A Nation of Strangers
Part II of an essay about what divides us — and what can unite us
by Gerald Zaltman, Olson Zaltman and Harvard Business School
Part I of this essay addressed how minds operate and how, to an extent, we are wired to allow thoughts encountered in the news, at political events, in personal conversations, and elsewhere to make their way into our unconscious thinking as “facts” and how those “facts” can become deeply entrenched.
Part II: Opening Minds
A few conversation prompts are introduced here to facilitate discussing a topic on which you and others in a discussion disagree. The intent is not to resolve a conflict or negotiate an acceptable compromise or to convince someone you are right and they are not. There are other, established procedures for those actions. What is aimed for here is a preliminary step, which remains a worthy end in itself: the respectful sharing of positions. In the end, all of you involved may remain far apart. However, it is quite likely each other’s thinking will seem less foreign and your feelings of “strangerhood” less pronounced.
To set the stage for your conversations let’s review a few conditions and expectations.
· Civility. Conversations require civility — courtesy and tolerance. Like the aquarium in a dentist’s office, civility reduces anxiety. It facilitates appraising and reappraising what is true and false, which may in turn modify how and what we think. However, the intent is simply to make it easier for everyone to learn more about each other’s thoughts and lessen feelings of strangerhood.
· Reciprocity. Everyone should be afforded the opportunity to express their thinking and have it heard in a respectful, open manner.
· Openness.Although it’s not always in evidence, I believe the capacity for openness is widespread. It is rooted in two basic human qualities: curiosity and the need to know. Building on these two qualities requires effort, and waiting for the results takes patience.
· Acknowledgment of Feelings. Expect strong feelings during discussions. After all, thinking can be deeply personal. Our thinking defines who we are. When we are challenged, it is natural and even healthy to have defensive and/or combative feelings. Experiencing these feelings can provide valuable self-insight. However, they can also be contagious. So, guard against an argument-is-warmentality in which you see another’s ideas as positions to be obliterated and arguments to shoot down.
· Intransigents. Finally, there are people who are not curious and who don’t care about civility or having constructive discussions. There are no magic wands to wave to remedy this. I don’t suggest persisting for very long with such folks. Fortunately, they are not nearly as numerous as opinion polls, video clips of political rallies, and coffee shop interviews by newscasters might suggest.
Guardrails
Guardrails are restrictions to consider when forming judgments, making decisions, and taking action. They arise from laws, custom, and personal codes of conduct. They help keep us from going too far or not far enough. Lack of guardrails can lead to chaos, while too many can stifle freedom.
Some guardrails are formal and explicit, like budgets, which are guardrails for spending. With some guardrails, there is a degree of flexibility. For instance, test scores are a guardrail in college admissions, but the admissions committee has the freedom to determine what weight should be given to the scores — introducing flexibility. Similarly, a judge has discretion within a set of guidelines (guardrails) when sentencing a convicted felon. Guardrails may be openly debated — and are, whether in setting budgets, establishing what should be taught in schools, or determining at what level social welfare nets should be set.
Guardrails may also be unconscious. For example, we often use automatic and, when asked, hard-to-explain criteria when judging if someone is trustworthy. Because so much thinking occurs below awareness, an approaching or actual violation of a guardrail may be required to make us aware it exists — something that makes us say, “When I heard about that, an alarm bell suddenly went off in my head.”
Being Different Yet Similar
Two guardrails should be kept top of mind when discussing differences in opinions and beliefs. A very simple example will illustrate them. Like the nakedness of the emperor in the story of the emperor’s new clothes, these guardrails are very obvious when pointed out, but are often pointedly ignored.
Guardrail 1. Acknowledge that people differ.
Some people love strawberry ice cream, others hate it — that’s just a fact of life. No amount of argument or intervention will change it. People’s opinions on social issues — our concern here — may be more malleable, but change comes slowly. You are likely to continue to differ during your discussions.
Guardrail 2. Acknowledge that people share similarities.
When people do differ, it is with respect to a deeper, underlying common denominator which is the yardstick against which we measure differences. It is important to seek out this common denominator. Going beyond conflicting thoughts about strawberry ice cream is likely to reveal an underlying agreement about the importance in life of a tasty treat. Knowing this common ground exists — tasty treats have an important role in life — makes it easier to share disagreements about a specific treat.
These two guardrails present a paradox, but not a contradiction. The presence of one does not preclude the other. Differences between people, however, are easy to spot whereas finding the more important, shared values from which surface-level differences emerge requires effort. Surface-level differences also cause a wariness that makes people unwilling to persevere in seeking out shared beliefs. Guardrail 2 is important because it helps us keep a shared common goal or value in mind while trying to understand different ways of achieving it.
