How to Have Impossible Conversations summary

Imagine a dancer performing a series of pirouettes, or a surgeon making a deft incision with her scalpel. What they’re doing is very complex, but it builds upon simple foundations. If dancers and surgeons didn’t understand the basics, ballets and operations wouldn’t be possible. Engaging in effective conversations is no different. It’s a skill, and to master it, you must begin with its fundamental principles. How do you do that? 

The key message is: If you want to change someone’s mind, you have to listen to them.

What happens when we disagree with our friends? Most of the time we put our differences aside, right? After all, friendship is more important than scoring rhetorical points or winning arguments. Now, of course you can’t be friends with everyone. But friendship can teach us something important about the art of engaging in productive conversations. 

The key message in this blink is: It’s easier to talk openly and air disagreements when you build rapport.  

Can you explain how a toilet works? That was the question two psychologists posed in a 2001 study published in Cognitive Science. Volunteers were asked to rate their understanding of toilet design. They had to do it twice – first, before explaining to researchers how a toilet works and then again, after they’d had this conversation. 

The result? Most started out pretty confident of their knowledge but quickly realized that they didn’t actually understand fill valves and overflow pipes. 

It’s frustrating when people misunderstand you, isn’t it? And it’s even worse when they do so deliberately. Once your position has been misrepresented by someone, your real views no longer matter. Instead, she’s attacking a straw man – a misrepresentation that’s easier to defeat than your real opinion. This doesn’t just make conversations futile, it’s also deeply unfair. Luckily, there’s a simple set of rules to prevent this. 

The key message here is: To foster mutual respect and openness during arguments, use “Rapoport’s Rules.” 

In 2014, Bill Nye, an American TV presenter famous for his science show, agreed to debate Ken Ham, a Christian fundamentalist best-known for building a life-size model of Noah’s Ark. The topic: creationism, which is the idea that God created the universe. Ham supported this view; Nye disagreed – his opinions had always been based on Darwin’s theory of evolution. 

The moderator asked both Ham and Nye what it would take to change their minds. 

Imagine an atheist who is convinced that her religious colleague’s belief in God is sincere but misguided. Her goal is to change his mind. And she thinks that the best way to do so is to present new evidence. So she chooses her facts well, and she argues carefully. But something weird happens. The more she argues, the more convinced her colleague becomes that he’s right after all. 

Many of us have been there. Sometimes evidence just doesn’t get you very far. 

So far, we’ve quoted philosophers and psychologists – members of two professions who specialize in difficult conversations and tricky questions. But the last word belongs to a group whose ability to persuade is very often the difference between life and death. These people are hostage negotiators. As we’ll see in this blink, there’s plenty we can learn from their techniques.

The key message here is: The art of hostage negotiation offers a wealth of tricks to improve conversations.