The Question That Changed the Conversation
Hello,
I was watching a news story recently about a professor who teaches students how to navigate disagreement.
As he described one of the exercises he uses in class, I found myself thinking, "I know where this is going."
I've spent enough time around leadership training, communication workshops, and books like Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to assume I knew the lesson. One student would talk about something they felt passionate about. The other student would listen. Then the listener would paraphrase what they heard.
"What I hear you saying is..."
The speaker would either confirm the summary or clarify it, and everyone would learn the importance of seeking first to understand and then to be understood.
Except that isn't what happened.
The professor explained that after the first student finished speaking, the second student's job was not to summarize the content of what they had heard. Instead, they were asked to identify the speaker's values: "Based on everything you just heard, what do you think this person values?" That question stopped me in my tracks because it was a very different exercise than the one I had expected.
Listening for Something Deeper
Most of us listen for positions, conclusions, and opinions. We listen to see whether we agree or disagree. The professor was teaching students to listen for something underneath all of that.
Imagine someone passionately explaining their perspective on a controversial issue. Instead of responding with agreement, disagreement, or even a summary of what was said, the listener responds with an observation:
"It sounds like you value fairness."
Or perhaps: "It sounds like you value freedom."
Or: "It sounds like you value responsibility."
What fascinated me most was that getting the answer wrong was still useful. If the listener says, "It sounds like you value fairness," and the speaker responds, "No, actually what I value is freedom," the conversation has already moved somewhere more interesting.
The goal is no longer defending a position. The goal is understanding what matters to another person.
The Conversation Under the Conversation
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how many disagreements are really taking place on two different levels. The surface conversation is about the issue itself. The deeper conversation is about values.
My daughter, Lilia, has spent years asking us to trust her. From her perspective, trust often sounds like, "Let me do it myself." If we ask questions, express concerns, or want more information, she sometimes interprets that as a lack of trust.
From my perspective, however, the conversation isn't really about trust. It's about safety. It's about protection. It's about the responsibility that comes with loving someone and wanting them to be okay.
Lilia values independence. She wants opportunities to grow, make decisions, and prove she is capable. I value those things too. The difference is that I am also carrying the responsibility of being her parent.
What looks like disagreement on the surface is often a reflection of different values competing for space in the same conversation. If I only listen to her words, I hear frustration. If I listen for her values, I hear a young woman who wants to be trusted. And if she listens for mine, she might hear a mother who is worried about someone she loves.
The disagreement doesn't disappear, but the conversation changes. It becomes harder to see the other person as unreasonable when you understand the values that are driving their perspective.
More Alike Than We Think
My husband and I are, in many ways, complete opposites. He's tall. I'm short. He's blonde. I'm brunette. He studied science. I studied English. He's athletic, and I am enthusiastic about watching athletic people. We approach problems differently. We think differently. We often arrive at different conclusions. And yet, after twenty-four years of marriage, I can tell you that our relationship works because our values are remarkably similar.
We both care deeply about family. We both value integrity. We both want the best for our children. We both believe relationships matter. Our methods sometimes differ. Our values rarely do.
The older I get, the more I wonder how often that is true outside of marriage as well.
What Do You Value?
We are living in a time when disagreement often feels like division. The moment someone expresses an opinion different from our own, it is easy to assume that we have nothing in common.
Maybe that is because we spend so much time listening to positions and so little time listening for values. Curiosity does not require agreement. I can be curious about what matters to you without changing my mind. I can seek to understand the values that shaped your perspective without adopting your perspective. Sometimes, in the process, I discover that we care about many of the same things. We simply see different paths to getting there.
That professor's exercise stayed with me because it revealed something I hadn't considered before. What if the most important part of a disagreement isn't the argument itself? What if the most important question is: What do you value? The answer might not change your opinion. It might not change theirs either. But it just might change how you see the person sitting across from you.
~Heather
P.S. There are some questions we answer so quickly that we never stop to consider whether there might be another way to think about them.That is why my Catch of the Week this week is a conversation between Simon Sinek and Dr. Ellen Langer.
At one point, Dr. Langer asks Simon, "How much is one plus one?" He smiles and says, "I'm going to take a wild guess and say two." Her response is simple: "Not always."
She isn't being difficult or trying to trick him. She's making a larger point. We often mistake familiarity for certainty. We stop asking questions because we assume we already know the answer.
That mindset shows up far beyond math. It affects how we see other people, our work, and even ourselves. The moment we become absolutely certain, we stop noticing, stop questioning, and stop learning.
The catch is this: curiosity begins where certainty ends. The conversation left me wondering how many "one plus one equals two" moments exist in my own thinking. They are probably worth a second look.
P.P.S. Please remember to...
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