Conversation Prompts
The following prompts can help people who come together for conversation achieve a deeper understanding of their own and one another’s thinking. They are illustrative and not meant to exclude others. Those introduced here should be expressed in your own way. How would you would state them to help stimulate fruitful discussion?
Prompt 1. Where do You Stand?
Imagine you’re talking with friends, and the topic of a nursing strike at the nearby hospital comes up. The conversation is animated — but it’s a subject you haven’t thought much about. You don’t have a firmly established opinion. Should you sit this one out? On the contrary:such conversations are an important source of learning. Your lack of familiarity with an issue may actually give you greater license to ask challenging questions. This is “constructive naivete,” and I encourage using it.
Sometimes, however, unconscious values and forgotten experiences lead us to a specific position on a topic without our being aware of the process. For instance, you’ve undoubtedly experienced a situation where you are asked about a topic you don’t recall thinking about. Your initial response might be, “Hmm. I haven’t really thought about that before.” However, you then proceed to comment anyway and discover you do have strong feelings about the topic after all.
In these situations, it is helpful to pause before jumping in and consider the following question:
What side am I on, and do I know it?
Unsurprisingly, we possess many facts, opinions, and beliefs that we’re unaware of. This hidden trove of facts and feelings leads us to take sides on an issue without conscious deliberation. This happened to me recently when a friend asked for my thoughts about an idea I had not encountered before. I surprised myself by proceeding to list a number of detailed, one-sided thoughts about it. It would have been more constructive for both of us if I had waited a moment or two and thought:
· Have I already taken a position?
· If so, am I clear on what it is and what it is not?
Again, the absence of a clear stance is a legitimate position to have since it is impossible to be well informed on most topics. This should not keep you from joining a conversation with people who are more informed. Active listening and constructive questioning is a worthy role in a conversation. However, be prepared to discover you do have a stance after all, and if you do, make an effort to gain clarity about it.
Prompt 2. The Best Opposing Argument
A constructive conversation starter for people who are in disagreement is this question:
What is the soundest argument those who disagree with you have for their position?
This way of beginning a discussion increases openness in the ensuing exchanges. It also makes easier to follow Guardrail 2, which encourages finding shared beliefs that lie below conflicting ideas.
When someone genuinely feels there is no sound opposing argument, questions like these can help:
What evidence, if it did exist, could lend at least some support to the arguments you disagree with?
Or
What information would you have to see, as unlikely as it may be that such information exists, that would cause you to say, “You do have a point”?
Infrequently, a situation arises when someone cannot honestly imagine any such evidence. This may occur when strong religious beliefs, for example, are associated with a position. Persisting with something like this helps:
Okay. Let’s be really creative. As improbable as it may be, what do you imagine suddenly being uncovered that would lend a hint of support to the most frequent argument you hear from them? Don’t be reluctant to speculate wildly.
The beachhead of flexibility such question establishes will carry over into the subsequent conversation.
Prompt 3. Knowledge Disavowal and Premortems
All of us sometimes feel that we know enough about something to know we don’t want to know more. Hence, we hear phrases like, “Let sleeping dogs lie,” “Ignorance is bliss,” and “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” These folk sayings help us justify not investigating something further. Knowing more might require an unpleasant action or one that may not matter in the end. “So, why bother?” we say to ourselves.
Knowledge disavowal also takes the form of “plausible deniability.” In this case a leader is informed about a matter, but only up to a certain point. That way, he or she can deny having sufficient information to be held accountable. “Avoidance of disconfirming evidence” is another form of knowledge disavowal. Here, our existing frameworks and mental models mentioned in Part I keep us away from information that might contradict our thinking. We don’t like to be wrong, so we avoid exposure to information suggesting we are in error.
Knowledge disavowal is a challenge. It works against Guardrail 1, because if we avoid information that troubles us, we’re less likely to come in contact with people who think differently from us. This is a problem in the other direction, too: if we avoid people who think differently and the information they use, we avoid the discomfort of having our opinions and beliefs questioned. I call this “information dodgeball.” We avoid being “hit” by evidence against our position. (www.geraldzaltman.com/readers-corner/) We silently think, “Who needs it? Not me. I’ve got what I need.”
This raises the idea of a premortem. If a postmortem is an analysis of an event after it happens to determine what went wrong, a premortem is a preemptive analysis before the event. It involves asking how decisions or actions might be ill-advised before they are taken. Let’s say you’re thinking of buying your neighbor’s car, which she’s offering to sell you very cheaply. In a premortem, you imagine what might possibly go wrong if you do, assess the risks, and correct for them if possible.
