How to Disagree Better | Julia Minson

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/a654093ce4e579fe


Did I ever tell you how
I just really don't like the way that you always bring our conversations back to music. I mean, really every every episode of the show ends with some stupid music point you gotta make. I mean oh god
Oh.
Yeah, well um
You know, did I ever tell you how much I hate the fact that you bring up
your damn PHD all the time. I mean it's it's in every single email. You remind me in every single conversation. It's ev every time you you
Introduce yourself. It's Curt Nelson, PHD, P H D P H D.
It's not anywhere near the music stuff that you do. It's always it is way worse than the music stuff. Music is at least healthy and good. Oh my God. It's just uh
Welcome to Behavioral Grooves, the podcast that explores our human condition. I'm Kurt Nelson.
And I'm Tim Houlihan. So we talk with researchers and other interesting people to unlock the mysteries of our behavior.
And we use a behavioral science lens. And today we get to talk about how, guess what, we can all disagree.
Better.
Like like what we were disagreeing up at the beginning here. So I had the pleasure of being able to talk with Julia Minson, who is a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and author of a great new book called How to Disagree Better, which is what we
Didn't do very well up there. And it explores research about how we can look at the friction and the conflict in our lives and turn that into.
Better ways of having conversations in order to get better outcomes and not to be wallowing in that disagreement and that conflict.
Yeah. That little conflict that we had at the beginning of the episode.

Let's just say that that's not really the best way to go about it. Nope. Nope. Uh that did we did not handle that.
that friction in a way that Julia would support. By any means. Yeah.
No. So in this episode, Groovers, you're going to learn how to look at disagreement in a new light. And this idea that disagreeing
Isn't the problem.
It's how we disagree.
Yeah, I think that's that's a really key point there. You'll also learn
how you can use this concept of naive realism that the idea that
Most everyone feels that
Their view of the world is the right and objective one. And you can use that to help you.
In these
conversations in these disagreements, as well as
Bringing in this concept of receptiveness, of being open to things, and how that is both a mindset as well as a conversational style. And Tim.
It's it's contagious that
Receptiveness.
I love that. I think that sounds cool. No. It's just like a flu. It's contagious like a flu. No, it's not contagious like a flu, it's contagious like a smile.
That might that's better. Okay, there you go. Yeah. Groovers, you're also going to learn some tricks of conversation that help ensure that you're not making people become mind readers.
It does not.
Um at the end.
You will not only understand that disagreements are not bad, but
But how you can use them to have
A better and happier life.
Yeah.
Now note, folks, there was a lot of reverb in the recording on and
Since Tim.
Wasn't able there wasn't there to troubleshoot it and I
Definitely not good at that troubleshooting. Tim is the expert there. Um we've we've tried to fix that in post production as much as possible.
But there's there's still a little bit of it, and we apologize and hope that it doesn't detract from
All of the great information that Julia shares with us.
With that, Groovers, sit back in comfortable disagreement.
And enjoy.
Kurt's Conversation with Julia Minson.
Julian Minson.
Welcome to Behavioral Grooves.
Thank you. It's great to be here.
It is fantastic to have you here, and we love seeing you in Cambridge just a couple of weeks ago, live and in person. So this is one of those kind of fun things for us where we get to say hello when we've already met you in person. So that that's absolutely lovely. Okay, so um, let's loosen up with our famous speed round the
Four famous questions that are
simple yes, no's and gotta start with would you prefer to learn a new language?
Or a new instrument.
Oh.
Uh I would definitely prefer to learn
An instrument. Uh but
Which would be new. Which would be new. Uh I am a terribly unmusical person from a very musical family, so I have like this
a massive amount of insecurity about how I'm the only person in my family who can't
Play a thing or
Dang a nose.
Wow.
Okay. Yeah. You and me both on that one, Julia. I am the only one in my family that that
never learned an instrument, didn't have all of that component going on. So I'm I'm with you on that.
Right.
Yeah.
I've tried. I've tried and I have failed. So if if if the universe granted me the magical ability to play an instrument, I would be very happy.
All right, second of our speed round questions. Are you a coffee drinker or a tea drinker? What do you have in that cup in front of you there?
So what I actually have is water. Um but I am I am I am a consumer of all kinds of caffeine uh in massive amounts and uh
You know, the only reason I have water right now is because I've already had enough coffee to sort of power City Block. That's good. Do you do you measure it in in c do you measure your caffeine intake in cups or in gallons? I'm just curious.
I measure it in rapid heart rate. Once once once once my hands start shaking, I know it's time to switch to water.
Okay. Okay. Well, we're glad that you've switched water. All righty, uh third speed round question. True or false?
Feeling heard makes people more open to opposing views.
I would say that's true. I feel like I've written a book about that. Um We might talk a little bit more about that, as a matter of fact, in the the in our coming time together already. Kurt.
Last of the uh
Infamous.
Speed round questions here. Uh true or false, ballroom dancing is a good metaphor to explore conflict.
Yeah, true, absolutely true. So uh this is something that I have experienced firsthand. Uh ballroom dancing, you know, like playing in a band, like rowing a boat together. Uh you're sort of very, very interdependent.
uh and trying to do something that you know probably is very important to
the two people who are doing it because that's why they're doing it. Uh, and you get into a lot of trouble of, you know.
Who did this, who did that, whose fault is it?
Uh
It's, you know, quite subjective, all of those judgments, so
Good metaphor. Good good training. Good training for any kind of uh collaborative activity. Well, and you you are a ballroom dancer, you talk about that in the book and uh actually met your husband ballroom dancing, is that correct?
Yeah, so
Uh I don't know if I that I would refer to myself as a ballroom dancer in the present tense, but I
I was a ballroom dancer. I am uh originally from Russia.
Uh and in Russia, you know, like all the little girls ballroom dance just like
Uh, you know, in the US like all the little girls do.
you know, ballet or you know, jazz or tap or whatever.
Um, you know, and of course the thing with ballroom dancing is you need a partner.
Uh, and all little boys, you know, they want to play hockey, but instead they're forced to ballroom dance with their sisters. Um and so uh so that's kind of the world where I came from. And then when I moved to the States, I uh you know, I was pretty obsessed with it. And so I uh danced uh
You know, I danced as a kid, I danced as a teenager.
Uh and then I met my husband dancing and we were
uh very serious competitors for several years of our marriage.
Um, and you know, we fought like cats and dogs. We didn't fight about anything else, but we fought about dancing constantly.
Ha
Um
Amazing. It's a that's a cool story. And by the way, I just want to say like being in a band is
It's actually really easy to deal with sort of the
the um disagreements because it's always the drummer's fault.
So we never just kinda never have to worry about that. It's like you know as the guitarist and singer. Yeah. As a guitarist and singer it's it's
It's always the drummer's fault. That that's kinda how we look at it. Well, we are talking uh with with Julia today about how to disagree better.
Love the title of the book. It's not just how to disagree, but how to disagree better. Um, and we want to to start understanding
What
Why this
Why this book and why now?
Why why you know
You you've been doing this research for some time, but why this book and why now?
Yeah, well, you know, there's really no other book I could have written given that this is the research that I've done for twenty years. So this is, you know, this is the the only book, uh at least at least for me. Um, but why now? Um
You know, I think
a lot of behavioral science uh is very focused on sort of the negative of it, right? So the behavioral biases and, you know, all the kind of psychological foibles and misunderstanding and mispredictions. Um, and a lot of
You know, a lot of my work covers the
sources of misunderstanding and conflict. But at some point it really pivoted towards solutions.
Um, I would say, you know, maybe
seven or eight years ago we started saying, like, Well, you know, how can you make people better at having conversations uh with
folks who dramatically disagree with them. You know, and then that work started accumulating. Um and it really felt like
if we're going to make any difference, you know, with what we do, if it's going to have any impact, it needs to be presented in sort of this popular way, right? Because
You know, sort of like you can't staple like five JPSPs together and hand it to somebody and say, you know, okay. Okay, this is gonna make you better at conflict.
Uh so you know, so it was just a little bit of me wanting to uh see
the see the work have more impact in the world.
Yeah.
That's cool.
That's cool. Go ahead. Go ahead, Kurt, excuse me. I was just so one of the things is uh understanding the difference between
Disagreements from conflicts. What how do you describe that difference?
Yeah, so I think of uh disagreement and conflict as sort of different
states, different psychological states. So a disagreement is, you know, you and I have different preferences or different beliefs or different expectations. Uh, and you can imagine
many contexts where
That happens and it's fine.
Right, like
You know, I like chocolate, you like vanilla, we're like, Okay, let's go to Baskin Robbins and everybody gets what they want and you know or you know, I want to hire this candidate for this role and you want to hire this other candidate and we have a conversation where we
Sort of point out to each other.
The different
Things we noticed in, you know, this
these people's sort of competencies and you know interviews maybe and what we think of as important for success in a particular job. And it could be a very fruitful conversation that leads to
Clarity and insight, and maybe consensus, maybe not consensus, but like we're not going to become lifelong enemies, right? Um
Conflict I think of as disagreement plus.
Right. So it's like you have
The state
of disagreement.
And then you make a a set you reach a set of conclusions that, you know, we often reach very quickly and automatically.
that come down to like
No
Intelligent.
Reasonable well meaning person.
could possibly hold.
Yeah, believe.
Mm-hmm.
And once you make that set of attributions
Uh
you are on your way to conflict because that usually
comes paired with uh a bunch of negative emotions and sort of the desire to
change the other person's mind, inform them, educate them, you know.
make them a better human being. Uh and
You know, people usually don't like being educated. They're fine with the beliefs that they already hold. Uh, and so then they resist
You persist.
Uh, and frustration leads to bewilderment, leads to anger, and you know, sometimes even disgust. Like, how could you possibly
So that's confidence.
So Tim and me.
All right.
I I mean most days. Not every day but most days. Good days we were no
Uh Julia, why is it that we run away from disagreement? Why is it that
I mean this seems like it's inevitable.
It it it literally is inevitable, right? Right. Well why why why do we shy away from it so much? Is it because Kurt and I grew up in the Midwest?

