form of conflict that nobody's found any benefits what for whatsoever

00:20:50.620 is passive aggression right passive aggression comes to no good it's corrosive and it's what

00:20:57.180 happens when disagreements and conflict aren't aired right the the disagreement the issue of contention

00:21:02.660 does not disappear it does not dissolve into the ether it is merely swept under the carpet it goes

00:21:09.160 underground and it and it kind of corrodes the the basis of of the relationship and whether it's

00:21:16.300 in a marriage or or in a workplace you you should really be trying to to minimize that and that

00:21:24.100 means having your getting used to having your disagreements out in the open and not feeling like

00:21:30.200 it is actually a huge terrible high stakes dramatic thing it's just the way we are it's the way we do

00:21:36.160 things and i think a key to making these like having a row with some your spouse or a kid or someone at

00:21:42.920 work is as long i think it's gotman as long as you avoid contempt like that will be fine because

00:21:48.360 as soon as you go into like i think you're little i think you're less than what you think you are i'm

00:21:52.400 going to call you names that's not going anywhere but if you can passionately argue without going

00:21:57.780 there it'll be productive yeah exactly and again it's that thing of you know trying to pay attention

00:22:04.380 to both things at once which is hard when when you're emotional and you're getting upset about

00:22:08.300 something but just keeping one part of your brain which is like what's going on with the

00:22:13.140 underlying relationship here are there things that i need him or her to know about what's going on

00:22:18.540 okay well let's let's try and air those but am i kind of pressing in areas that's just going to make

00:22:26.080 them feel kind of small or to make them feel crushed that's that's not that's not good and that's you

00:22:31.660 know that's not going to lead to a productive disagreement and it's not good for the relationship

00:22:34.960 so my advice is not to you know just have get it all out there and and and scream and have terrible

00:22:41.140 arguments it's more kind of you know try and secure the the good basis on which you can have

00:22:47.960 a good relationship basis for you to have arguments that kind of stick to the thing that you're meant

00:22:52.540 to be talking about all right so conflict can bring us together because it's a medium through

00:22:56.440 which we can gain more information about the person yeah i mean another a more blunt way of putting

00:23:00.740 it is it's how you learn the truth about the other person right it's when you speak truths to

00:23:04.720 each other well another benefit of conflict is it makes us smarter and this can this again this is

00:23:10.120 counterintuitive because i think a lot of people they get in debates online like i'm dumber what was

00:23:14.340 that that's from billy madison like we're all dumber from experiencing this uh conversation but you make

00:23:20.020 this in counterintuitive case that even unreasonable unreasonable positions we take in a debate actually

00:23:27.520 can make us smarter how does that happen yeah so it's often said that our way the problem with

00:23:34.160 disagreement is that we're we all have confirmation bias you know and we're all just motivated to make

00:23:39.600 the argument that we're making and and again it kind of goes back to this thing of and it just gets

00:23:44.120 emotional and nobody's kind of thinking rationally there's a grain of truth in that but it's not the

00:23:49.880 whole story because if you think about it if you are really strongly motivated to make a case there

00:23:57.960 was some emotional motivation for you to to make an argument to a larger extent you're going to make a

00:24:03.860 better argument because you're going to be working harder to think of of more reasons why you're

00:24:09.900 right to to pull up or to find information that that supports your case and to look for weaknesses in

00:24:16.960 the other person's argument right emotion is is the great motivator right and when we're working hard

00:24:23.260 at something we're more likely to be to be good at it so there is some benefit to to confirmation bias to

00:24:30.560 this feeling that i want to make this case because it's my case you know if you think about a

00:24:35.260 disagreement where the party's involved as soon as they hear a good counterpoint they go okay yeah

00:24:40.560 yeah right you're probably right what happens then okay not much i mean the the disagreement effectively

00:24:48.180 comes to an end because everyone's just too kind of calm and rational and nice and goes yeah yeah

00:24:52.560 you probably got a point really good productive kind of insightful disagreements come from people who tend

00:24:59.460 to be quite vigorously engaged in in in what they're arguing who have some kind of incentive to really

