Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, our next guest, Um,
Speaker 1: this next guest is you know, I feel like the
Speaker 1: world needs to just stop and take his advice exactly.
Speaker 1: He is a two time world champion debater, former coach
Speaker 1: of the Australian national debating team and the Harvard College
Speaker 1: Debating Union. He's got a new book out bo so
Speaker 1: as a journalist and an author. The book is called
Speaker 1: Good Arguments. How Debate teaches us to listen and be heard.
Speaker 1: Bo joins us now via zoom from Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: But I want to get to the book in just
Speaker 1: a second. But how to take us through your journey?
Speaker 1: Because it's really interesting. How did you become U two
Speaker 1: time world champion for debating? Well, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: having me on the program. I started debating because I
Speaker 1: moved as a kid from South Korea to Australia without
Speaker 1: speaking a word of English, and I quickly found that
Speaker 1: the artest part of doing that was adjusting to real
Speaker 1: life conversation where people can kind of mid sentence change
Speaker 1: directions and spin you out. And the way I kind
Speaker 1: of got over the shyness and the conflict of version.
Speaker 1: I felt was by joining the debate team of the
Speaker 1: strength of a single promise from my elementary teacher, which
Speaker 1: was that when in debate, when one person speaks, no
Speaker 1: one else does. Um. And to someone who had been
Speaker 1: used to being spoken over and interrupted and taken out
Speaker 1: of conversation, that seemed to me a kind of a
Speaker 1: life raft. Um. And I've really been writing it ever since. Man,
Speaker 1: it's just so relevant. It's a you know, we're producers
Speaker 1: are getting right here, like cross doc cross dog, like
Speaker 1: let the person be heard. Um. But there is a
Speaker 1: bigger message here, right in terms of an environment that
Speaker 1: we sit in today, where you can't have different opinions,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear it, and everybody just kind of
Speaker 1: shouts and yells at at each other. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: how do you think about the world today and what
Speaker 1: ails us? Well, we're living at a time of really
Speaker 1: extraordinary polarization, and it's easy in times like that to
Speaker 1: see disagreement as the source of our troubles. And what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to suggest with this book is disagreements can
Speaker 1: be a force for good, not only because they're useful
Speaker 1: in terms of finding out truths and ensuring people are
Speaker 1: heard and and and we can be honest and frank
Speaker 1: and forthright with each other. But more importantly, because good
Speaker 1: arguments what good democracies are, They're good work They're what
Speaker 1: good workplaces are, what good families are, that we, despite
Speaker 1: our differences, resolved to live together and instead of ignoring
Speaker 1: our differences, to put them in conversation with one another
Speaker 1: with the hope that we might be able to get
Speaker 1: somewhere deeper, somewhere better, somewhere richer than we might be
Speaker 1: able to on our own. So my hope with this
Speaker 1: book is to restore people's confidence in what disagreements can do,
Speaker 1: and hopefully to give them a few skills that are
Speaker 1: going to allow them to handle them a little bit
Speaker 1: better too. I think that one thing that keeps people
Speaker 1: back from the expressing disagreement in the workplace is perhaps
Speaker 1: the way that we interpret how other people are going
Speaker 1: to take that disagreement, the idea of people taking conflict personally. So,
Speaker 1: but what's a good way to, you know, how should
Speaker 1: people express themselves in a way where they get to
Speaker 1: that better place by disagreeing with one another? I think
Speaker 1: that's a really important question. And debate is such a
Speaker 1: big part of the workplace now, isn't it, Because the
Speaker 1: nature of modern wide collar work is just we sit
Speaker 1: around in meetings and disagree all day um. And I
Speaker 1: think the book gives a few different pieces of advice
Speaker 1: for someone in that situation. I think the first is
Speaker 1: you want to be really clear what the disagreement is about,
Speaker 1: right and uh, to say, we're just having a conversation
Speaker 1: about this higher or about this this business plan, as
Speaker 1: opposed to all the other disagreements that we might have
Speaker 1: flying around. As soon as there's that kind of imprecision
Speaker 1: about what the conversation is about, it tends to become unruly,
Speaker 1: and it tends to bring in personality, It tends to
Speaker 1: bring in all the things that has happened in the past.