Yeah.
You know, so I mean I think
You one, you're right that it's absolutely inevitable.
Uh and two, I would even say that it's
Good.
Right. You know, having different opinions and talking about them is good for us. We can, you know, learn new things, we can prevent really catastrophic errors. We can just have like
a fun conversation, right? Like I'm I'm not a big sports fan, but I hear from people that they love arguing about sports. Uh you know, this is like there's some things that are actually fun to disagree about.
Um
But you know, to your question of why we avoid it, I think that
Uh
People are
Uncomfortable
with the possibility of disagreement turning into conflict, you know, uh, because that
Sort of that's a slippery slope.
Uh they don't know how
the other person will interpret their words or uh the kind of attributions they will make about the sources of their beliefs.
Uh you know, and you know, and even without conflict, right, there is sort of this unpleasant
Friction.
uh that comes from not being on the same page.
Uh, you know, and I think most people just are not very good at navigating disagreements. So you say, Okay, well, this seems like more trouble than it's worth. I'm I'm just not gonna say anything.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
What struck me with what you just said is
the idea of having disagreements over sports and
Once you said that, I go, Yeah, that's actually I'm
I'm perfectly willing to go kind of head to head with with other people if they, Oh, you know, this team is better than this team or this player outshines this other player.
And yet I am definitely Midwest born and and shy away from most other conflict.
What is it?
About is
And I think maybe if you have some insight on this, if you don't, just I don't know if you can conjecture or not. But
Why is it like sports is something? Is it so separate from who we are as an individual, or is it more societally accepted? Uh probably some combination. What what's your thoughts?
You know, so I have I have a framework that I uh offer in the book that's based on my uh work with Charlie Dorison, where we basically say, look, for disagreement to become conflict.
Uh there is
Th there are three factors that make disagreement more likely to become conflict.
One is that the
Topic.
uh the decision, the you know set of beliefs has to be important. It has to be consequential, right? And if you think about it, if you're a sports fan
You know, which team is better than which other team doesn't actually have
you know, tangible consequences to your life.
And
you know, even more so what the other person
believes.
Right, doesn't have consequences. Right. Like you might be sort of heartbroken, you know, if you know the Celtics don't do well.
Uh
But what some other guy believes about the Celtics is not actually going to impact how well they do.
Right.
So so kind of like the consequences.
of the disagreement matter.
Uh, and so that would be very different than if you are a team owner or team manager or a team coach, because now we're still talking about sports, but
their consequences because this is
Your work.
Um, you know, the other piece so that sort of
Consequentiality is one factor important. And then the other factor is how interdependent you are with the other person. So
Does the do their beliefs actually change your outcomes?
Right. And so I often sort of use the example of, you know, covet vaccines, right? So if some stranger somewhere doesn't want to get vaccinated for COVID
I might disagree with them and it is consequential and it is sort of societally important.
But it's not going to change my life.
Right.
If it's a person in my family who doesn't want to get vaccinated for COVID, well, that's now very, very different.
Right.
Um and then the third factor.
Um