00:25:05.660 to really make the case and to take it maybe a little bit too far sometimes now of course if you take it

00:25:10.660 too far and you never back down you're completely inflexible that's not good either so but so we have to

00:25:15.820 kind of be somewhere in the middle here you have to kind of ride your biases learn to ride them you know

00:25:21.480 give them kind of some free reign um but don't let them control you but but don't shy away from from

00:25:28.140 you know having your heart in in the disagreement as well as your head yeah and you use a socratic

00:25:32.920 dialogue as a great example of people being unreasonable but allows you to get to a truth

00:25:38.020 right you know socrates often engaged with these interlocutors who were just like you could tell they

00:25:42.520 were they were just they were digging in their heels but through that process you're able to get

00:25:47.580 closer to you know trying to figure out what justice is that's right and socrates was actually

00:25:53.160 good at he he sort of underrated as an emotionally intelligent interlocutor you know he was good at

00:26:00.080 kind of managing his interlocutors responses you look at the dialogues there are moments where he is

00:26:04.600 effectively saying hey you know there's no you shouldn't get angry when i say this but let me put it

00:26:09.800 this way and he's kind of calming them down because even in athens at the time argument was seen as this

00:26:15.920 kind of zero-sum game of persuasion where you win or i win i persuade you to do something or you

00:26:21.740 persuade me to do something socrates was very innovative when he came along and said hey look

00:26:26.500 it doesn't have to be like that we we can all be in this as a collaborative endeavor what we're trying

00:26:30.980 to get at here is truth right so it doesn't matter if i'm right what matters is that we are right as a

00:26:37.460 group and the best way to get to truth is in discussion right so socrates understood something that i think

00:26:43.380 we've lost sight of to a certain extent which is that intelligence is collaborative it's it's

00:26:49.400 interactive we do our best thinking with other people even when we're thinking by ourselves

00:26:55.120 we we do our thinking often because we've internalized other voices you know we've been

00:26:59.820 reading or talking to people that disagree with us and now we kind of how we play out the argument

00:27:03.680 in our mind we put so much emphasis especially recently with the advent of neuroscience and fmri

00:27:09.960 scanners put so much emphasis on the individual brain what's going on in the brain what's the brain

00:27:15.540 doing that we forget that actually the process of reasoning and thinking debate is a social one

00:27:21.960 well i think you just brought another point this idea that with the the sophists in athens who their

00:27:26.800 whole their whole approach to this debate was someone has to win winner take all yeah i think a lot

00:27:32.220 of people today they have that approach to a conflict like there has to be a winner

00:27:35.540 and so with that mindset our typical approach to debate is on on persuasion like we read books

00:27:42.020 on persuasion yeah i mean how we could be more persuasive so we can show that this guy is wrong

00:27:46.740 i mean this is exactly like the the sophists like they use rhetoric right to to win arguments and

00:27:52.400 persuade people and then socrates comes along is that it doesn't have to be that way like we don't

00:27:56.700 have to we don't have to have debate or discussion like that there has doesn't have to be a winner

00:28:00.920 we can just have this conversation this conflict and hopefully get a little bit closer to the truth

00:28:06.260 so i guess i mean one takeaway too is just be more like socrates and less like the sophists

00:28:10.300 yeah absolutely and you know that's why he didn't write anything down you know

00:28:16.360 obviously writing has been a net boon for us as a civilization but when he was around it was

00:28:22.840 relatively new technology it was like you know i don't know the iphone or something like that you

00:28:28.320 know you kind of take it or leave it and he he didn't like it and the reason he didn't like it

00:28:32.880 is that it couldn't talk back to him you know you write something down on a page and it just kind of

00:28:37.160 sits there he really liked the idea that when you put a proposition forward somebody comes back and

00:28:41.900 tries to knock it down and you you say well yeah i disagree but i see i see your point here and you

00:28:47.080 move the conversation on and the kind of the thing kind of unfolds um but yeah he had to

00:28:52.580 really he was really introducing the whole idea of an intellectual inquiry to to to western

