by Daniel B. Griffith, J.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Andrii Yalanskyi/Shutterstock
Conversation is fragile. When we disagree, conversation becomes especially fragile and can break down from the smallest hurt, slight, or offense, real or imagined. Effective, sustained, civil conversation on issues for which we disagree involves skill, character, focus, intention, and practice. All these things are in short supply based on what we observe in our culture, politics, and general and social media.
While we may not be able to directly improve discourse in broader society, we can improve it in our own lives. This starts with understanding where and how our efforts at civil conversation break down. First, we must be self-aware and willing to address our own contributions to inauthentic, uncivil discourse. Second, we must be able to discern when others exhibit these characteristics and behaviors so we can manage our reactions and avoid being sucked into an argument.
To reclaim the civil, authentic discourse we are capable of, let’s recognize and learn from the barriers that keep us from getting there. Consider:
Our Motives
When have you entered conversation fully intending to maintain civility, respect, and an openness to sharing and listening to one another’s perspectives? How long are you able to maintain this level of decorum before you or the other person say or do something that rankles? Do you slip into argument, debate, overreaction, and a feeling of futility and diminished respect for the other person?
If so, your true motives for engaging in conversation have shifted. Your original intent to understand, improve a relationship, resolve a conflict, or achieve some other noble goal deteriorates to an unflattering goal such as winning an argument, defeating the other’s position, defending yourself, or accomplishing some other end that defeats your original good intent.
Our Credibility
Do you have a reputation for fairness, trustworthiness, reliability, truthfulness, and believability? Is your information verifiable? Are your promises, assertions, and general representations consistently backed by your actions? Or can the other person legitimately conclude you are prone to stretching the truth, manipulation, misdirection, evasiveness, and similar traits?
You can sense when someone is genuine and authentic, and when they are not. What do others say about you? If you lack credibility, conversation will either not happen or will break down as others become hesitant, guarded, or wholly avoidant in your attempts to engage them.
The Credibility of Our Information
Our credibility depends in part on the how you support what you are sharing with credible information. This doesn’t mean being a lawyer presenting admissible evidence or a scientist presenting research data (unless you are in a courtroom or defending a peer-reviewed journal article).
It means, depending on context, that the facts and information you share come from reliable sources and are relevant to the purpose of your conversation, not distorted, exaggerated, based on unsubstantiated hearsay, or out of context. Even objective, fact-based observations can be credible, provided you are perceived as a credible source. Depending on how the other person perceives the reliability of your information, they will either continue to trust such information or distrust it, and you.
The Manner in Which We Convey Our Message
We must attend to how we convey our message so that the other person can understand it without creating confusion or causing undue offense. We put civil discourse at risk if we are not careful with how we share our information, express our concerns, and seek to persuade others. This may occur, among other reasons, when we:
- Confuse facts with opinions. In our discourse, we express opinions, viewpoints, perspectives, assumptions, or other statements of belief. We confuse others or create discord when we state opinions as though they are facts. Opinions and assumptions are fine. A rule of thumb when fostering dialogue is to offer a basis for your opinions and assumptions with objective facts and information.
- Fail to appropriately manage emotion. Discourse lacks authenticity when we fail to acknowledge emotion in ourselves and others. Emotion becomes problematic when used to manipulate, overstate the gravity of a situation, express outrage out of proportion to the offense, or obscure or overwhelm reason and the need to discuss the matter at hand. Honest emotion is warranted, but barriers occur when unconstrained emotion distorts the message or prevents others from understanding us.
- Betray our words with incongruent non-verbal messages. In communication, we gather meaning not only from someone’s verbal message – the words spoken – but from non-verbal and para-verbal communication. When we send one message verbally, such as positively communicating agreement, and simultaneously an incongruent message non-verbally, such as a grimace, frown, eye roll, or smirk, we compromise the integrity of our message, leaving the recipient to distrust it and future messages.
Our Openness to Others’ Message
We expect others to listen to us and acknowledge and respect our viewpoints, but do we give them the same consideration? This includes demonstrating a deep level of listening, in which we ensure we reflect on what we’ve heard, paraphrase and acknowledge this to the other person, and refrain from prejudgment as we fully consider the person’s message.
It also means being open to another’s respectful challenge to our viewpoint and to honest inquiry to learn the basis for our beliefs and the assumptions we’ve made. Instead, too often we spend little time listening and speak back or over the other person without reflection, and we take offense to perceived affronts to our views rather than appreciate inquiry as a means for enriching learning, connections, and possibilities for common ground.
Noise that Disrupts Communication
I use “noise” to describe the many distractions and distortions that detract from our true, necessary message.
There are endless words, language, and tone choices that get in the way of simple, comprehensive communication. This includes language couched in sarcasm, cynicism, negativity, pompousness, prudishness, condescension, sanctimoniousness, and bluntness. It further includes choices like engaging in political correctness, technical jargon, and use of acronyms and “big words” to sound like an expert, particularly when not gauged appropriately for the audience. Unmitigated argument, talking over or down to others, insults, and outright rejection and attacks on another’s views also create “noise.” Whether deliberate or based on a lack of awareness of how we come across, we must “quiet’ the noise to improve our discourse.
If you want to take a serious look at the barriers that keep us from authentic, civil discourse, perhaps start by observing and listening to the chatter, debates, and verbal fights around you, whether in the public arena or in smaller doses in your immediate vicinity. Consider specific examples where conversation is breaking down, why this is occurring, and how it might improve, if only the participants were willing. Then, evaluate where you may improve the civil discourse in your life. There are new mindsets and skills to develop, but you must first know where to start.