Uh
Is how much do the people involved believe that they have
evidence on their side.
Right.
Uh and so again
with you know, we talk you know, we talk about how there's no accounting for taste, right? You're not supposed to argue about matters of taste because people appreciate the fact that there is no evidence.
But if I feel
Like
Science is on my side.
or morality is on my side, or the word of God is on my side, uh, then it's very, very hard to put up with the fact that
uh you know a different person

you know, won't won't see their point.
And so if you have those three things all happening at once.
uh the topic is important
uh our behavior is interdependent.
And I think that the ultimate evidence is on my side.
uh then we're very likely to have a difficult conversation.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so context matters in in in in these situations, quite it's it situationally specific.
Yes, yes. Context matters hugely, you know, and I think this is like the thing that people talk about, you know.
You have brought up being midwesterners.
uh that are conflict conflict avoidant.
Uh
I have a lot of conversations with a lot of people.
Who
say they're conflict avoidant.
Uh
And and they always have like a story about why they're conflict avoidant. Like, well, I'm uh I'm I'm a woman, so I'm conflict avoidant. You know, I'm a midwesterner, so I'm conflict avoidant. I'm Canadian, right? So I'm conflict avoidant. Right. We all have like these stereotypes, but my my theory
And you know.
Haven't haven't measured this like globally, so this is conjecture.
Uh most of the world is conflict avoidant. People don't like conflict.
Right.
I think people who are who we don't think of as conflict avoidant
Are mostly just people who are short sighted who don't imagine the disagreement turning into conflict.
Right. In other words, like they just don't see around the corner.
Wow.
Yeah like they think we can have this disagreement and it's all going to be friendly banter. Uh and then all of a sudden they find themselves in conflict.
Whereas like most people
you know, are more risk averse, I guess, uh when it comes to conflict. Uh
Because because nobody actually wants conflict. It's just uh I think there's a difference in how
Likely we think
conflict is to happen.
That's that's terrific. Yeah. Kurt, go ahead. Um so I I just wanted to go so you studied um with the great Lee Ross. Um
And I you know, he brought the term naive realism.
I think he borrowed it from philosophy, if I if I remember right.
uh into the social sciences.
So can you explain to our listeners?
what uh naive realism is and help them understand why it's such a problem when it comes to
disagreement between people.
Yeah absolutely so to me this is
Uh an incredibly powerful con
concept uh to like
I think easily the most powerful concept for understanding conflict. Um
The idea is that people naively believe
that their perceptions
you know, reflect some objective reality that is like out there in the world and that they get it, right? So I see the world as it is.
uh which
You know, if you sort of
hear that, it's like, Well yeah, of course I see the world
As it is. How else could I possibly be able to do it? How else could I live? Right. Right, right, right, right. Uh, and what I think folks forget is that
All of our perceptions, both our physical perceptions and our social perceptions, are filtered through a bunch of stuff.
Right. So if you think about very basic physical
uh perceptions, right? So you take eyesight, for example, you think you're seeing
a thing objectively, uh, but a different person
Is seeing it differently because they have different eyeballs, right? Your dog is seeing it differently, like in a different light or different level of humidity or from a different distance.
The thing will change.
Um
But we treat
Our eyesight.
Right, as
you know, a good guide to the physical world because most of the time it is.
Right. But like you know how you know how like on every car
mirror, there's a thing that says, you know, objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Right? Because because car manufacturers recognize
that we don't actually see things the way they are. Uh our eyesight is distorted. And so our
Um
Our social perceptions are similarly distorted, right? So the way you see interactions.
is through a lens of your expectations and your biases and your upbringing and your morals and your stereotypes and
you know, how tired you are and how caffeinated you are and you know, all of those things.
Um
But we
Don't
Give that enough uh weight.
We just assume that we see the world as it is and our
uh view of a given situation is sort of the reasonable objective
Kind of.
sensible way to see this particular situation.
Hey Groovers, quick break from the conversation to talk about something we don't bring up enough on the show. Yeah, that's right, when we're not behind the mic, we're working with organizations to apply behavioral science in ways that actually move the needle for leaders.
Teams and whole cultures. So whether it's designing smarter incentives, boosting engagement, setting goals that actually stick, or helping teams navigate change, we bring real science to real workplace challenges. And we don't just talk theory, our approach blends research-backed insights with
Hands on strategies that drive result. We've s
Small behavioral shifts lead to big wins in sm in Fortune 500 companies and scrappy startups and even in mission driven nonprofits. Yeah, and we bring the same curiosity, creativity, and care to our client work that we bring to every episode of the show.
Really I
I think people might want more than what we bring to the show.
You you probably have a point there. You're probably right.
Okay, so we'll bring more care and creativity to our work with you and your teams than what we do on the show. Yes, more care. So so if you're ready to build stronger motivation, better team dynamics, and maybe even make your workplace
A little more groovy.
Yeah, reach out to us.
G grab us on LinkedIn or Facebook or just drop us a line. We'd love to help you.
and your team find your groove.
So
Julia, with armed with that knowledge, how do we
How do we see around the corner?
How do we
Start to
To process the world.
And these situations specifically
Without the
the scales of bias on our eyes, if you will.
Yeah, so you know, the way I mean
I think the reason that realism is such an important
idea spe especially in conflict.
is because
If you believe you see the world as it is.
And another person sees the world differently.
You are sort of stuck with this problem of why.
Right.
You need to
Understand
Bye.
This difference is happening. And to the extent that I am reasonable and rational objective.
The answer to the why has to be that there's something wrong with the other person.
Right.
And so that is sort of
The theory
uh that Lee Ross developed.
For
Why
you know, why misunderstanding so often drives conflict escalation.
Uh, and the trouble with the whole thing is that it's very hard to
Stop yourself.
Constantly.
And say, Well, am I being objective? Am I being reasonable? Is this how the thing really is? Right? It's very
Um, it would be paralyzing.
uh to
question ourselves in that way.
Um, and so you have to kind of be selective about when do you start questioning yourself.
Right.
Uh and I think when you start questioning yourself is when it is an important topic.
uh and somebody who you generally have a high opinion of
Uh says something very different.
Right, and that's the moment to say
You know.
There is a fifty fifty chance.
That
I am closer to the truth or they're closer to the truth. Those are the odds. Uh, and you know, don't assume that
you have kind of like the objective view of the thing.
Yeah.
You suggest in the book that
Uh the real problem isn't around
Disagreement, as Tim said, it's inevitable we we're going to have those, but it's and how we disagree.
Um
Can you talk a little bit about that?
And why
Why is it the m the
way that we t we disagree is
the the part that gets us in trouble.
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know
Disagreement.
you know, to the extent that it's inevitable and also often helpful.
Uh is something we need to figure out how to do.
Right.
And like most hard things, you know, there's there's a skill set around it. Um and there's you know, uh research around how to hone that skill set.
Um
I think
The
problems start out, you know, first they start out in naive realism, right? I get it.
And you don't.
Ah and what that leads to is
a set of goals that people start pursuing very kind of automatically, which is I'm going to correct you.
I'm going to convince you. I'm going to tell you how it really is.
Right. And so when we
sort of get
Engaged in the actual conversation.
The goal of the conversation is to change the other person's mind.
Um and
First of all that's
you know, only one goal of many.
Right. So assuming that that's the goal is already a questionable assumption. Uh and secondly
Of the many goals, it's probably the most unrealistic one.
Right, because if I'm trying to convince you because I believe that I'm objective and reasonable and you're trying to convince me, then you know, the odds of anybody convincing anybody
Are are pretty low.
Right. Like we're just gonna butthead and get
annoyed with each other. And so
So if you have
If you start thinking about what are other things you could do.
uh then then you get out of this, you know, kind of lose lose
mindset.
Yeah.
Well and uh
One of the counterintuitive
Messages in the book.
Is
uh that as much as when we get into this conflict mo that it that we have this
sort of a winning sense, people often care less about winning and feel more
More importantly, about being respected.
Do do I have that right?
I think so. You know, I I I don't know that
I don't know that people sort of care more about it.
Uh but
Winning is just not realistic most of the time.
Yeah. Right.
And and you know, and I s I think people sometimes
Feel that.
You know, I know more or I'm the more senior person or
you know, I'm the parent and therefore I'm going to win because I have
you know, logic and facts and seniority and like institutional power on my side.
Uh
And you know, I mean anybody who has kids.
Right, knows.
that like you could not win an argument with a nine year old.
But You think you can.
It's a good thing. You can't do it with a sixteen year old or a twenty year old either. I I will tell you that where my kids are, right? Right. Exactly. Exactly. So you like
You know, and maybe some objective third party says, Well, yes, definitely, you know, like the mom's arguments were better than the nine year old's arguments. But fact is like
In the end, what you have
is a child that's, you know, either crying
If they're young or storming out of the room if they're older.
You haven't actually persuaded them.
Right.
And so even when you know, like when you can't achieve persuasion when there's such a massive gap in expertise and knowledge, uh, you're certainly not going to achieve persuasion when it's
You know, an equal.
Well, and you tell you a great story in the book about
your own kid coming in at like eleven PM at night, uh you know, with this unsolvable problem and they wanna talk, which is always the case, right? It's it's they they never come to you at at
three in the afternoon when you have full energy. It's always like you're just about to fall asleep and then it's like oh Mom, Dad And then it's like oh my gosh at
And I you tell a really nice story about that about again.
the the goals of what that was. It wasn't necessarily about solving the problem. It was more on learning, I think, if if I remember right.
Yeah, yeah. And it's you know, it's very it's
It's a it's a nice story and it's funny because, you know
books take a very long time. So that
Child who
was fifteen and the story is now eighteen and about to go up to college. Uh perspective matters in this case, right? Yeah you can look at it in the rear view mirror and that was just a long time ago.
Yeah, but you know, it's it's an example of something that
Everybody goes through where you are
You know
You're tired.
You are cranky. It's not the right time. Somebody brings
A perspective to you. In her case, you know, she she had she was a high school athlete and she had major back problems.
And like
You know, at eleven o'clock at night, she is ups she's
upset that her back is not healing at whatever rate she decided her back should be healing at
Uh, and at fifteen she worries about how she's not going to be able to do backhand springs in college.