00:28:57.720 civilization that's what made him such a kind of great figure up until then as you say the process

00:29:03.020 of reasoning and debate was really about who wins who's going to come off best here in this battle

00:29:08.260 of wits and socrates his point was no actually we can use our reasoning for this other thing which

00:29:14.820 is getting to the to the truth together acting collaboratively all right so knowing that conflict

00:29:21.420 there's an emotional element that we i mean if we try to take it away that's probably futile

00:29:26.380 but it also we also make our debate less potent and then also knowing that conflict is about

00:29:32.200 relationships i want to talk about some of the the advice that you picked up based on research and

00:29:36.480 talking to experts on how you can have more productive conflict by taking these two factors

00:29:41.520 in mind so this idea in order to have a productive conflict with somebody you have to have this

00:29:46.020 relationship with trust where you can vigorously argue and disagree without harming the relationship

00:29:52.260 like how do you establish that trust and how do you allow how do you prevent the the debate from

00:29:58.280 harming the relationship in the process yeah so there's many different answers to that many

00:30:04.260 different kind of ways of thinking about it i talk about this principle of first connect often the

00:30:11.660 reason that a debate or disagreement goes wrong is that we get to the disagreement too quickly we kind

00:30:17.680 of go directly at it before we've really settled the relationship and you kind of got to do that

00:30:24.160 first before you get in there as you know for the book i talked to people who have really tough

00:30:32.140 conversations under very extreme conditions so i talked to hostage negotiators and terrorist

00:30:39.100 interrogators and divorce mediators therapists all sorts of things and this you know they all do it in

00:30:47.200 in different ways but this was the theme of the people who were really skilled at those jobs

00:30:51.940 what they're really skilled at is settling the relationship level before you get into

00:30:57.860 the really tough part so a hostage negotiator does not pick up the phone and say right how are we

00:31:03.780 going to get you down from this roof or how are we going to get the hostages out of this situation

00:31:08.800 they are trained the good ones that spend a few minutes going okay look i just want to say

00:31:14.640 thanks for for doing such a good job here you've stayed calm and we all appreciate that you know

00:31:20.460 you have the right intentions you know and whatever they can do to settle that person down to make them

00:31:28.620 feel a little bit more secure so in the relationship that they have with you that's going to be good for

00:31:35.360 when you get into the actual negotiation right but people are not going to be able to have a good

00:31:41.160 disagreement with you if they're feeling insecure threatened that's when they shut down or they get

00:31:45.760 really really aggressive same with interrogators you know i know you've had lawrence allison on the

00:31:50.680 show he's a brilliant academic who trains terrorist interrogators in britain and around the world

00:31:57.440 and one of the things he says is that bad interrogators are the ones who walk into the room and say

00:32:03.120 right you need to tell me what you know right that's that's going to shut the person down right

00:32:07.940 in a sense you're playing into their hands that they're prepared for that situation they just say

00:32:12.180 okay well i'm not going to say anything they're really skillful interrogators make a big deal out

00:32:17.720 of the the fact that you don't have to speak you know depends what your legal regime is but but you

00:32:23.300 know they'll say you have the right not to say anything you have the right to a lawyer and the fact

00:32:27.900 is i can't tell you what to do they can't tell you what nobody here can tell you what to do

00:32:32.700 it's up to you but listen i really want to hear your story because i'm really interested

00:32:37.280 and you have to be genuinely interested by the way you can't fake it but you know nine times out

00:32:43.240 of ten when they do that the person opens up these hardened terrorists who've been trained for this kind

00:32:49.160 of situation they really want to tell their story and and and your job is to first of all establish a

00:32:55.880 relationship with trust and second of all let them feel like it's their choice to speak and once you do

00:33:01.900 that you know people will open up so it's a kind of long answer to your question but there's several

00:33:07.400 different things going on here yeah i think lauren c calls it you know when you in a conflicted debate

00:33:12.260 or discussion with somebody you have to let go of the rope and not not try to control the person what

00:33:17.440 they think or feel yeah so you know probably the most frequent problem with a disagreement is that