When we’re dealing with ideas, a premortem makes the possibility of disconfirming evidence more salient and creates a greater openness to hearing such information later in a discussion.
In a premortem, each participant describes their view of the most likely positive and negative outcomes if (1) their position prevails and (2) if the opposing position prevail. The prompts might be like this:
Let’s say your position is correct and is acted upon. What is the most beneficial result that would occur? What is the most harmful thing that could happen?
Now, let’s say your position is put into effect but turns out to be in error. What consequences are most likely to arise or what problems would you most likely have fix?
Does the information you are using address these questions? Is that information available?
To take an example, what are the consequences of acting on the judgment that humans are a major cause of climate change? What are the consequences of acting on that judgment if it is wrong? What are the consequences of acting on a judgment that humans do notcontribute to climate change, both if that judgment is correct and if it is wrong? Do the consequences in all cases have their own unique effects? Are the consequences of being wrong easier or harder to fix in one case than the other?
Prompt 4. Assumptions
When using conversation prompts, be attentive to assumptions. Assumptions are automatic, unspoken judgments or positions. Since they generally live below our conscious awareness, we tend to accept them as true with little if any critical examination. They are also numerous. Assumptions often carry some reasonable likelihood of being wrong. As the saying goes, “It is not what you know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know that ain’t so.”
When identifying and then challenging assumptions, either your own or someone else’s, the goal is not to trip up someone or to avoid being tripped up by others. Instead, in the spirit of openness and satisfying your need to know or understand, the goal is to learn more about your own and others’ thinking. Think of it as a process of scouting out a terrain, looking for interesting, important, and previously unseen features. It is not a process in which you are setting traps.
Assumptions are found in many corners of a disputed issue. Try asking yourself the following:
· Who is most affected by your position on the issue? By the opposing position being argued?
· Who stands to gain and lose depending on which position prevails?
· Whose position is given the most attention?
· What sources of information are most/least reliable regarding the issue?
· How clearly defined is the problem being solved? Whose problem is it?
· How does the way a solution is implemented impact its effectiveness?
Exploring these questions is enlightening. You may identify some assumptions that appear obvious, while others may seem absurd. Still others may spur you to think more deeply. These can be likened to the answer to a riddle or the punchline of a joke: they are attention-getting surprises that redirect our attention in unanticipated ways.
Part II Summary
Part II began with conditions that encourage the exchange of ideas: civility, reciprocity, openness, and acknowledgment of uncomfortable feelings when challenged. It was also noted that some people are just not curious and have little need to understand how they and others think. Conversations here are unlikely to be productive.
Two guardrails were introduced to keep in mind during conversations. The first is an acknowledgment that people differ. We are not clones of one another in our thinking. People’s differences on important issues is a source of learning and a basis for improving social policies. The second guardrail is an acknowledgment that even when people differ, they usually do so with respect to important shared values and beliefs.For instance, different state governments have different laws on child adoption procedures, voting registration, gambling, etc., and the residents of the various states may have wildly differing opinions on those laws. But all states and nearly all their residents agree that it is important to have and follow laws and to have procedures for changing them. Without this fundamental agreement on respect for the law, life would be chaotic.
The guardrails should be kept top of mind when having conversations with family, friends, coworkers, and strangers. Several prompts for more constructive conversations were introduced to facilitate sharing and understanding each other’s thinking about a contentious matter. The first prompt is intended as a self-check, asking if you have taken a position on an issue without realizing it. The second asks you and a conversation partner to describe what you feel is the other’s best argument. The third explores the tendency to avoid disconfirming evidence and encourages us to imagine the consequences of both the success and failure of own and an opposing position. The last prompt addresses the importance of identifying hidden assumptions. Such assumptions may reveal further differences. They may also reveal deep, shared commonalities.
Conclusion
This essay is intended for anyone concerned about a growing estrangement in thinking between themselves and others they respect and care about on issues of great importance to society. It is not an essay about converting others to our positions. It simply suggests that better conversations are possible and offers some guidelines for increasing mutual understanding. The mutual benefit that will arise from that understanding includes the establishment of necessary groundwork for resolving conflicts, negotiating compromise solutions, or even gaining converts.
Note to Readers: This document draws from many published sources and critical reading by colleagues. Readers are encouraged to consult Gerald Zaltman, Unlocked: Keys to Improve Your Thinking (Amazon, 2018). The author may be contacted at gzaltman@olsonzaltman.com.
Gerald Zaltman is founding parter at Olson Zaltman and the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at the Harvard Business School.