Now
She was not a gymnast, she was a volleyball player.
So I don't know why she thought she needed to do backhand strings in college.
But that was at eleven o'clock at night. That was not a worry center.
Yes, that was her concern, right. And so what I did is I tried to convince her.
That
You know
Her back is fine.
And also she doesn't need to do backhand springs in college.
Because you are older and smarter and wiser and
That you have all that wisdom on your side.
So you're totally outfitted to win.
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And you know, I was a competitive dancer and I've had a lot of back pain and like, you know, I survived college.
Uh, and you know, I I know it's going to be fine.
Right. I am a Harvard professor.
Her doctors are
you know, all fancy Harvard doctors. Like clearly we know, and she needs to calm down.
And how did that work out?
And then next thing you know, she is sobbing, telling me how I never listened to her, how I'm, you know, never around, and you know
It turns out it wasn't actually about her back. It was about
listening and being around and being present and
Uh you know, maybe something around
A child first experiencing
You know.
physical frailty and sort of like recognizing
Everything that that brings up.
Um
And I
I mін I realised like
Ten minutes in.
Which was
Ten minutes too late.
Uh
that I took absolutely the wrong approach.
Right, that I try to
Fix
Her incorrect assumptions.
before I even understood
What the
conversation was actually about.
Right, before I sort of
Inquired about
Her needs or what she wanted from me.
You know, she didn't say, Mom, my back hurts, fix it.
Right. She just said, Mom, my back hurts.
Вот чи вонтефромі.
was it entirely open question that I didn't explore.
Uh and you know, and
The the reason that story is in the book is because one, I think we've all been through it.
We've all been through some version of it.
Two.
I was
Amazed.
Add my own
Like failure to apply everything I know.
when it kind of like jumped out at me unexpectedly at eleven o'clock at night.
Um, and three, I was
Equally amazed at how
You know, relatively easy it was to turn around with a little bit of humility.
Right. So she is like melting down.
And I realized the mistake I made and I said
Look, I'm sorry.
Let's start again.
You know, and I just kind of ate a serving of humble pie and sat down and, you know, did the thing that I should have started with and
You know, and and that works. Like I think if you if you can check yourself in the moment and make that clear and explicit.
You know, people will give you grace, even even teenagers.
And and that's a lesson that goes beyond talking with your teenage kid. It's a lesson that you can apply across the board with the work that you've been doing. Is that correct?
Yes, yes, and there is research on it. So uh Marie Schweitzer, for example, does research on uh apologies and Cereen Chandri and George Lowenstein do research on apologies and
You know, apologies are incredibly powerful.
Uh sort of
surprisingly powerful, uh, in that when you say, you know, I'm sorry, I did that wrong, that start again.
People will let you.
Yeah.
It's pretty great.
Kinda leads me to
a a topic that you you write about uh receptiveness.
And how important receptiveness is in these conversations. Can you talk about the the role that receptiveness plays?
And
And
I
maybe emphasize like why recep being receptive is not a weakness.
Yes, yes, yes. So let's, you know, I guess first at a high level, uh a lot of my work makes sort of this distinction between two flavors of receptiveness.
uh what we have come to call cognitive receptiveness, which is your
Um
habitual mindset
Towards how you engage with opposing perspectives, right? So like are you the kind of person who seeks out information you might disagree with and thinks hard about it, right? So there's sort of a cognitive process there. And then the second flavor is what we have come to call conversational receptiveness.
Which is do you sound like the kind of person who is thinking hard about the opposing perspective?
Um and I think
You know people are quite concerned.
About
I mean, honestly they're quite concerned about both, right? So when we talk about being cognitively receptive, people feel like they might get like infected with bad ideas. Like how how can you expect me to listen to that? Uh, might that not like
Make me change my mind.
And I'm like, Well if it's such a terrible idea, then it
won't make you change your mind. And if it does make you change your mind, maybe it's not such a terrible idea.