00:33:23.500 it turns into a power struggle of some kind whether an overt one or a covert one well people are kind of

00:33:29.960 trying to establish their dominance obviously or subtly in the conversation and if you wanted to

00:33:37.380 go well you've got to do everything you can to stop that from from happening so as soon as you feel

00:33:42.320 the rope you know tauten into a kind of tug of war lawrence's suggestion is you know let go of it

00:33:50.280 and often terrorists or criminals who are being interrogated and who are used to it and are prepared

00:33:55.420 for it they will try and turn it into a tug of war so they'll do kind of disruptive things you know

00:34:00.640 their feet on the desk and and your instinct as an interrogator as a police officer or whatever is to

00:34:05.760 say get your feet off the desk no i don't want to get your feet off the desk no i don't want to

00:34:09.880 and it's just a you know it's a futile pointless diversion from the thing that you're meant to be doing

00:34:16.400 and lawrence's suggestion in that type of situation is yeah if you want your feet on the desk that's fine

00:34:21.200 well another point that lawrence makes is that even when someone is saying something that you

00:34:26.360 disagree with strongly or it just doesn't make sense to you instead of just dismissing them right

00:34:31.800 away what you want to do is approach them with a kind of intellectual empathy like where you take a

00:34:37.940 step back and try to figure out what's going on in their head and like why they care about something

00:34:44.200 the way they do and why they think you know why they're thinking the way they're thinking because

00:34:48.660 even when someone's position seems just irrational on the face if you listen to them there is sort of

00:34:55.920 a rationality going on to what they're thinking exactly right and and you know you see this with

00:35:02.680 your with your kids actually you know so you you can be very emotional about something and it seems 0.99

00:35:07.240 completely trivial to you and your temptation is to say oh don't be so stupid why would you get upset 0.99

00:35:13.620 about that thing often there's some deeper reason that they're getting upset about it it's connected 0.98

00:35:18.800 to some thing they really do feel deeply about that that does make sense but you can only get there by

00:35:25.140 by taking their initial point of view kind of seriously saying yeah tell well i can see you're

00:35:29.740 really upset about that and you know i want to hear more about it because as you say that the thing

00:35:35.180 that appears irrational might conceal some sort of deeper rational objection deeper disagreement that

00:35:41.700 actually kind of you know is interesting and is worth um discussing but you can only get there if

00:35:46.460 you are genuinely interested in and and why that person is thinking like that and feeling like that

00:35:51.160 and then when you do that you're establishing that trust and it opens up the person to your point of

00:35:56.800 view possibly yeah absolutely absolutely um so it becomes a kind of virtuous cycle so yeah i i think when

00:36:04.200 you're when you're really stuck in a disagreement you think well how can we even find any common ground here

00:36:09.240 then just switching into curiosity mode and saying you know okay i i can at least be interested in how

00:36:14.140 they got there is it it can get you into that that better kind of virtuous cycle yeah it sounds like

00:36:19.860 what you're doing is making the communication more high context right you're you're making unspoken

00:36:24.340 things explicit that's a great way of putting it and you know i i talked about high context cultures

00:36:30.840 and low context cultures in terms of china versus the u.s the west versus the east but look

00:36:36.600 every every conversation is a little culture you know we you and me or we have a little microculture

00:36:43.100 between us you know an agreed and unspoken kind of background set of norms about you know what what

00:36:48.980 what's acceptable and what's not what's interesting and what's not interesting and so your job in a

00:36:53.680 conversation that's a difficult conversation i think is is to try and help the other person understand

00:36:58.680 your culture and to try and understand their culture you know and it doesn't have to just mean

00:37:02.720 you know they're a christian and i'm a muslim or whatever it just means how's this person's well

00:37:07.040 how are they used to thinking and talking and how is it different from me and how can we kind

00:37:11.600 of move a little closer together there another thing you talk about in the book is establishing

00:37:16.780 boundaries for a conflict that make them more productive and this isn't you know using robert's

00:37:22.240 rules of order right but it is sort of having like a loose framework what can that framework

00:37:27.860 look like and how do you get people to agree on the the boundaries of a discussion or a conflict

