Hank: "I don't want you to change me and you don't want me to change you."
You: "Correct, and that's okay to a certain point. But if we think there are important values violated or benefits lost for society, that pattern is a waste of time. We should instead go back home and paint a room or something."
Hank: "So what are you suggesting?"
You: "Both of us need two things. We need to believe the other understands our ideas, and we need to understand the other's ideas. In other words, we are both aware that we got across a valid point that the other received and understood, and when we receive the other's words, we get their point accurately."
Hank: "It doesn't sound that hard if we try to listen."
You: "The trouble is that even with good listening, we can bend what we hear into our own assumptions. If I think I know where your idea is headed or where it is probably wrong, I apply that framework to it even if you want to make a different point. It can be hard for me to listen freshly to what you say now. We can tell that happens by our feeling when the other's response is a little off, that it doesn't accurately address our main point, or how they ignored a key piece."
Hank: "We're always talking to ourselves about our own ideas in a way."
You: "That's a major problem. We make our way through our own version of what the other is saying, and may ignore their actual words. This is a reason why listening and then summarizing back to the other person is so important. We need to state their point as they would make it, but in the language our own mind uses. Until we can do that, we are not absorbing the idea they offer. We can start off by asking them, 'Could you just sum up what you hear me trying to say?' If the other can do that, it may be the first time they actually recognized our idea."
Hank: "To apply your point right here, you say that our mind is stuck in our own thinking until we can express the other's idea in words our own mind understands."
You: "Yes, yes. You summarized my point. There are layers to that, though, like traffic rules. If you have a stretch of highway where there are lots of accidents, you need rules that generally smooth out traffic but other rules also to solve tricky situations. You could say that listening and summarizing each other is a general guideline, while to upgrade it you might say, 'You talk for one minute, I summarize you, and then I talk for a minute and you summarize me.' We agree on a pattern that feels fair and gets us expressing each other's ideas."
Hank: "That should work most of the time. We could try it I guess."
You: "We could, but remember the two things we need. One is to actually understand the other, and the second is for the other to feel understood. Often we are certain we grasp the other's idea and are preparing our answer, but the speaker is 'not feeling the love.' They are still attached to sending their idea because they do not know if we really got it, and so do not shift into listening to us."
Hank: "Right, right. And then we both feel helpless and think, 'Why bother?'"
You: "We can solve even that problem, though, with an extra step in the listening process. Because it takes a little more effort, both people need to want to improve their communication or else they won't do it. The method insures that every idea offered is understood the same way by both people, and doing that sentence by sentence overcomes polarization."
Hank: "How does it go?"
You: "Let's say you take your one-minute turn in talking, and it's up to me to summarize what you say. I do that as best I can, but at the end of my summary, I ask you this question: 'Do I understand you perfectly?' You think about my summary of your one minute of talking. Did I really catch your point? Did I leave out any key aspect? If I did, you fill in that piece and tell me, 'You left out the reason for", okay?' I restate my summary, include the piece you said I missed the first time, and ask again, 'Do I understand you perfectly?' If you can then say, 'Yeah, you got it exactly,' it means that a single idea passed between us, we both understood it the same way, and we notice a small surge of satisfaction. Then the focus shifts and it's my turn to talk for a minute. You summarize my comments, ask me if you understood perfectly, and I correct you if I need to. Because this extra step catches those critical subtleties that are often overlooked, it shows we really do understand."
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