Why It's So Hard to Listen When You Disagree: Emily Kasriel on Deep Listening

Kasriel begins by noting something she considers strange: most people believe they should be better listeners, but in her research she found that listening is especially hard when people disagree.

She describes a kind of psychological obstacle that gets in the way. People fear that if they listen to others whose ideas they find unpalatable, they will be contaminated without realizing it.

Kasriel argues that people have accepted a dangerous myth: that listening means agreeing. Because of this belief, people avoid listening.

Instead, she says, they focus on explaining themselves more loudly, more fiercely and more insistently, hoping the other side will finally understand.

Kasriel says she includes this example because she should know the cost of not listening: early in her career, reporting for the BBC in Ethiopia, she threw away a once-in-a-lifetime chance to understand one of Africa's most intriguing and powerful leaders.

She landed an interview with its president and later prime minister, Meles Zenawi, and was proud of what she saw as her big scoop. She notes that at the time his opponents were being tortured or disappeared.

Zenawi wanted to talk about record crop production of maize, sorghum and barley, which was critical in a country with a history of famine. Kasriel refused to listen, repeatedly returning to human rights. She admits her questions were masks for her desire to confront the president.

Kasriel says Zenawi moved further and further away from her, behind his large wooden desk, and then cut the interview short.

She is clear that holding the president to account was not wrong and was essential. The problem, in her account, was her lack of curiosity and her inability to listen, which made him put up his defenses, so she walked away empty-handed.

Kasriel says she has learned from her mistakes as a journalist and from her work as an executive coach. She has also drawn on scholars, psychologists and peacebuilders.

She has woven these ideas together into a book and into an approach she calls Deep Listening.

She argues that the standard way people perform listening starves them of real connections, making it hard to engage with coworkers, family, anyone from a different background or generation, and anyone whose ideas conflict with theirs. She adds that people are all driven by judgments, emotions and their past, and cling to the moral high ground.

Kasriel says the problem starts early, when people are brought up to believe that listening means agreement and that listening signals obedience.

She recalls her first teacher yelling at her, 'Listen to me.' What the teacher meant, she says, was 'Obey me. Keep quiet. Put those crayons away.' It was not an invitation to listen but a command to comply.

This muddling of listening and agreement, she argues, leads adults to fear listening to people whose ideas might disturb them.

Kasriel lists the questions people ask when they face disturbing ideas: Will I lose myself? Will I be forced to change my mind? Will I be changed?

She says that, at a primal level, opening oneself to ideas that clash with one's values can feel scary.

The result, she argues, is a world in which people think it is better, even more moral, to sidestep encounters across divides. She warns that avoiding these exchanges only deepens the fault lines of polarization that are tearing families, communities and nations apart.

Kasriel describes Latvia, a Baltic state with a traumatic history of decades under Soviet rule. Shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, feelings there ran deep and high, threats of reinvasion felt real, and suspicion fell on the one in three Latvians who speak Russian at home.

She was invited to train people from both communities together, Latvians and Russian speakers, so that they could practice Deep Listening with someone from the other side. She acknowledges that it is hard to listen when feelings are strong and much is at stake.

Kasriel introduces Ilona, a Russian-speaking Latvian. She says that at the start, when Ilona began using the Deep Listening steps, it felt quite unnatural. It was hard for her to stay curious and to accept that she did not yet know what her neighbor might be thinking.

Cautiously, Ilona began putting the eight steps to work, starting by taking time out to listen to herself first and to notice what her neighbor might provoke in her.

Kasriel gives two examples. Her neighbor might remind Ilona of a bullying older sister, so that she felt eight years old again, powerless and trapped. Or Ilona might notice how judgmental she was feeling, thinking, 'That neighbor. She's selfish, for sure.'

Ilona might also realize that, like most people, she had projected onto her neighbor the parts of herself she found hardest to accept. As Kasriel puts it, we see the world not as it is, but as we are.

Slowly, Ilona learned to put her own baggage aside so that she could be more present with whatever unfolded and whatever her neighbor wanted to share. Kasriel notes that she did not manage this every time. Some conversations still left her tight-jawed and defensive, but she began to notice that in the moment.

Ilona then experimented with something simple: silence. Kasriel describes it as the warm, empathetic kind, which allows the neighbor to reflect more and gives Ilona a chance to make more sense of their perspective.

Kasriel says Ilona found she could tap into what she calls the 'Third Ear,' which is about tuning into what is important but unspoken. Kasriel likes to think the Third Ear is located just next to the heart and can be more insightful than conscious intelligence, which relies on the two ears on either side of the brain.

Afterwards Ilona reflected that she might be able to help her neighbor feel safe, so that the neighbor started to trust her and shared more of their deeper story.

Kasriel says that what Ilona discovered is not unique to her. She describes a large global research project, run with the BBC and the British Council, which recruited over 1,000 people across 100 countries to train in Deep Listening.

According to Kasriel, something remarkable happened: participants not only felt safer expressing themselves and more connected, but also started to question their own attitudes. She adds that other research she has seen shows that when people feel truly heard, they soften their beliefs.

She presents this as a powerful incentive for everyone to listen deeply to others.

Kasriel introduces Hawraa, a Lebanese Muslim who wanted to learn to listen more deeply. Her father had insisted she limit her friendships to people with a similar upbringing, and she carried those judgments into adulthood. She told Kasriel she used to be against Syrian refugees in Lebanon and stayed clear of them, because some allowed their girls to marry at 11 or 13, which she described as 'not living a proper Lebanese life.'

Kasriel got to know Hawraa while training communities from Lebanon. Her breakthrough came when she understood, not just intellectually but emotionally, that listening to someone with different perspectives is not a surrender or a betrayal of one's values.

Today Hawraa has become something of a poster child for Deep Listening. Every Tuesday she works with teenagers at a school for Syrian refugees. By listening to her students in this new way, she has come to understand that more than one perspective is possible.

Hawraa told Kasriel, 'It felt like a glimpse of light,' though she said it still takes strength, patience and an open heart. Kasriel notes that Hawraa is aware of the tensions that still exist between her ideas and those of others, and that she is still passionately against child marriage, but is finding ways to open and deepen her understanding while keeping true to her values.

Kasriel says viewers do not need to live in a conflict zone to practice Deep Listening while disagreeing. She offers what she calls a small, slightly risky experiment.

Viewers are asked to think of someone they know who sees the world differently, not the most extreme case but someone with whom the disagreement really stings. They should then take time to listen deeply to that person, with as much curiosity and openness as they can manage.

Along the way, Kasriel asks viewers to notice their discomfort, notice their resistance, and notice whether they have the courage to move past both, even if it feels a little awkward. She says that over time these experiences have made her feel more alive as she opens herself to connecting deeply with another person, whatever their beliefs, and giving them the gift of feeling truly heard.

Kasriel concludes that Deep Listening is about respect for the other person's dignity and the fullness of their humanity, whatever they stand for.

Given how high the stakes are in polarized times, she asks the audience to imagine what might be possible if people firmly and permanently separated listening from agreement.