Right. Um you know, and and and conversational receptiveness, right, is this idea that you
can use language
To express verbally.
That you are
Engaged with opposing perspectives, and we have done a lot of work on.
identifying exactly what the language is.
Uh, what are the words and phrases that signal to other people that you're thinking hard about what they're saying? Uh, and we have done a lot of um
uh causal, you know, experimental work showing that using more of that language leads to better conversations.
Right. So people want to talk to you again. They uh
are not going to call you a mean name by the end of it. They think that you're
Like smarter and more objective and more trustworthy and more reasonable.
But the problem is
Tim, exactly as what you pointed out, is that
People say, Well won't it make me look weaker?
Yeah.
Right.
Um and the answer is no.

Well, yeah.
That's not your opinion, that's the research speaking, right? Right, right. That's the research speaking, but but the intuition behind it um is that
So
I think folks think
picture sort of two almost
caricatures of
Uh
styles in disagreement.
One that's very dogmatic and very argumentative.
Right. And we kind of know what that sounds like, sort of like imagine a you know, a lawyer on like a TV show, right? Uh and the other
That's
Uh
All about listening and inquiry and validation.
Right. So imagine like a stereotype of a therapist.
Right.
Now
Receptiveness doesn't require you.
To be the
kind of caricature of a therapist.
You can say look, хір із майф.
Uh, here is
Why I think that this is the correct approach.
Uh here's my reasoning behind that.
But I'm curious to understand what your reasoning is.
And I would like to, you know, learn more about your perspective.
Uh please do you know please share.
Right. And so it's not like I have no opinion, and it's not like I have signaled that I am willing to change my mind.
All I have signaled is that
I recognize that you have a different set of beliefs.
And I would like to know what they are.
And I'm willing to listen. I'm willing to listen to it. I'm willing to listen. Right, right, right. And so so you could actually kind of like marry the two things very comfortably.
But I think people think of these two as opposites that
can't be combined, but you know, you can combine them literally in the same sentence.
Yeah.
loved about the book was some of the practical takeaways in that kind of component. I also love that you brought up some terms that I didn't know, one of them being boomer asking. Can you talk about what boomer asking is? And now Tim is a boomer I am not. So I'm just wondering if it has anything to do with that.
There you go. Thanks for the setup on that one, Kurt.
Maybe that was a boomerasque question in itself. I don't know. That's funny. That's funny. Uh so it has to do with, you know, boomerangs like the toy.
Right. Not not anything to do with your age, Tim. Right. Not the generations. Yes, yes, yes. So this is work by uh Mike Yomans and Alison Wood Brooks.
Uh
And the idea is, you know, how boomerang like you throw it in comes back to you and that's that's the fun of it.
Uh-huh.
Well boomer asking is
You ask a question.
Not because you really care about the answer, but because you hope that the other person will ask you the same thing back.
Right. So the
kind of classic one is, you know, how are you?
And the other person says, Fine, how are you?
And you're like, Well let me tell you.

Uh
And that
Uh so
Mike and Alison talk about that as sort of like a common conversational mistake because
Because when you give this sort of like long winded answer, the other person realizes that you weren't genuinely curious about them. You were just kind of like setting them up.
Um
And you know, in in disagreement.
Right.
quite often people
People use boomer asking because they want to say something negative, but they aren't comfortable saying it.
Right. And so you're like
Oh.
How do you think this project is going?
Another person says, like, well, you know, I think it's going all right. It's been you know a little bit challenging, but we're getting through it.
And like what do you think?
And you're like
Let me tell you what I've heard from the client. And also I wanted to share that I'm unhappy with these, you know, seventeen things you've done. Uh and so it's
Um
It's a way to
Bring up
an opposing perspective that
Tries to leverage curiosity.
But I think other people know that you'll
Didn't
actually, you know, feel curious and so it can backfire.
Julia, so
Sometimes we can anticipate when we're going to have a difficult
conversation when there when there's a high likely of of dis
high likelihood of disagreement coming.
Is there
Based on your research.
Is there a good way to start those conversations?
That's a great question. And you know, I mean like
A lot of our research in judgment decision making, right?
process, I think process matters tremendously.
Um
And
You know
In the case of disagreement, I think a lot of people
Just
kind of tumble into it.
Um
you know, somebody disagrees with you and you feel the need to argue with them, you know, or correct them, or, you know, sort of express your
Shock.
At what they believe.
Um
But you know, time, right?
Time is usually actually our friend in these things.
Uh and so
If you are anticipating.
a disagreement that you feel could be
uh escalated.
easily into conflict.
uh it makes sense to think through what is the right time and what is the right setting.
Right. And
Uh what is the best way to
structure the conversation.
So that it doesn't go off the rails.
Right. So in terms of time and setting, uh, there're some things that I think are quite obvious, but but
People don't think about them in the heat of the moment, which is, you know, you want to have the conversation in private.
For example.
Right, not a Thanksgiving table, not in a conference room in front of you know ten members of your team. Right.
Like
You know, not in the hallway, you know.
in you know, like uh the
Kennedy School where there's, you know, three hundred students passing at any given moment. Uh so
Privacy one.
Uh
having time
Right. So
when people say, Oh, you know, we have fifteen minutes and let's talk about something incredibly difficult, uh that's that's not ideal. Um
Okay.
You know.
And then
I think the big one is checking
Making a really thorough inventory of what you know and what you don't know.
I have
I have many, many conversations these days, you know, so especially since the book has come out, where people will come up to me.
uh and essentially ask me for like life advice
uh with respect to their conflicts. You know, I'll be like signing books and somebody's in the book line and they start telling me about
You know, the problems in their marriages.
What do I do when my wife says this? Yes, exactly. Exactly. And and you know, and and I always say to
You know, in those situations like
I'm no therapist.

