Listen Up: Listening Across Difference

How to hear someone when you completely disagree

This is where listening gets hard.

You've learned to stop talking, breathe, focus, lean in. You've learned to listen for what's not being said, to use strategic silence, to ask transformative questions.

All of that falls apart the moment you're sitting across from someone whose views make your blood boil.

How do you listen to someone you think is wrong? Harmful? Dangerous?

This is the question I get most from students. And it's the most important listening skill I can teach.

The Thanksgiving Table Test

Think about the last family gathering where someone said something that made you want to throw your mashed potatoes.

Maybe it was about politics. Religion. Social issues. Something that matters deeply to you, and they landed on the opposite side with absolute confidence.

What did you do?

If you're like most people, you did one of three things:

1. Engaged in battle. You argued. You corrected. You explained why they were wrong. The conversation devolved into a fight.

2. Shut down. You went quiet. Changed the subject. Avoided that person for the rest of the evening.

3. Performed agreement. You nodded along, keeping peace, while internally seething.

None of these is listening.

What Listening Across Difference Is NOT

Let me be clear about what I'm not asking you to do:

I'm not asking you to agree with harmful views.

I'm not asking you to stay silent in the face of injustice.

I'm not asking you to give equal weight to facts and lies.

I'm not asking you to pretend differences don't matter.

Listening across difference doesn't mean accepting the unacceptable.

It means understanding how someone arrived at their position—so you can determine whether dialogue is possible or whether boundaries are necessary.

The Two Types of Disagreement

Not all disagreements are created equal. And the listening strategy changes based on what type you're dealing with:

Type 1: Different Values or Priorities

Example: You prioritize environmental protection. They prioritize economic growth. You both want human flourishing but weight factors differently.

Listening Strategy: Seek to understand their underlying values and the experiences that shaped them. Find common ground in shared goals even if you disagree on methods.

Dialogue Potential: High. You can build understanding even if you don't change minds.

Type 2: Different Relationship to Reality

Example: They deny established facts. They're operating in a conspiracy framework. They reject shared sources of truth.

Listening Strategy: Listen to understand what emotional needs this worldview meets for them. What fear, anger, or powerlessness is this belief system addressing?

Dialogue Potential: Low on the surface issue. But might be higher if you can address the underlying emotional reality.

The Student I Almost Wrote Off

Four years ago, a student in my Ethics class made a comment about other religions different from their religion that made me see red.

My first instinct: Shut him down publicly. Make an example of his ignorance.

Instead, I took a breath and asked: "Tell me more about why you see it that way."

He talked about his family and how he was raised, shared feelings like his family had been forgotten. About fear that felt very real to him, even if his conclusions were problematic.

Here's what I learned: His facts were wrong, but his pain was real.

I didn't agree with his position. And I understood, for the first time, how someone gets there.

Over the semester, his views shifted, not because I argued with him, but because I listened to him. And in being heard, he became willing to hear. If I'd shut him down in week three, nothing would have changed.

The Listening Stance

When listening across deep difference, adopt this mental stance: "I'm listening to understand, not to agree or convert."

Your goal isn't to change their mind in this conversation. It's to understand how their mind works.

This requires:

✓ Genuine curiosity (even when it's hard) ✓ Separating the person from the position (they're not reducible to this one view) ✓ Believing they're making sense to themselves (even if not to you) ✓ Recognizing your own certainties might be limited

The Five Questions for Listening Across Difference

When you're in conversation with someone you disagree with deeply:

1. "What experiences shaped your view on this?"

Gets past the position to the story. People's views make sense when you understand their context.

2. "What concerns you most about this issue?"

Identifies their core fear or value. Often, you'll find common ground in the concern even if not the solution.

3. "What would you want someone who disagrees with you to understand?"

Invites them to articulate what they feel is most misunderstood about their position.

4. "Have you always felt this way, or did something change your mind?"

Explores their journey. Sometimes reveals they were once where you are now.

5. "What do you think people who disagree with you are most concerned about?"

Tests whether they can articulate the other side fairly. If they can, dialogue is possible. If they can't or won't, maybe not.

When Not to Listen

Here's the hard truth: Not every position deserves your listening energy.

Some conversations aren't in good faith. Some positions actively harm people. Some "debates" are designed to exhaust you, bully you. You get to choose where you invest your listening.

Don't listen when:

• They're deliberately trolling or baiting you

• The conversation is abusive or dehumanizing

• You're being asked to debate your basic humanity

• They're unwilling to extend the same listening to you

• You're emotionally or physically unsafe

Do listen when:

• They're genuinely struggling with a complex issue

• You have relationship capital with them

• There's actual potential for growth

• Your listening might prevent further harm

• You have the emotional capacity to do so

The Coaching Parallel

I coached athletes with wildly different worldviews. Some I agreed with politically, religiously, philosophically. Others I didn't.

On the track, none of that mattered.

What mattered: Could I listen to this athlete in this moment about this struggle without needing them to be someone different?

The athletes I helped most weren't the ones who agreed with me about everything.

They were the ones I learned to listen to as whole human beings, even when we saw the world differently.

The Practice

This week's challenge is the hardest yet:

Listen to someone you disagree with. Really listen, without arguing or correcting.

Not someone dangerous or abusive. Someone you have relationship with who sees an issue differently than you do.

Use the five questions. Try to understand, not convert.

After the conversation, ask yourself:

• Do I understand their position better?

• Did I learn something about how they think?

• Did listening to them cost me anything I wasn't willing to give?

• Is continued dialogue possible and worthwhile?

Then decide: Do you engage further? Do you set boundaries? Do you agree to disagree?

But decide from a place of understanding, not assumption.

What This Isn't

This isn't about being nice. Or civil for civility's sake. Or pretending we're all just different shades of right.

Some things are true. Some things are false. Some positions cause harm.

But before you can effectively challenge a harmful position, you have to understand why someone holds it.

Listening across difference doesn't weaken your convictions.

It makes your response more strategic, more human, and more likely to create change.

Tomorrow: "Listening Lesson #10: When Listening Isn't Enough (Action vs. Attention)"

Have you ever changed your mind about something important? What made that possible? Was someone listening to you part of that shift?

Dr. Tom Lobaugh teaches communication, listening, and ethics at Boise State University, coached high school track and field for 20 years, and is completing his PhD in Psychology with an emphasis in Performance. Learn more at tomlobaugh.com