Listen First, Talk Later: A Tactical Guide to Peace

Kent Lenci, an educator, founder of Middle Ground School Solutions, and author of Learning to Depolarize, dissects a depolarization story in three acts. What starts as a heated confrontation over a seemingly neutral photo of Donald Trump evolves into a masterclass in de-escalation across multiple media, from the rapid-fire tension of video calls to the deliberate, cooling pace of email and the intimacy of a long-form phone conversation. Lenci reveals how discovering shared humanity, like the common struggle of a parent's schedule, can dismantle the "performativity" of public disagreement. It is a powerful exploration of the "Listen First" philosophy and why sometimes the most difficult people to talk to are exactly the ones who need to be heard.

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Transcript

Michael Lee : [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Martin Luther King Jr. Said, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards Justice. King wasn't alone in his optimism. Deep down, many of us think the world is fair, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, and that all of us in the end get what we deserve.

This is the just world hypothesis identified by the researcher Melvin Lerner, and it helps us feel really safe in an unpredictable universe, but it also makes us blame victims and justify inequalities in disagreements. The just world hypothesis turns discussions about problems into arguments about who deserves what.

The just world hypothesis shapes how we respond to others' misfortunes. When someone loses their job, we look for what they did wrong. When relationships fail, we search for who's to blame. When people [00:01:00] struggle with money, we assume poor choices create poor people. This isn't just a lack of empathy, it's psychological self-protection.

If bad things happen randomly, we're all vulnerable. If they happen for reasons, we can protect ourselves by being good enough and smart enough and careful enough, in political debates, the just world hypothesis undermines compassion. Poverty becomes evidence of laziness rather than a system. Illness becomes a consequence of lifestyle rather than biology or environment.

And success becomes proof of virtue rather than privilege or luck. The world must be fair. Therefore, those who suffer must have earned it. Personal relationships can also strain under just world thinking. When your friend faces hardship, you subtly distance yourself afraid to catch their bad luck.

Understanding the just world hypothesis can help us become more compassionate and perhaps even more realistic. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, and honestly few of us are in any moral position to [00:02:00] judge good and bad in the first place. Even more. The just world theory is enticing to many of us.

Because it helps us reduce the chaos of the world to something predictable in disagreements about fairness, opportunity, or assistance. Recognizing our just world bias can help us see beyond they brought it on themselves. I'm Michael Lee, director of the Civility Initiative and Professor of Communication at the College of Charleston.

Our guest today on When We Disagree is Kent Lenci. Kent occupied several leadership positions during his 20 years as a middle school educator. In 2019, he left the classroom to found middle ground school solutions, which helps prepare today's students to ease tomorrow's political polarization. Kent has created curriculum and programming for the better arguments project.

Courageous Rhode Island and the National Week of Conversation, and he has worked with schools and school associations across the country to help educators navigate the complexities of political polarization. [00:03:00] Kent is also the author of Learning to Depolarize, helping Students and Teachers Reach Across Lines of Disagreement.

Kent, welcome to when we Disagree and tell us an argument story. 

Kent Lenci : Thank you. Thanks for having me. Okay. I'll give you a story in three acts and I'll give you the first act. So you laid out my background. I'm an educator. I was invited to present a little bit about what I do to a group of parents in a neighboring state.

And by Zoom, and this was just a brief introduction to my work in case anybody was interested they could follow up. So it was a 10 or 15 minute presentation. I did my presentation. I laid out the gist of what I do, which is try to prepare today's kids to meet or ease tomorrow's political polarization.

Laid out a couple of examples of how I tend to arm teachers in that effort. And then we took questions. [00:04:00] And during the question and answer period, first it was pretty benign and tranquil. And then one person said, I can't believe this guy coming in here with his politics. And then just started ripping me apart, 

Michael Lee : Uhhuh.

Kent Lenci : And I was completely taken aback. I was really on cruise control, didn't see this coming. And, instead of I, against my sort of human instincts to defend myself I. I've learned enough in this journey to know that wouldn't really get me anywhere, wouldn't accomplish any goals. All it might do is to give me the sense that my dignity was intact.

So I let him carry on for a bit and then I said, it sounds like reflected back what I'd heard. Sounds like you're pretty upset by something I said. And I'd love to know more about that if you want to follow up later. I'd really love to do that and said a little bit more about that.

And that is basically the first act I had this Zoom call. [00:05:00] Unexpectedly I felt ambushed. Uhhuh really didn't see it coming, really didn't know why. I didn't know what had set this person off and really decided not to engage, but gave the offer to to connect later. So I'll pause there.