But

Have you asked?
Why your wife wants this thing.
Yeah.
And the answer like ninety percent of the time is no.

Yeah. And and and sometimes
You know, and one version is no, I haven't asked. Oh wow, I should probably go ask.
And another version is, Oh, I know why she wants this, let me tell you.
And and then if you say, Well
Is that
What she said.
The answer is often, Well no, I just know her.


Right. So there's just often like I think people go around with
Um
Assumptions.
in their minds about the other person's
beliefs
intentions needs
Interests.
Uh and
Some of them might be right, right? If you've been married for you know 20 years and you've had this argument a thousand times, maybe you actually do know.
Uh but I think it's often valuable to
Assume you don't?
uh and kind of have an inventory of like what are all the things I need to understand.
before I try to make any kind of case for anything.
Yeah. So I you just answered the question I was gonna ask next about my my wife, but yeah. Uh but you uh in in reality, you bring up a really good point, and I think in the book you you point this out too, is
That
questions like asking questions actually having that
conversation and getting to the the root of things is really important. And you talk about different types of questions to help in that. And you talk about elaboration questions, follow up questions. And I know Tim is itching to talk about music, but could you before we get to that, could you just kind of
uh talk a little bit about those different types of questions that we can ask that are helpful in these types of situations.
Yeah, so you know, question asking uh is sort of
Uh
I think the soul of
Conflict management.
Um, but I think people
People struggle.
Because remember that
we're often going in with this desire to persuade and change the other person's mind and convince them how smart and objective we are.
Uh, and so we cheat.
And the way we cheat is that we ask snarky confrontational questions.
Uh
And then we tell ourselves
Well I asked a question. I was curious.
Right. And so so
It's not good enough.
to say a thing that has a question mark at the end of it.
The thing you say is
has to
transparently signal your desire to learn.
And so so you know, so it doesn't have to be a question even, right? I could say
Hey Kurt.
I would like to understand.
Where you're coming from.
Tell me about
How you came to believe what you believe.
Right. It's not a question, it's a statement. In fact, it's you know, it's a command, right? Uh command are supposed to be bad in conflict. But but what it does is if somebody was reading the transcript, they would say, like, Oh, Julia sounds curious.
Right.
And so
you know, which is very different than a question, which could be like
Okay.
How can you possibly believe?
That like this is a good idea.
Right.
Uh, which is technically a question.
I ask that all the time of Kurt. Every day.


And rightfully so. And rightfully so. Right. So so so the standard is
You know, if somebody read the transcript.
Would they think that you want to better understand your counterpart based on what you said?
Right.
Uh
And because because
If
An outside party.
Doesn't
See it that way.
then how can you expect your counterpart to see it that way?
Right.
Uh, and so quite often what we do is we like
give ourselves credit for either, you know, either asking snarky questions because it's a question or
Or we give ourselves credit for
nonverbal expressions of curiosity.
Like, oh I'm nodding, you know, and I'm not interrupting
Uh
And
Again, it's a little bit of a cop out.
because the other person has no idea what's happening in your head.
Right. So they can't actually tell if you're being curious or if you're like, you know, laughing at them in your brain.
Which is what I am actually doing with Tim most of the time. I bet It's just survival. Sure, Tim. Sure.
Um
Julia, I wanna loop back to something that that you started talking about this
But
This idea of what do we know and what don't we know? What do we what do we know and what do we want to find out? What are we gonna be curious about? And
You you wrote in in the book
That basically it's okay to actually have notes.
It's okay to have a conversation. You you you said and I I'm just gonna read from the book here. When a person takes lessons
And then performs a piece of music with sheet music in front of them. Nobody calls them a fake musician.
Okay, so
Yes, I'm unabashedly using this as a segue to get into music. But I also I thought it was a really cool idea because
God, we have this this overwhelming
belief that everything that I say in a conversation has to come from the depths of my soul and that I've I've rehearsed it and I know exactly what I'm going to say.
And you're
If I understand you're right, you're giving us permission to not feel that burden.
A lot of the