00:37:33.160 well you know i i think that the the point about setting boundaries is that they can be very very

00:37:42.080 simple in fact one of the most simple ones is just no hostility so actually here's a here's a kind

00:37:50.560 of good real world example um you mentioned reddit earlier there's a great kind of subreddit called

00:37:56.120 change my view set up a few years ago and i and i talk about it in the book the point to change my

00:38:01.840 view is yeah you it's what it says on the tin really you go along and you say look here's a thing

00:38:07.640 something i've been thinking about here is my view on you know feminism whatever it is what what do 1.00

00:38:14.140 you think and i and i'm willing to be talked out of it and amazingly this this seemingly kind of

00:38:19.580 like this thing which is so antithetical to the spirit of social media has actually been very

00:38:23.680 successful and been hundreds of thousands of users and they just have a few very simple rules and then

00:38:29.240 they kind of closely monitor they have a set of quite a few moderators who monitor the debates make

00:38:33.980 sure these rules are followed and they also incentivize the people who follow them they kind

00:38:37.720 of give them badges so they're kind of gamifying it as well but the rules are very simple and and one 0.72

00:38:42.700 of them is you know just don't be hostile don't basically don't be a dick right you'd be amazed how far 0.56

00:38:47.780 that one goes another one is don't just repeat the same arguments over and over again right if if

00:38:55.060 somebody has come back with a counterpoint you have to address that counterpoint just kind of don't stick

00:38:58.960 to to where you are and if you do that you're you're breaking the rules and just being explicit about the

00:39:05.420 rules up top is something we just don't do very much you do it if you can do it at work right it

00:39:12.440 actually can go a long way say at work you know in this workplace we really value open disagreement

00:39:17.460 so we want people to do it a and b here's a few guidelines rules whatever you want to call them

00:39:23.500 to make it go better and this is this is our this is how we do things at our company you know hardly

00:39:28.820 ever happens but um but you know sometimes really good companies like netflix that that's how that's

00:39:34.560 how they operate right they put a great emphasis on on open disagreement and they set those principles

00:39:39.140 out very clearly and it goes a long way well we've talked about some some techniques i don't like

00:39:44.820 calling them techniques they're principles i'm gonna i like i like principles a little better

00:39:47.900 because i think technique is too life hacky yeah i agree and a discussion or debate is really fluid

00:39:53.020 and complex but like what's one thing that people can start doing today to have more productive

00:39:58.040 conflict is there like one thing that you found in all your research that provides a real big bang for

00:40:02.500 your buck well i i think as a kind of general the the as you say right there wasn't like a hack

00:40:09.120 that you can apply to everywhere there are principles and i think probably the most important

00:40:12.780 principle is to try and make the other person feel good about agreeing with you you know and actually

00:40:23.000 you know lower the stakes for them in terms of of coming around to your point of view and that

00:40:28.240 ultimately that means making them feel secure making them feel respected making them sure you know

00:40:33.620 making sure that they feel that you like them and so on if they don't feel any of those things

00:40:38.540 they are never going to have a productive disagreement with you so kind of keep your eye

00:40:45.360 on how the other person is feeling the more relaxed more comfortable in themselves they're feeling

00:40:49.000 that the more likely they are to get into a good disagreement with you well ian this has been a

00:40:54.520 great conversation is there some place people can go to learn more about the book in your work

00:40:57.540 sure i mean so the book is called conflicted so you can just google my name and conflicted it'll come

00:41:02.920 up go to my website which is ian-leslie.com and i'm on twitter for my sins at mr ian leslie so you

00:41:13.840 can come and see me there and watch me failing to follow any of the principles that i've just laid

00:41:18.380 out and getting into terrible disagreements online well ian thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:41:22.840 thank you so much brett really enjoyed it my guest today was ian leslie he's the author of the book

00:41:28.140 conflicted it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information

00:41:31.840 about his work at his website ian-leslie.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash conflict

00:41:37.480 where you can find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:41:40.100 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:42:41.980 you

The Art of Manliness - May 02, 2022

Getting Along Is Overrated

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