Speaker 1: So the first thing I would say is every disagreement
Speaker 1: starts with an act of agreement, and that's often about
Speaker 1: what the discussion is about. The next thing that I
Speaker 1: would add is you want to have the kind of
Speaker 1: rules that we started our conversation with, so in competitive debate,
Speaker 1: you know that everybody gets equal time in which to speak.
Speaker 1: They're not interrupted while they're speaking and they're given turns
Speaker 1: so that when I speak and I give you a
Speaker 1: chance to speak, there's no need for me to interrupt
Speaker 1: because I know I'm going to get a turn back.
Speaker 1: And restoring some of those basic rules I think can
Speaker 1: make many of those conversations go more product to think,
Speaker 1: it's a big part of this too, is that there
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be a winner or loser in the
Speaker 1: conversation or in the debate. Absolutely um. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that you learn as a competitive
Speaker 1: debater is wins and losses are temporary, you know, just
Speaker 1: the way it is in the workplace. You might take
Speaker 1: a w in this particular conversation or a loss in
Speaker 1: this particular conversation, but your coworkers aren't going anywhere right,
Speaker 1: and so they're going to be back the next day
Speaker 1: or the next week, the next month with a different
Speaker 1: issue where you're on going to be on different sides,
Speaker 1: sometimes allied, sometimes on opposing sides. So I think the
Speaker 1: real lesson, in addition to taking seriously the needs sometimes
Speaker 1: to prevail in arguments and to stick up for yourself
Speaker 1: and to carry your message, is to recognize what we
Speaker 1: all need is a set of rules, a set of
Speaker 1: practices that allows us to keep the conversation going in
Speaker 1: the long term and for the betterment of our organizations
Speaker 1: and for the betterment of ourselves. I have to you know,
Speaker 1: I think about presidential debates or political debates like do
Speaker 1: you do You watch them and you say, well, this
Speaker 1: isn't a debate, this is just a show. No, seriously, right,
Speaker 1: Like people don't have a chance to kind of say things.
Speaker 1: There's constantly somebody jumping in and that's not a debate,
Speaker 1: or is it? I think I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I don't think they are debates and something isn't a
Speaker 1: debate just because it's called a debate, or because two
Speaker 1: people are standing at an awkward distance from each other
Speaker 1: at different podiums, right, Um. And I think often what
Speaker 1: happens in those debates is UM, one or more of
Speaker 1: the participants turns what would otherwise be a debate into
Speaker 1: a kind of a brawl, right where it's a kind
Speaker 1: of a shouting match or a name calling game. And
Speaker 1: it becomes really important, UM, in those moments to pause,
Speaker 1: as you said at the at the top of the program,
Speaker 1: to say, to identify what is happening, to name the
Speaker 1: kinds of tactics that are being you, whether it be
Speaker 1: name calling and something like that, and to say is
Speaker 1: it a debate that we're having or is it something else?
Speaker 1: Because without that kind of a check um, what begins
Speaker 1: as a debate can devolve into something worse. And we
Speaker 1: see that not only on the presidential stage, but we
Speaker 1: see that around the kitchen table and with our families
Speaker 1: and our loved ones, and we see it at workplaces
Speaker 1: all the time. We're going to continue the conversation both
Speaker 1: sits for a second. We've just got to do a
Speaker 1: little bit of news. I have to say, I love
Speaker 1: and just reading some of the prep materials that you know.
Speaker 1: It was because as a shy kid like this was giving.
Speaker 1: As he talked about, you know, debate gave him a
Speaker 1: safe space where he could be heard. And I have
Speaker 1: to say, I'm one of seven people who listen to
Speaker 1: our show or watch it know that. And I was
Speaker 1: a really extremely shy kid. Probably hard to believe at
Speaker 1: this point, but I was, and in college got into
Speaker 1: radio because it was an opportunity for my voice to
Speaker 1: be heard. Nobody could to me until you met me,
Speaker 1: and then I can just interrupt you all the time
Speaker 1: a very kind, You're actually very gracious. I want to
Speaker 1: get right back to Boast. So he's a journalist, he's
Speaker 1: an author. He's got a brand new book out. It
Speaker 1: came out this week. It's called Good Arguments. How Debate
Speaker 1: teaches us to listen and be heard. He's got some
Speaker 1: great tips in here on how to not just be heard,
Speaker 1: but how to listen, because that's a really important part
Speaker 1: of any debate. Bo Carol and I were talking about
Speaker 1: where we wanted to take this, and we both you know,
Speaker 1: said at the same time, social media is what we
Speaker 1: want to talk about, because you know, there's the idea
Speaker 1: of getting stuck in a canoe with somebody on Twitter
Speaker 1: and you just can't get out of it, this idea
Speaker 1: of you getting an argument, you have anonymous people replying
Speaker 1: to you. How do you deal with this on social media?