Michael Lee : Yeah. Act 

Kent Lenci : one. Complete 

Michael Lee : one, one. Thank you for that brief first act. Excited for Acts two and three. One quick follow up and then let's get to act two. 'cause I'm curious about how your invitation to engage with this guy went. But I've been in similar situations and I'm curious about how you navigated whether to handle the issue or have the discussion or try to find common ground or mutual understanding with this person.

In public in the moment what did I say? What are you reacting to? And then really get the point of view and then really give this person the stage for a second, and inviting a disagreement that you don't know how it's gonna go. At the very moment that you're talking about depolarization, it's a high wire act, but it would [00:06:00] also be a perfect example if it goes well.

So how did you decide within yourself to make an invitation for later or just do it right then and hope it goes really well and demonstrate exactly the importance of what you're already talking about? 

Kent Lenci : Yeah, that's a great question. I think, although you can't really read the room on Zoom. Part of what lay behind my decision was the context and understanding my role and how much time we had, and this was meant to be a really brief part of a larger parents association meeting.

I was just, part one for 20 minutes. They had other business to, to deal with. And so I didn't have the sense that the focus of this meeting. Was really to learn the lessons necessarily that I'm trying to impart or that really I would have the time properly to do it. So I think that probably, I had that running underneath even if I had more time, I do.

I suspect that my inclination would've been to put the brakes on it and have that, I probably would've leaned towards having that [00:07:00] conversation privately. And then my guess is that I. I, I would've hoped to circle back maybe for a more public modeling of that if we'd established some common ground behind the scenes.

So it would I'm hard pressed to think of a time where I've let something like that play out too far in the interest of modeling. I think my inclination is to try to give it the time it deserves behind the scenes. And to remove the public eyeballs from it to lower the temperature. And then sometimes to go back and say, Hey, you, we'd like to share part two of the conversation we had.

You were there for part one. We'd like you to know a little bit more about what happened. 

Michael Lee : Speaking of part two, let's hear act two. 

Kent Lenci : Yeah. So you could call it act two or maybe an interlude, but between act one and two, you can decide. And I gave the offer to connect. I didn't think it would happen actually.

Often there, there is no follow up in these types of situations, particularly when you don't really have a [00:08:00] deep connection with the parties. And I didn't know any of these people ahead of time, but the principal of the school did follow up by email, connected us by email and said, told me that he had reached out to this parent and the parent was willing to connect.

So I said, great, and we followed it up. And so Act two really is that interchange the exchange between the two of us in trying to plan our meeting. And that is something I didn't see coming. So the task, it turns out of communicating by email and just shooting messages back and forth. Ended up being, I think, a really critical component of our ultimately successful conversation because, number one. And Mo I think what was most important was that now we were working on something together. It seems mundane and you wouldn't imagine that it could be perceived as a common enterprise. But we were trying to schedule a meeting, [00:09:00] right? And sometimes it's just really hard to do and you have to cooperate.

So the back and forth that had ended with him literally yelling. About me transitioned really quickly to, oh, I can't do that 'cause I got this and oh, so sorry. I'm busy then. And best regards and sincerely, and I hope we can make this happen. And I think it was something about working together.

And some of my reading and research suggests that's that's a great path to travel, to have a job to do together with people you think you disagree with a lot. And I think it was important. The other thing, the other element there was that through that back and forth, we realized, of course, that we're both parents and part of the roadblocks to scheduling these meetings was that.

I gotta pick my kids up at this time. Now he's gotta go to a swim meet. And when you discover that commonality, something that's that deep, you now have something obviously in common that transcends [00:10:00] or can transcend the argument. So we were able to schedule a meeting and that concludes the interlude or act two which sets us up for the final piece.

Michael Lee : And as is our custom, we're establishing like a rhythmic order, like a pop song here. One quick follow up and then we're on to ag three. May maybe two. The two things that struck me as follow ups are, is there something about the rhetoric you're using via email? You mentioned the regards and my best, and I really hope this happens, which we, which many of us treat as odine placeholders as fo sincerity, as bs.

Frankly just email BS that we all say boilerplate is there something about that helped deescalate a previously tense situation in addition to learning about the details of each other's lives, like Common Parenthood? Let me ask that question and then I'll ask a second. Quick follow up once. Yeah, 

Kent Lenci : maybe.

I, I tend to think words matter and language matters and so maybe I attached more. It you, of course, [00:11:00] it's notoriously difficult to read any kind of tone into electronic exchanges, but the signals that I got from the language that he used and the signals I tried to send back were of courtesy and and maybe that's my disposition, my bias, but those words affected me and maybe they would not be as impactful on somebody else. But I do think so in our case, I think the language helped. 

