Why it's so hard to listen when you disagree | Emily Kasriel

Elise Hu (0:03)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Being a human existing in proximity to other humans means that occasionally, you may find yourself in an argument. Your differences might be so fundamental that it feels impossible to reach understanding. You might also feel like the very act of listening to them means you're validating or endorsing the other person's beliefs.

According to journalist Emily Kasriel, this is where we go wrong.

Emily Kasriel (0:34)

The problem is that from an early age, we've been brought up to believe that listening means agreement, that listening signals obedience.

Elise Hu (0:43)

In her talk, she explains how we can be better listeners and that being a better listener doesn't mean you have to agree.

She's honed this through a multi-step practice called deep listening. Emily believes that in the midst of a political spat or divisive conversation, we can easily lose sight of our own triggers.

Emily Kasriel (1:03)

I lose myself?

I be forced to change my mind? I be changed? At a primal level, it can feel scary to open ourselves up to ideas which clash with our values. And the result? A world in which we think it's better, even more moral, to sidestep any encounters across divides.

Elise Hu (1:25)

According to Emily, we shouldn't be afraid of losing ourselves or our moral codes. We should be more concerned with losing our ability to connect, to form relationships across generations, cultures, and political divides. That's coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk of the day.

Emily Kasriel (1:54)

You know, there's something quite strange going on. Because most of us believe we should be better listeners. But as I found in my research, we find it so hard, especially when we disagree. There's a kind of psychological bug that gets in the way. We fear that if we listen to people whose ideas we find unpalatable, we'll be contaminated. Without realizing it, we've bought into a dangerous myth. Listening means agreeing. Listening means agreeing. So we avoid it. And instead, we fixate on trying to explain ourselves more loudly, more fiercely, more insistently. If only they'd understand. You know, I should know, because I threw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to understand one of Africa's most intriguing and powerful leaders, because I wasn't ready to listen. So let me tell you about a time when I was in Ethiopia reporting for the BBC at the start of my career. I'd landed an interview with its president and later prime minister, Melis Zunawi. I was so proud. This was my big scoop. But it was also a time when his opponents were tortured or disappeared. So the president, he was keen to talk about his record crop production of maize, of sorghum and barley, critical in the country with a history of famine. But I refused to listen, incessantly circling back to human rights. To be honest, my questions, they were masks for my desire to confront the president. And what did he do? He edged further and further away from me, behind his vast wooden desk, and then cut the interview early. You know, it wasn't so much that I was wrong to hold the president to account. That was essential. But my lack of curiosity and my inability to listen caused him to put up his defenses. And so I walked away empty-handed. And over the years, I've learned from my mistakes as a journalist and my work as an executive coach, and I've drawn on scholars, on psychologists and peace builders, and I've woven these ideas together into a book and an approach I call deep listening. Because the standard way we so often perform listening, it starves us of real connections. We struggle to engage with our co-workers, with our family. Just ask my own. Anyone from a different background or generation, anyone whose ideas conflict with our own. Now, you see, I think I'm rational, and my sense is that you think you're rational. But we're all driven by our judgments, by our emotions and our past clinging onto the moral high ground.

The problem is that from an early age, we've been brought up to believe that listening means agreement, that listening signals obedience. You know, I remember my first teacher yelling at me, listen to me. What she meant is, obey me, keep quiet, put those crayons away. Wasn't really an invitation to listen. It was a command to comply. And this muddling up of listening and agreement means that now as adults, we fear listening to people whose ideas might disturb us.

I lose myself?

I be forced to change my mind? I be changed? At a primal level, it can feel scary to open ourselves up to ideas which clash with our values. And the result? A world in which we think it's better, even more moral, to sidestep any encounters across divides. But in avoiding these exchanges, we only help deepen the fault lines of polarization that are tearing our families, our communities and of course, our nations apart. So let me give you an example. Take the Baltic state of Latvia, which has a traumatic history of decades under Soviet rule. And not long after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, feelings there were running deep and high. Threats of re-invasion were real. And suspicion was falling on the one in three Latvians who were speaking Russian at home. So I was invited to train people from both communities together, that's the Latvians and the Russian speakers, so they could practice deep listening to someone from the other side. But how can you listen when your feelings are so strong and when there's so much at stake? So can I tell you about Ilona? She's a Russian-speaking Latvian, and to be honest, at the start, when she started using the deep listening steps, it felt pretty unnatural. It was hard for her to stay curious and accept she didn't yet know what her neighbor might be thinking. But cautiously, she began putting the eight steps to work, taking time out, for example, to listen to herself first and notice what her neighbor might provoke in her.