Speaker 1: Do you just get off and you just ignore it
Speaker 1: and just close it up and say I'm not even
Speaker 1: going to participate because that's what I feel like doing sometimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the you know, one thing about being a
Speaker 1: debate or is it makes you very sensitive to the
Speaker 1: acoustics of the room that you're talking about, and uh
Speaker 1: that you're talking in and social media presents a lot
Speaker 1: of challenges in that regard, where whereas in a kind
Speaker 1: of a face to face conversation you're being heard equally,
Speaker 1: on social media, the most divisive content tends to be prioritized,
Speaker 1: even though I'm debating you or talking with you, it's
Speaker 1: sometimes for the benefit of an audience, right, and it's
Speaker 1: actually kind of talking past you in that way. So
Speaker 1: I actually tend to think that, um, social media the
Speaker 1: way it's currently designed is pretty inappropriate for the kind
Speaker 1: of debate that I'm advocating, and that UM in that regard,
Speaker 1: you know, it may well be that social media has
Speaker 1: other contributions to make, whether it be finding out information
Speaker 1: or it may actually be quite good at gathering like
Speaker 1: minded communities, which it seems to do with extraordinary effectiveness.
Speaker 1: But I'm suggesting that there may be other better channels,
Speaker 1: such as face to face conversation and public discussions, to
Speaker 1: be able to have the kinds of disagreements, UM, that
Speaker 1: I'm advocating for. You know, about what kind of takes
Speaker 1: me off sometimes is when someone I'm having a discussion,
Speaker 1: we don't agree, and then the person who says, well,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna have to agree to disagree and then
Speaker 1: it's done. And like wait a minute, like you just
Speaker 1: stop the conversation. Like that to me is not productive either,
Speaker 1: so help me, Like you have a chapter how to
Speaker 1: know when to disagree, So help me here. I agree
Speaker 1: with that completely and um, And it does feel like
Speaker 1: a kind of resignation, doesn't it, And a vote of
Speaker 1: no confidence, um, not only in oneself but in the
Speaker 1: other person, because it is kind of saying to you,
Speaker 1: I don't trust you to be able to handle this
Speaker 1: conversation very well. And I think the need for that
Speaker 1: declines the more of us and the more of our
Speaker 1: population develops the skills of good argument. Um. But that's
Speaker 1: not to say that you should be arguing about everything
Speaker 1: under the sun either. And in the book, I provide
Speaker 1: a kind of a checklist, uh. I call it the
Speaker 1: Ristar checklist, where I encourage people to ask where that
Speaker 1: the disagreement in front of them is real, whether it's
Speaker 1: important enough, whether it's specific so you're not talking about
Speaker 1: everything in one go, and whether the two sides are
Speaker 1: aligned in their objectives for the having the discussion. And
Speaker 1: that's a kind of a way to um, stop us
Speaker 1: from jumping into a dispute out of defensiveness or pride,
Speaker 1: but rather to be a little bit more deliberate. Um.