Michael Lee : I'm a words Matter person. As a person who studies communication and Professor PhD and to get my job, I had to have words matter tattooed all over my body.

So we're one and the same on that. And there's a deep irony there. But the second follow up question is that the, so often we hear that it's impossible connect without the human component because each other is just an anonymous. Person on a screen or just words on a screen. What we're hearing is that even that is somewhat contextual because previously a previous [00:12:00] situation that was too hot, that was too escalatory in the in-person I guess in the zoom, but in the, you could at least see each other was actually deescalated with words on a screen.

And I find that to be a fascinating irony there. 

Kent Lenci : Yeah, I think so. And I think maybe. I think fundamentally something that allowed the situation to cool off and often does allow situations to cool off was slowing it down, right? So when you're in the moment and getting attacked and you're having this emotional response and prone to lash back out and little.

Little of productive growth is gonna happen. The nature of email, that's a slow, that's a slow enterprise. That's not an instant back and forth. And so maybe maybe that I do, I think that just helped a little bit, right? We were just cooler. We were in different places. We were doing other things.

And and so the word, yeah, the words, they were words on a screen. But that, that medium of [00:13:00] communication was a slower one. And I think that helped us. 

Michael Lee : Okay. The big finish Act three. 

Kent Lenci : Yeah. The big finish doesn't have any fireworks that that you couldn't see coming. It's just that it was a very satisfactory conclusion.

And so act one, I got yelled at, felt defensive, invited further communication to act two. We worked together to. To make that happen and Act three unfolded the way you would hope it would. We this was a phone call, right? So I guess we've used three different media at this point, like the video conferencing Zoom originally, and then email, and now the phone and.

It had, we, I don't know we blocked out an hour or something. It wasn't a quick superficial, cursory call. It was something that we had devoted some time, allowed some time for, and I approached that as I, counsel other people to do. I tried to practice what I preach [00:14:00] by in, in a listening posture and again, sure. I would've liked to gone in that, into that call and been like, all right, you had the last word, and now that we're back, here's what I have to say. But I didn't think that would probably get us anywhere. So I invited this guy to tell me a little bit more about what he was thinking and what had concerned him so much about my presentation and that, and I needed that.

I really didn't have any idea what had set him off. And I let him talk for a while, and as you would expect, the talk shifted from the particular trigger in my presentation to his broader concerns about society, about his kids, et cetera. And in that way, I think we were both able to see it wasn't so much.

Maybe me that he was upset about. My presentation provided a trigger that unleashed some other concerns and I was able to reflect back some of that stuff. And then eventually when I. Felt like he had been heard enough that, that I could talk a little bit. I also shared, [00:15:00] so I'll put the, I'll pause there and see if you got any follow up questions to that first part, and then I'll, I can finish it off.

Michael Lee : Just outta curiosity, do you remember what exactly he was reacting to? 

Kent Lenci : Yes, I do. He was reacting to a picture of President Trump. Who I don't think was president at the time. I can't remember exactly when this was. So at that time, former President Trump. And that picture, that photograph was Sure, I've thought a lot about it.

Was one that I've used many times and this is why I didn't see this coming. And it was the context was that I was presenting some pew research showing that we've become more polarized and using figures on presidential approval by. By political party. And the tendency for those to be drifting apart so that increasingly the party in power is highly supportive and the party out of power is increasingly not supporting that person.

And so I, and I [00:16:00] chose on purpose 'cause it's a great question. I was aware that. Of the possible bias of photos. So I, I used the presidential photo of then President Trump, which I felt like it was a pretty neutral photo uhhuh and the, and as I saw it, that moment, what I still can't see objectively, how anybody could say that there's really any bias there.

It was simply a photo of the former president and statistics to show that we increasingly see our leaders differently depending on we, whether we. Or share the political party. 

Michael Lee : And I'm still mystified, to be honest. Was he pro-Trump, anti-Trump? Which direction was he arguing from? 

Kent Lenci : Yeah, and this will carry me into the, to the finale, yeah, he felt he was pro-Trump. He felt really threatened there. Okay. He felt in a way that. I think, an objective observer would struggle to understand, but in a way that felt very real to him. He felt threatened. He felt that this [00:17:00] was a. A liberal educator invading their parents' association meeting brandishing a photo of Trump as a weapon.

And although I couldn't find again, objectively anything I said or showed that would substantiate that's what he felt. And one of the, so part of the interesting conversation we had was that after I had heard all of that. And made sure that he felt heard and reflected back some things and joined him in some common concerns about our kids.

