How To Make Conversations Healthy Dialogues

In his book, Habits of a Peacemaker, Steven T. Collis, a leading expert on civil discourse, reveals ten practical habits that can help you navigate the potential minefields of hard topics and leave you and those you converse with feeling thoughtful and productive. 

The ten habits are: 

1. Intellectual Humility and Reframing
2. Seek Real Learning
3. Assume the Best About People
4. Don’t Feed People’s Worst Fears
5. Hunt for the Best Argument Against You
6. Be Open to Change
7. Spend Time with People
8. A Sliver of Humor
9. Seek Inner Peace
10. Embrace the Discomfort of Non-Closure 

“I have organized the book in a way that makes sense to me, but you should not feel the need to read it strictly from front to back,” shares Collis. “Each chapter provides useful guidance on how to achieve moments of peaceful, productive dialogue with the people in your life.” 

He adds, “If how you treat others matters to you, this book offers powerful new habits that can give you the confidence to engage in dialogue about hard topics while building and strengthening relationships.”

Helping us rise above our tendency to overestimate what we know, Collis illuminates, among other skills: 

• Why self-reflection and self-care—such as journaling, reading, and talk therapy—are important, underrated, tools for civil discourse.
• When to deploy tight, slightly self-deprecating humor to lower the conversational temperature.
• How to embrace discomfort, or a lack of closure, in conversation.
• How to recognize gaslighting and now allow it.
• Know when and how to use humor during conversations. 

Some of my favorite takeaways and lessons learned from the book include: 

• Conversations are more likely to deteriorate when participants are acting with too little information.
• Framing or reframing a conversation will help conversations focus more on making progress and learning, rather than merely proving others wrong.
• Peacemakers assume the best about people and their intentions.
• All the questions in the world will do you no good if you are not listening to the answers.
• Peacemakers ask genuine questions, and they listen for complete answers.
• Don’t seek praise for your own contributions and instead try to highlight the great work of those around you, including those with whom you disagree.
• Peacemakers spend time with people to know and understand them. 

and these lessons:

• Know that when used correctly, humor can be a powerful tool for putting people at ease and allowing more fruitful conversations.
• Realize that for many problems, even a small step in finding a solution is important and know that even small steps cannot be made in moments of hostility and argument.
• Peacemakers take time needed to reflect on issues and the arguments presented to them.
• Peacemakers know that the best way to connect with others is through their own kind example and tone, long before any words come out of their mouths.

In addition, Collis suggests the best way to achieve active listening is to:

• Ask questions (and listen to the answers) until a question is asked of you.
• You may have points you want to make.
• You may have opinions you want to share.
• Hopefully, as you're listening, those points and opinions are growing more sophisticated. 
• Eventually, as you ask more questions, the person with whom you're speaking will realize they haven't asked you anything.
• When they finally do, you now have your window to share your thinking.

Steven T. Collis

Collis shares these additional insights with us:

Question: How can you balance intellectual humility with the need to assert your own perspectives in discussions about contentious issues?

Collis: Intellectual humility and recognizing how little we know about any given topic does not preclude us from forming or sharing our opinions. But it should soften how strongly we state them. It should make us more curious about how others think. It should keep us open to change and the possibility that we might learn new information that will cause us to change our minds.

Question: If you had to choose just one peacemaking habit to implore people to use, which one would it be?

Collis: On a daily basis, never lose your intellectual humility. I started the book with that habit and the daily practices that lead to it because it lays the foundation for everything else that peacemakers do.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.