How to Turn an Argument Into a Conversation

In order to convert an argument to a conversation, you must first understand the components of an argument. 

An argument consists of two narrow/closed minded people trying to force their personal views on one another. If you are argumentative this definition is a hard pill to swallow, but it’s the truth.

Think about it, if people’s verbal exchanges were solely to understand one another, an argument wouldn’t be possible. 

Once you grasp and understand the components of an argument, use that wisdom to slowly change the components of your verbal exchanges from the components of an argument to the components of a conversation as a way of initiating the conversion. 

The person who submits to the components of a conversation will always have the upper hand in a verbal exchange.  An argument can’t sustain its’ identity when it encounters the dynamics of an authentic and intentional attempt to have a true conversation, it has to conform. 

The components of a true conversation will rob any argument of its air to breathe. 

In this article I’ll be sharing the 5 components of intentional conversation to show you how easy it is to end an argument or turn it into an actual conversation.   

The first component of an intentional conversation is to make the main objective to learn something from the person you’re talking to whether you agree with his or her opinion or not. 

It takes being secure in who you are and a lot of maturity to be able to make learning something from the person you’re having a verbal exchange with your main objective; but if you communicate with your learning hat on, it’s impossible to be closed minded. 

A closed minded person’s main objective is to teach or force their point of view upon someone else so that they’ll feel right or understood, so if you say or imply that you disagree with him or her in the beginning of the verbal exchange then that is their cue to teach/argue harder until you understand him or her, i.e. agree with their thoughts. 

Being in learning mode keeps you from being tempted to counter a closed minded person’s thoughts, and puts your body language in a silent intrigued state of being. This type of response robs an argumentative person of the trigger to get more passionate about being right or understood and causes the person to begin questioning what he or she is saying because there is no verbal feedback to respond to.  This initiates an opening for the conversion process to start and sets you up for the second component of the conversation process. 

The second component of an intentional conversation is listening to understand. 

Understanding is not agreeing; understanding is being open minded enough to be able to see another person’s point of view so clearly that you can empathize with their perspective even if you disagree with him or her.

Listening to understand is the only way to borrow a person’s eyes in order to see and empathize with his or her way of thinking and feeling.

People typically listen to gain ammunition or seize opportunities to prove their point, which results in missed opportunities to show empathy, their mind transitioning into teach/closed minded forceful mode, their tone becoming condescending and dictating, and their body language saying that he or she doesn’t care what the other person is thinking or feeling. 

The defensive responses a person gives as a result of listening for ammunition affirms an argumentative person’s belief that he or she is not being understood, which triggers him or her to teach/argue more passionately as an attempt to be agreed with, and takes you further away from converting the verbal exchange to a productive conversation.

Being agreed with is often times what people think it means to be understood. Listening to understand yields empathetic responses, gestures, mannerisms, and tone, which helps a person trying to feel understood begin to feel understood and slowly start to let their guard down.    

Listening to understand is a critical component in the conversion process, and it makes the transition to component number three smoother. 

The third component of an intentional conversation is asking questions instead of making statements. 

If you’re really listening to understand a person, questions to better understand where he or she is coming from naturally arise. 

If you’re making statements, you’re in teaching mode and more than likely trying to get the other person to adopt your way of thinking, i.e. “get them to understand you.” Making a lot of statements in a verbal exchange is a telltale sign that you aren’t interested in what the other person thinks or feels and that you are seeking validation of your thoughts while trying to get him or her to understand/agree with you.

If you’re asking questions, even though questions can be a way of setting someone up to prove that they’re wrong, it’s more likely that you are in learning mode. Questions are received better by an opposing person and have a higher chance of being interpreted as you being interested in understanding the other person’s opinions, thoughts, and feelings.

When the other person begins to answer your questions, they don’t realize it because they’re doing most of the talking which makes them feel that they are persuading you to adopt their thoughts, but what’s really happening is that he or she is switching from their teaching hat to their learning hat.  If he or she is answering the questions that YOU are asking to better help you understand his or her perspective, they are no longer making their own statements. The person is now giving you the information that you requested and need to better understand why their perspective is the way that it is. You two are now beginning to have a conversation and the success of the conversion is underway. This is the time for the fourth component of an intentional conversation to be exercised. 

The fourth component of an intentional conversation is to respond to share, not to change the person’s mind. 

Technically, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve met or are meeting your objective. Don’t forget the objective. The objective was to learn something from the person you’re speaking to whether you agree with their opinion or not. 

After you’ve taking the time to better understand the mindset of the person you are conversing with on the topic at hand, it’s understandable that you would want the consideration of your views to be reciprocated if you disagree with him or her. 