Speaker 1: But I share the concern exactly that that when when
Speaker 1: they say, you know, let's just agree to disagree or
Speaker 1: or even or even just sort of not politely and um,
Speaker 1: And where a smile, that's not really a smile. Um.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of you know, a decision not to
Speaker 1: be involved with the other person and to take a
Speaker 1: relationship further exactly exactly. And it's and it's and it's
Speaker 1: the kind of standing at a distance. You know that
Speaker 1: that I fear perhaps even worse than just outright conflict,
Speaker 1: because then you can see the differences between people. Is
Speaker 1: when we have contempt for one another, when we stand
Speaker 1: at a distance from one another. But what about when
Speaker 1: it comes to bad faith arguments? If if somebody is
Speaker 1: you know, is making a bad faith argument. And I'm
Speaker 1: you know, thinking of Washington, d C. Yeah, I'm really
Speaker 1: thinking of politics and what we see. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to hide it. But book, what
Speaker 1: do you recommend to people who actually want to get
Speaker 1: something done in Washington? How should they be approaching these discussions,
Speaker 1: these arguments? I think The first um and most practical
Speaker 1: step that I recommend in the book is to understand
Speaker 1: the tactics of bad faith debaters. And one of them,
Speaker 1: as you say, is lying. And one thing about lies
Speaker 1: is they don't just lie once. They lie many times,
Speaker 1: right in a deluge that kind of overwhelms you. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that debaters know to do is
Speaker 1: to pick a representative lie, to fit it in with
Speaker 1: other things that we know to be true, to show
Speaker 1: why it's inaccurate, and then to explain why that's kind
Speaker 1: of symptomatic of how that person is approaching the discussion,
Speaker 1: and again to return to a point we made earlier.
Speaker 1: It's a way to pause and to say this kind
Speaker 1: of tactic is unacceptable in the discussions that we're having.
Speaker 1: Of course, those tactics on their own are not going
Speaker 1: to be enough to deal with a lot of the
Speaker 1: problems of bad faith that we have, but they are
Speaker 1: individually empowering and they are a way to restore the
Speaker 1: conditions of debate. I think one challenge here, and again
Speaker 1: i'm thinking about Washington, is a lot of these bad
Speaker 1: faith arguments happen when there's really no other side to
Speaker 1: debate that person, because everybody lives in their own universe
Speaker 1: these days, so you have you know, people go on
Speaker 1: prime time talk shows on certain networks, for example, and
Speaker 1: they're not challenged necessarily to a debate. They're kind of
Speaker 1: just allowed to say whatever they want and then that
Speaker 1: clip goes viral and they get their point across. And
Speaker 1: that's the world that we're living in. So so how
Speaker 1: does somebody on the other side, then, you know, respond
Speaker 1: to something like that. I think that I think you're diagnosis.
Speaker 1: I agree with completely that misinformation that extreme views flourish
Speaker 1: in situations where there's no person to challenge them, right,
Speaker 1: and and where it's like minded people egging each other on.
Speaker 1: So part of the argument that I'm making is there
Speaker 1: should be more debate day to day, right and so, um,
Speaker 1: I think we're often losing confidence in our ability to
Speaker 1: persuade other people, in our ability even at Thanksgiving dinner,
Speaker 1: to challenge a relative, to have a conversation about their beliefs,
Speaker 1: or to be able to do that in schools in
Speaker 1: other settings. And I think that's don't hit me because
Speaker 1: I'm interrupted you because but Tim and I like kind
Speaker 1: of behind the scenes, it's like, you know, the conversation
Speaker 1: made after right now for not banning guns because people
Speaker 1: are saying, well, we didn't ban airplanes after nine eleven.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. But so how do you have an intelligent
Speaker 1: debate around that? And we've all get about three seconds left,
Speaker 1: we'll have you back in. I think the best thing
Speaker 1: you can do is to set a single topic, to say,
Speaker 1: here is the narrow issue within the broader universe of
Speaker 1: things we could be talking about, To take turns right,
Speaker 1: to guarantee people an equal opportunity to speak, and to
Speaker 1: hold them accountable on what they say, and to pursue
Speaker 1: each idea fully rather than letting people slide across different positions.
Speaker 1: So much fun, so engaging. Who would have thought that
Speaker 1: a two time world debate champion would be such a
Speaker 1: great guest on Bloomberg Business Week Radio. Our producer Paul Brenne,
Speaker 1: of course, so great to have you here. Um both,
Speaker 1: so thank you so much. Check out his book Good Arguments,
Speaker 1: How Debate teaches us to listen and be heard, folks,
Speaker 1: this is what we need. Have a good safe evening.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Master along with Tim Stanivic. This is Bloomberg