Students
Right, when we teach them kind of explicit conversational cues to signal receptiveness.
They say, well, you know, it doesn't feel natural.
Isn't the other person going to think that I'm being fake?
Right.
Uh and
You know, I think one, we sort of have this like cultural obsession with authenticity.
Um which is, you know, very American, right? Like not every culture believes that authenticity is the you know end all and be all. Um
But I also
I think people forget that
Working hard.
To be receptive.
is in fact the signal of receptiveness.
Right. So like if you work hard.
to play music.
You get credit for working hard.
Uh and so if you're trying, even if you've like memorized some words and you're a little stumbly and you say, Oh, that didn't come out right, let me try again.
You know.
Uh
You get credit for trying.
Uh it doesn't have to be sort of
you know, from the depths of your soul and like perfectly polished.
I
I gotta tell you, that is such a wonderful message for me to take in. I really, really appreciate that on a
on a personal level. Um
I uh just lastly before we go, if you were to get stuck on a desert island for a year Oh stop laughing. Um as if you as if you know the I'm imagining I'm imagining this like wonderful tropical vacation where I'm actually left alone for a year.
Exactly. You get all of whatever drink you like if it's you know and you have perfect comfort, all of everything.
Only limitation is that Tim
Well your listening device only has two artists on it.
So you do only get to have two musical
Acts. Now that you get the whole catalogue.
Everything that they've
Created. You know.
But
You still only get two.
And I I actually kinda like your framing. It's where you get to be alone for a year.
Okay, so what what two artists would you take with you?
So undoubtedly Taylor Swift.
Uh and big catalogs.
Huge catalogue, you know, there's happy, there's sad, there's stories.
Um
And then
Uh I think there would be some competition for the runner up, but I think it would be no a con.
Um so you know, I I definitely have a preference for sort of like, you know, indie country storytelling type music.
Yeah.
Cool. You you didn't go back to uh sort of uh classical or the I would I would expect ballroom dancing might have a whole variety of different genres in it. It's not just
you know, forty swing or waltzes or things like that. So you've been exposed to a lot of music over the over
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So from the kind of like ballroom dancing uh
Collection, if you will.
Uh kind of the fifties, sixties, you know, Frank Sinatra, not you know, Nat King Cole, uh Natalie Cole.
So
You know, a and all of those and all of those also have stories.
Yeah.
Yes, they all have stories, uh, and great stories. And we have loved listening to your stories today, Julia. Thank you so much for being a guest on Behavioral Groves.
Thank you. This has been a treat.
Welcome to our grooving session, where Tim and I share ideas on what we learned from my discussion with Julia. Have a free-flowing conversation.
And groove on whatever else comes into our conflict averse brains.
You nailed it.
And I don't know if it's just the Midwest thing, but it sure as hell is.
Evident in how
We live our lives.
And I'm not.
Yeah.
You you and I are are conflict adverse disagreement which gives me
like heart palpitations and I just I I you know and there're people that like it. There are like
Those people who like
Like the argumentative. I have friends, you know, who like
The the battle is the fun part for them and I'm going, The battle sucks. I yeah, I just wanna get to the end and have resolution, but
Yeah. I have friends in in
Who
Like they grew up in households where there was
Everything was challenged. Why do you feel that way?
Why do you want to get up from the dinner table?
What's wrong with you?
And then there had to be this justification. There had to be a and it became a
It wasn't argumentative.
But they had to create an argument as to why they wanted to get up from the dinner table. And I actually admired that. I was like, How could that's a great way to to live. It's a way that I did not grow up.
And I think it's fascinating.
That some people are so good at it.
Well the you know my friend Michael.
uh Michael Anshell and Michael shout out to you. But uh he I think he lives his life in in a similar way. I mean love the guy to death, but man, I I don't want to get in an argument with him because he has much so much practice at it that he is just he he he does that. And then and
And being in disagreement for him isn't a negative, right? It's not
That
That's it. It's like part of
This
ability to move from point A to point B and to get to either truth or a better solution or a variety of things, which is what Julia talks about. And I mean, you know, it's the the idea again that disagreement isn't the problem. It's how we disagree.
Excellent.
That sounds like a great place to start. So
Tell us about your initial thoughts around that idea. That disagreement isn't the problem. It's how we disagree.
Well, I mean, first off, I mean disagreement is in inevitable, right? I mean it it's
It comes down to as Julia talks about, like
Hey, I wanna go out to a a nice restaurant tonight and my wife and kid
Uh don't. They either want to stay in or they want to go to a fast food place or whatever it is. So there is
Conflict. I mean there's there's disagreement there and now you have to
Get through that and how we do that makes a difference.
And that's a minor issue. And I mean there's
medical teams that are disagreement on
I
What the right
Treatment.
procedure is. There's uh you know, you're you're launching a new
product in a company and you need to think about how to go about do that. You might have
Really
Heartfelt disagreements on the best way forward, or you're developing a product and what features to put in and whatnot. There's all sorts of these, and they're
Not.
You know, in
Um
Th they're not small.
The they're actually big. I mean, Julia's story about her grandfather and mother in law
It's actually a good one. I mean the that seems small at the beginning
About this disagreement of
Hey her mother in law pushing back saying, I think there's something more. You should take your grandfather into the the doctor and no and then she didn't want to have that that
Argument so dropped it.
When that would have been very beneficial in in the long run. So long term consequences of that. So it if
I know that there have been times in my life when
I'm so comfortable with uh avoiding
Any kind of disagreement?
What I'll just do is I'll just make myself a little smaller and just not worry about it. But that's not really that's not a healthy way of living life. It's it's not a good way of it's not a good way of actually helping the process that you're involved in. I spent a lot of years in marketing and spent a lot of years with marketing teams and you talked about developing product or marketing campaigns.
And sometimes there's a lack of clarity in in the research that
That isn't
Exactly. It's not pointing you in one direction, but it's pointing you in several directions.
And what are you gonna base your decision about how you're gonna spend those
limited resources on the product or the marketing campaign, for instance. And some of it comes down to experience, some a bit down to maybe some insight that you have. And you don't have to fight tooth and nail, but
As Julia says, it's about how you bring up your perspective on it, how you actually
Articulate
your beliefs and your your thought something so that you can get it out on the table that
It may not everything is gonna go your way.
But it's so important to
contribute to the whole
By sharing your perspectives.
Yeah you
Identified this element of
Like
Getting smaller.
at the beginning of that.
that conversation. And I think
That hit me. That'cause I think that is exactly what
I often do as well. It's like
become a adept at
kind of shrinking away from those types of conversations and
limiting my
perspective on something
Now
I also take on different personas, you know, when I'm acting as
president of my company
I'm more likely to
explicitly, you know, state my
opinion.
But if it is in a family component or friendship component or
in a community situation or some other
format that isn't necessarily that work. I take on a different persona.
And I tend to shrink. And I think that's a really
Important
element. And I think what Julia gets at is
We need to learn how to handle
That matters so that we don't shrink.
Yeah.
She provides uh
A mindset?
perspective on this as well as a set of tools.
And I was really
Excited.
uh to kinda talk about this idea of receptiveness. This
This idea of
We uh
to to improve these
kind of uh disagreements that that we have in conversation is we need to be receptive. And it's that
Receptive always to being changed, but at least being receptive to learning, to to
To to learning about the other person's perspective. Um
And and if you can, being open to saying
You know, my mind
Maybe I do need to shift a little bit. Maybe I do need to change my strongly held opinion on something into another one. And I thought that was really important. Yeah. It reminds me of
Way, way back in our history, we talked to Cal Turnbull.
Oh yeah. The the Scottish uh creator of the Reddit site uh change
Change my mind?
Yeah, changed my mind.
Change my mind.
Um
This is episode ten. This is going back to like twenty eighteen. This is how far back we're we're going back to get to Cal Turnbull. But he said his grandfather had this really great thing where he said something along the lines of um
You start a conversation with a set of facts and you end the conversation with a set of facts. But in between, you introduce new ideas.
In order to make the end more accurate.
Yes.
And and like so this is I think that this is related to Julia's
Thesis to
And and to this receptiveness that if we are receptive, we could hone our own perspective. We could become sharper.
And and actually understand more.
And have a more accurate view of
Not just the world, but w whatever perspective we've got.
At the end by being receptive.
And and I love how you put that. At the beginning we have a set of facts, and at the end we have a set of facts. And it's the in between. And I think what Julia talks about is being.
Able to sit with the counter.
arguments in that middle part, right? To to
Not
immediately dismiss them or judge them as being wrong or
picture, you know, like what are my counterpoints that I'm going to be attacking those with, but just sit with them and
And
And
To just
Contemplate them.
You know, why are these w w what are these counterarguments? What
Why would people hold these counterarguments? You know, why does this person believe these set of facts? And you can think about this in
Like many of the
Political.
discussions that we have today
From people on
counter sides of political leanings.
And
We don't do that. We don't sit with those counterarguments and we hard go, You're just an idiot. And why would you ever believe that? Because it's stupid. And we have to
This is hard, right? I mean you can think about how hard that is just right now. I get a visceral kind of stomach churning when I go
I have to like
Try to figure out why you believe that stupid shit that you're believing. I mean, you must be totally dumb.
But that I k if I go in with that type of mindset.
I am we're never gonna get anywhere.
Right.
Yeah. So you have to listen.
And
Uh you you've got some ideas about some specific ways of listening, right well Julia talks about this, right? It's about this conversational receptiveness. It's it's using specific words, specific phrases.
um that signal that you are open. This is the part where it gets to be
contagious, right? As we talked about at the beginning, uh the smile contagious like, right? There, not not flu on. It's signaling. So
Um
And the big thing is is look, we
We think that we are
people understand where we're coming from, that they can read our mind, that you can tell from the you know what I said and the way my body language is and my history and all these other things where I'm coming from.
And even if that's your spouse or somebody that you're really close to, we're we are not mind readers. We are not very good.
Yeah.
reading what's going on.
And so
To make sure that people understand
You have to be
very specific in how you use words and phrases.
And
What is said in those conversation.
G give me an example.
Can' can if you just said this is really important and I would just go, Uhhuh.
Isn't that enough?