Because you’ve been patient enough to hear him or her out all the way up to this stage of the verbal exchange, he or she will be more open to hear what it is that you have to say or are feeling. They will be more open to listening to your opinion, but that doesn’t mean that they will agree with your opinion. I’m going to say that again. He or she will be more open to listening to your opinion, but that doesn’t mean that they will agree with your opinion.

If he or she doesn’t agree with you after you share your opposing point of view, don’t confuse his or her not agreeing with you with your not being heard and fall into the trap of initiating an argument because you want to be “understood.”

Due to insecurities and lack of maturity, being right is not enough for a lot of people; they need to hear from other people that they are right or that they are agreed with to be validated. 

If your premise is that 1 +1 = 2 and someone else is adamant that it’s not, does he or she agreeing or disagreeing with you make your opinion or what you shared any more or less right? 

There is no good reason to waste energy trying to make someone agree with you. This is no license to be a poor communicator. Before dismissing a person’s intelligence on a topic, ask clarifying questions to see if what you’ve shared was understood, not agreed with, and if you get feedback that suggests that you were understood and they still don’t agree with you, agree to disagree and let it go. Respectfully conclude the conversation by stating that you’re sharing just to share, not to change his or her mind. Try not to allow his or her view on this particular topic ruin your view of him or her as a person, respect their stance, and be confident in your own stance.   

Whatever you do, if the person you share your opinion with doesn’t agree with you, don’t allow yourself to believe that not being agreed with means that you’re not understood and start teaching/arguing to be “understood.”

If you’re not already, work on getting secure enough to be able to have an opinion without the need of others having to validate your opinion for you to feel good about yourself. If you do this, you’ll have the security and maturity to be able to share just to share, not to change a person’s mind.

The fifth and final component of an intentional conversation is being able to describe the perspective of the person that you disagree with back to him or her. 

Remember, a closed minded person’s main objective is to teach or force their point of view on someone else so that they’ll feel right or understood. If you don’t make it clear that you understand his or her opinions, perspective, or feelings the person is going to keep trying to teach you until he or she feels understood/agreed with.  They will not leave the topic alone and it will be hard to conclude the conversation. 

A few ways to help the person that you disagree with realize that you do understand them are labeling, examples, and summarizing. 

Labeling is a statement that’s really a question that either helps the person you’re speaking with realize that he or she is understood or helps you realize that you’re way off base. You simply say “It seems that” and fill in the blank with a description of what you think he or she thinks, or believes. If you’re right the person will say “that’s right” and start believing that you do understand them. If you’re wrong, he or she will reply with “no” and tell you exactly what he or she feels, thinks, or believes. 

Here are a couple of examples. “It seems that your problem with me stems from my not buying the concert tickets.” “It seems that you believe that my mom influenced my decision.” Labeling is a win win because if you’re right you’ve gain trust and if you’re wrong you’ve gained a better understanding of what he or she is really feeling or thinking by their replied correction.

“Examples” is simply giving examples or analogies that fit the description of their belief or opinion. If you give an example that aligns with what he or she feels or thinks, the analogy will act as concrete evidence that they will have a hard time disputing and is a good way to help him or her believe that you are hearing them out. 

“Summarizing” is just summarizing what he or she is feeling or saying in your own words, not repeating their words, to better help him or her understand that you do understand their perspective.  Repeating someone’s words back to them is evidence that you can hear the person, not evidence that you understand the person.

The minute you disagree with a person’s perspective, they will typically conclude that you don’t understand them and try to argue to get you to “understand” them. If you can articulate the person’s perspective to him or her well enough for them to agree that “you’ve got it,” it will be easier to help the person realize that it’s not that you don’t understand them, you just don’t agree with them. Be prepared to be able to explain why you don’t agree if he or she asks. Don’t forget, share just to share, not the change his or her mind when you explain…

Congratulations! You now know how to turn an argument into a conversation. 

Being able to convert an argument into an intentional conversation is a great skill to have, but it stinks if you don't have or know how to keep the right one in your life to share an intentional conversation with. 

If you’re interested in how to attract and experience true romantic love on purpose, not by chance, click the link below and watch the short case study that I created on what I call the Know Love triangle. It unveils how people miss out on the ability to experience or maintain True Love on purpose because they don't know about the seemingly contradictory love process that's necessary to understand and put into practice in order to experience and maintain True Love.

I hope you’ve found this information to be helpful. Until we meet again…

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Sincerely,

Edward L. Fairley

Founder & CEO of Know Love Inc