Why it's so hard to listen when you disagree | Emily Kasriel

Listening to someone with views you find unpalatable is not the same as agreeing with or endorsing them, Emily Kasriel argues. Treating listening as obedience can make people fear that hearing another person will change or compromise them, so they avoid difficult conversations. That avoidance can deepen polarization within families, communities and nations. Deep listening, in her account, makes room to understand another person without requiring agreement.

Kasriel recalls interviewing Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi for the BBC. She repeatedly returned to questions about human rights, which she says were essential to ask, but her lack of curiosity made him defensive and the interview ended early. Holding a leader to account and listening to him were not mutually exclusive; she believes she might also have learned more by trying to understand his perspective. The episode presents this as a tension to manage, not a reason to set aside difficult questions.

Her approach to deep listening draws on journalism, executive coaching, and the work of scholars, psychologists and peace builders. Its eight steps include listening to yourself first, noticing your triggers and judgments, and setting your immediate reactions aside so you can attend to what the other person is sharing. Kasriel emphasizes warm, empathetic silence rather than rushing to respond. She also urges listeners to hear what is important but remains unspoken, an attentiveness she calls using the “third ear.”

The stakes became particularly acute in Latvia after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, amid heightened suspicion in a country where one in three people spoke Russian at home. Ilona, a Russian-speaking Latvian, initially found deep listening unnatural. Learning to notice her own reactions helped her become more present with her neighbor. The example shows how listening can be difficult precisely when political events sharpen mistrust, while offering a way to engage without pretending those tensions are absent.

In a global deep-listening research project with the BBC and British Council, more than 1,000 people from 100 countries took part. Participants reported feeling safer expressing themselves and more connected, and began questioning their own attitudes. Kasriel says other research finds that people soften their beliefs when they feel truly heard. These reported effects do not mean every conversation produces agreement or a change of mind; they suggest that feeling heard can make reflection more possible.

Harar, a Lebanese Muslim, had avoided Syrian refugees because she opposed some practices she associated with them. Deep listening helped her recognize that listening across difference did not mean surrendering or betraying her values. She now works with teenagers at a school for Syrian refugees and accepts that more than one perspective can be possible, while remaining passionately opposed to child marriage. Kasriel’s central distinction is that openness to another person need not erase moral commitments.

Kasriel invites listeners to choose someone whose views sting to disagree with and listen with as much curiosity and openness as they can, while noticing their own discomfort and resistance. The aim is not to abandon a moral code or promise to change one’s mind. It is to respect another person’s dignity and full humanity, and to understand more than a reflexive argument may reveal.