We have many, many, many different goals in any conversation, and generally people don't think of what their goals are.

And then as soon as they hear something they disagree with, they jump into persuasion and forget all their other goals.

The importance of knowing what your goals are and recognizing that persuasion is the one you're the least likely to accomplish.

So unless it's incredibly important to you that you persuade this person right now, probably reach for something else.

Other thing is that you can state your own goals explicitly, irrespective of what the other person is trying to do.

If you want to learn and they want to do something else, you don't need to fall into their

trap. You can drive your own side of the conversation and have the experience you want to have

as long as you're clear on your goals and you don't get sucked in.

Receptiveness, I think as you say, like the biggest fear of seeking to understand people seeking

to be receptive is that you're going to get taken advantage of.

You're going to lose ground that somehow because you're trying to understand it.

And I don't think that's typically what happens.

Nevertheless, pairing it with the other side of it and having a skill for really asking the other side, for them to approach with some receptiveness, increases the chance that you want, is going to feel this sense of one way, weirdness in the communication.

Welcome, everybody. I'm your host, Greg McEwen, and today's guest is someone whose work feels so urgent.

And also, I would say, quietly transformative. Dr. Julia Minson is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School

and a pioneering behavioral scientist, although that

doesn't quite capture the full range of her work. And what she has spent decades developing

insight into is disagreement. And as soon as you hear that, you'll know, well, of course,

this is relevant in a world that's one in five people in the United States admit having stopped

communicating with a family member or close friend because of polarization. I mean, that's just one

statistic,

but we can sense it. All of us can. And she's written a new timely book, How to Disagree Better.

...