30 September 2026 · 2 min
1. Begin by genuinely listening to them. Make sure that you understand them. It is often useful to ask for confirmation: restate what you think they are saying and make sure that you understand. Physically, it helps to turn your shoulders so that you face them. Don’t look at your screen while they talk.
2. Ask more questions. You can often effortlessly weaken the stance of someone who has not given much thought to an issue just by asking them questions. Don’t ‘challenge them’. Ask genuine questions. The objective is not to break their views with questions, but to establish the playing ground. Many people are unclear about what they think they believe. They may simply be repeated what they heard.
3. Focus on what you share in common. Often, the disagreement is smaller than you think. Furthermore, you can sometimes entirely avoid a conflict by establishing strong agreement on many points.
4. Unless you are clearly a knowledgeable person, do not immediately express your opinion. Begin by establishing your credibility. Refer to hard facts, data. Refer to people or documents you have consulted. This, in turn, should have been done ahead of time. Never engage in a debate without having done at least a bit of research and reflection.
5. Use language that fits the issue. You need to learn the vocabulary. Learn the technical terms and use them, although you may want to remain accessible, so explain them as well.
6. Tell stories. People understand by emotions as much as by their reason. Ideally, the story should be true and it should be backed by hard evidence.
7. Avoid personal attacks and do not tolerate them against you and others. If someone is insulting you, if it is fair to say so. You may say that you feel offended. It is the one case where you can and maybe should go on the offensive. Don’t answer by an insult, but attack the fact that they insulted you. You may ask for an apology.