No, so so Julia calls us listening with words and with your words, which I thought was a great it it's the title of one of her chapters in the book, which I thought was
Brilliant. Like listening with words. You don't listen with your words, you listen with your ears. But she talks about listening with your words. So it's about restating or paraphrasing their
Their view. So
So an example is
Uh if I'm hearing you're right, what you're concerned about, Tim, is X. Or you're saying that this is Y.
Right.
just again goes to this idea of
Провайн бігрул евіденс
By the words that you're using
that you're listening to them. Another really great thing that we talked about um and that is in the book is that
We are really
Really good.
at faking listening.
Uh.
What? Excuse me? Are you but you I mean, it's not even that. It would be like Yeah, yeah, that's for sure, Kurt. Yes, exactly. You you know, we
We've been told so often that, you know, you have to be good at listening that
We've
learned the tricks of, you know, shaking your head, yeah, and saying yes and
Oh, you know, nodding at the right time. It's performance art.
This is what it is. Well, and she talks about some really great studies in there. I love those studies of like people, you know, two people in conversation and
One is being
No, you actually have to pay attention to the TV, what's going on behind it, but the other person can't know that. And the other person doesn't. They don't. They they think, No, he was really he was really listening to me. And they're going, No, I was paying attention to the television. I was just nodding my head at the appropriate. So yeah.

Yeah.
I the the thing that I just have to contribute here that I loved about your conversation was this idea of
Changing the way that we think about listening.
And
that change, that that little shift in listening rather than listening with our ears, we listen with our words.
really changes the dynamics of how we have a conversation.
It we gets back to
We're gonna say it again because we love Quami Christian, but that compassionate curiosity, it's not just being curious.
It's that compassionate curiosity.
that that changes it. And and I think Julia's model of listening with your words
To help
Advance.
Discussions is such a super powerful
Yeah, so we talked about you know listening with your words and we talked about the idea of
um restating or paraphrasing that view, right? You can also
Making sure you're asking the right types of questions. So elaboration questions as opposed to, you know, yes, no questions. Can you say more about what you meant by that or what led you to that conclusion? This goes back to some of Nick Epley's work.
Exactly.
Conversations like you know, nobody likes small talk, but you can get into some deeper conversations even with strangers. And
From Julius perspective, it shows that you're not just waiting to talk. Like you there's this perform where you talked about performative. It's like you say something and now it's my turn and I'm gonna say something. And
We talked about boomer questions, you know. Yeah Oh, how did you feel about how we did on that last uh interview, Tim? And
You say it with the expectation I'm asking you that, so
I get
the you know, you ask me that question back. So then I can lambast you of like, Yeah, well, I thought we, you know, that whatever it would be, right? So
And then you know, there's follow up questions. This idea of
not just moving on to the next topic, but
Um
You know.
So somebody talks about oh, I took my kids to the uh
you know, a dance competition this week, you know, and you go, Oh, well you
Like
You ask'em like, all right.
Uh kids you know, I took the kids to the bank. What did you do this weekend? Sorry.
And they go, Oh, I took my kids to
You know, this dance competition.
Oh, well what are you gonna do next weekend? Well that
That you in your mind you're going
I'm asking about weekends, right? So that's it's continuation. But no, what you really you should like well, how did the competition go? What you know, what did your kids think about it, you know? It and and it demonstrates that care that you talked about, that compassion. It's like you're not just moving on to the next topic.
You're digging in deeper to that one. And I think that's always a great piece. Yeah.
It's what makes us a good listener.
Basically, is to actually use
that listening technique of listening with our words in in all these techniques that you've talked about, Kurt. Yeah.
Uh what else? Anything else that uh
You want to
Groove on from your conversation with Julia?
Yeah, I think it's you know
There's there's a lot to take, but I think, you know, the mindset piece of this is really important is that
Disagreement.
I have to
work this into my mindset that
Disagreement isn't bad.
That is actually helpful.
And that we just need to be able to disagree in a more productive and
useful way
That leads to better outcomes. I love that you brought in that the Cal
Turnball piece, right? You know
One begins with a judgment and ends with a judgment, and the purpose of facts and figures is to come in between and make the one end more accurate, right? So that I think is the the quote that uh uh we we took. Um
Yeah. So
I don't know. Do you think that's a wrap?
This rap. That sounds good to me. Yes. Well, hopefully you'll be able listeners to go out and
Have some disagreement with someone.
This week.
Um
And and and really get to what matters. You know, disagree?
Is that is that what you're your your good
Asking our
Or listeners to disagree with someone and then
Do it the right way.
Is it Yeah, yeah, go out there and do that. And and we would like to not disagree now
uh and ask you to go out and and help us spread the word of behavior groove. So
If you like this episode or any of our other episodes, make sure that you follow us, that you like us, that you join our Substack community and uh or join our Facebook community.
Um
That would be fantastic.
Fantastic. And hopefully you don't disagree with
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely so.
Rivers.
We hope that you can use the
This new new foundability to di disagree better.
This week as you go out.
and find your groove.