Understanding Isn’t Agreeing

We’ve talked about giving feedback in my previous article, and how important it is for the person giving feedback to feel heard. That’s easier said than done, so that’s today’s topic. How do you actually make someone feel heard? And how do you avoid falling into the trap of endlessly accommodating others? This is aimed at both managers and team members, and applicable in your everyday life.

Actually listen

Listening to people is a skill many people think they master yet they don’t. Think about it, what happens in your head when you’re listening to someone? Does your mind wander a little? Do you start forming opinions on what the person is saying to you before they’ve finished making their point? Do you sometimes cut the person off, without hearing the whole story?

Brianna Wiest describes what the people who actually listen are doing:

While listening to other people speak, they focus on what is being said, not how they are going to respond.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

You have to control your mind: don’t let it wander, don’t start arguing before the person’s finished speaking, and don’t rehearse your response in your head while they’re still talking. You have to lock into “listening mode.” If you don’t, you’re not there for an objective conversation anymore, your mind’s already made up: you’re in “defensive mode.”

How do you achieve it? Just the other day, my yoga teacher started the class by saying “Today, we’re going to practice listening before acting.” She wanted us to understand the goal of each pose and move with intent, instead of just copying the shape without knowing what it meant. And she is right, most people start copying the teacher during the instructions, instead of letting her finish. So there’s your easy solution: just wait before responding.

Feeling heard and understood

Now that you’ve learnt to be in listening mode rather than defensive mode, the next step is to make sure the person actually feels heard and understood. But if you’ve actually listened, chances are that’s enough, you won’t need to do more to move forward with a decision. You’ve achieved something valuable: the person feels heard.

For tougher discussions, you might have to go the extra mile and make them feel understood. I found the clearest explanation of why in a negotiation book:

People often argue and keep negotiating because they think: If only the other side better understood my position, I would get my way.

— Barry Nalebuff, Split the Pie: A Radical New Way to Negotiate

The easy method is to check that you actually understood them. I am sure you’ve run into this before, where you respond and the other party starts answering “What I meant is…” and you want to say “Yes, I know, you’ve said that already”. An easy solution to this kind of situation is to reformulate their position.

But be careful, a line is easily crossed here: do not mention the potential negative outcome of their feedback, stick within the scope they provided. Say “I want to make sure I understood what you meant”, not “What you’re saying is…”. The first one puts the doubt on you, the second tells them what they think. Subtle, but it’s felt. The negative outcome, if any, has to come later.

Right now the goal is not to argue, it is to let them know you heard and understood them. It might sound time-consuming, but it’s the opposite, you’re avoiding the back-and-forth, the frustration of feeling misunderstood, and the resistance you’d get once you start arguing back. Plus, if you did misunderstand them, you’re catching it right away, before the debate even starts.

Disagreeing

You listened, they feel heard and understood, now what? How do you tell them that you don’t agree? Because there is a difference between saying “I understand what you mean” and “I agree with you”, and I think we mix those two up more often than we realise.

So say it. Once, clearly: “I hear where you’re coming from, and I don’t agree. Here’s why.” That’s really all there is to it. You understood their position, that doesn’t mean you have to adopt it, and they don’t have to adopt yours either just because you explained yourself well.

This is usually where it goes wrong, in one of two ways. Either you cave, and you go along with something you don’t actually believe just to avoid more friction. That’s the accommodation trap I mentioned at the start, and it feels like the nice thing to do in the moment, but you’re just moving the problem somewhere else. Or you nod along, and then you quietly do your own thing anyway, or you bring the same objection back three meetings later. Neither of those resolves anything, you’re only postponing the same conversation.

The truth is, you will never always get your own way. If you’re not the one making the final call, you have to accept that you move forward as a unit, and holding a grudge over a decision affects the whole group, not just you.

There is a better option, and it has a name: disagree and commit. You say your piece, and once the decision is made, you commit to it fully, instead of half-following it while waiting to be proven right. Committing doesn’t mean pretending you agree. It means acting in good faith on a decision you didn’t choose, because someone had to decide, and this time it wasn’t you.

And if you’re the one deciding, this puts something on you too. You can’t just announce the outcome and move on. You have to explain your reasoning, tied to what you now understand about their position. Something like “I get why you’d want X, but I’m going with Y, because…”. That sentence only works because you listened first. Without that, it’s just an order.

Final words

Making someone feel heard isn’t the end of the conversation. It’s what makes the rest of it possible.

It’s what earns you the right to disagree. And it’s what makes it possible for the other person to commit to a decision they didn’t make, instead of quietly resenting it.