I said, you're, you might find this interesting. I've actually, because I had heard this from a couple of teachers previously. That photo had triggered left-leaning teachers who were, exactly opposite, saying, oh my God, here comes this guy Exactly. Preaching that we should extend the olive branch exactly across the aisle, and he is bringing in his picture of Trump so that we'll all get on board and I want nothing to do [00:18:00] with it.

So I shared that with him. And he laughed out loud with me. Oh, I cannot. And he wanted me to tell what do they do? Oh, that's hilarious. I can't. That is amazing. And it was an a moment of amazement for him to see that single photo could elicit such different responses. Depending on the audience.

And we had a chuckle and I think we both felt heard in the sense that I was able to clarify and help him better understand what I was trying to do. He could take it or leave it. And if this was ever a resource that he was interested in, there, it was. And did it accomplish, did it solve any of our country's problems?

Nope. And this is where we. We could talk about this. People generally want to like, so what's the point? And I uhhuh, but that's what I've got, right? That the success of that interaction, of that disagreement. And by the way, one of the reasons that sticks with me is I often think we don't know what we're [00:19:00] disagreeing about.

And for so long in this quote, disagreement this, I didn't have any idea what the disagreement was. It took a long time to try to figure that out.

I'm still not sure we had a disagreement per se. But again, did it solve any of our problems? No, but it helped us each see the humanity and the other, it helped us practice working through something that we felt probably was intractable to begin with.

And I, and it sticks with me 'cause it feels like a win. 

Michael Lee : A couple things about the story that really stand out now that I have it in total is one. I love it. The picture that you were talking about that seemed like. What communication nerds like me talk about is polys. Cmic, it's smy, is that it has multiple meanings for multiple audiences that are easily anticip.

That's why when you told the story, I was like, I really don't know which direction this is gonna go from a left-leaning critique to a right-leaning critique because the smy seems equal to me. But the second one, we've [00:20:00] talked a little bit about the function of different media that you chose to encounter each other on email, zoom, and the third one.

And what is striking to me is not just the media but the audience. Only one of 'em had an audience. The first one had an audience. And so the politics of performativity to win that audience or to own you or him feeling owned before that audience could potentially be meaningful. And we have often talked on this show and I've talked generally about the possibilities for human connection that exists at scale in front of audiences and whether it's more diminished in front of audiences because of the heightened ego function and the need to be entertaining.

And so forth and that these kinds of one-to-one connections really facilitate human connection. And my jury's still out on that, although I know a lot of people's jury has very much come in on that. My, the last two questions, and I'm notorious on this show for saying last two questions, then I ask 18 more questions, but for real, last two questions.

One is [00:21:00] tactical and one is high level strategic, although I hesitate I use that word in heavy quotation marks. So the first one, tactical. You talked about letting him talk and then talking this, your one two punch and pardon the fight metaphor, but you opened by saying, I'd love to hear how you feel, and then you talked.

Do you think that was an effective strategy in the moment? It certainly sounds like it was. And is that something that you do often? In other words, is that a tactic that you're thoughtful about when you employ it? 

Kent Lenci : I do think yes, it was intentional then, yes, I found it useful then, and I wouldn't go back and script it a different way.

And yeah, it is my default and it is a process that I suggest to others. I advocate for a listen first. I'm a member. You may be tapped into this group too, the Listen first coalition. 

Michael Lee : Yeah. We're a tap 10. 

Kent Lenci : Yeah. And [00:22:00] Carissa 

Michael Lee : has been on this show as a matter of fact. 

Kent Lenci : Okay.

Yeah. I like that phrase and it's something that that I try to practice and I do. I don't see ever what harm can come from it. I've only seen the gains that can be made. I yeah, that, that's my tactics. 

Michael Lee : Love that. Shout out to Chris Raskin and the Listen First coalition last question, and it gets to the question about why you even engaged in the first place.

Why allow the follow up? And so one of the things I work on when people are like when is it appropriate to have a dialogue? When is it appropriate to have a debate? When is it appropriate to set a boundary? When is it appropriate to listen first? When is it appropriate to speak your mind? All these kinds of tactical questions.

My advice is usually. You don't have to do that in all situations. Sometimes it's okay to walk away or more, and so let's work on what our goal is for this relationship and then work backwards to an effective dialogic tactic from there. Yeah. And so what did you want out [00:23:00] of this relationship with this stranger who had come at you that led you to 10 emails plus an hour long phone call after the fact?

What was your goal? 

Kent Lenci : So I, first of all, I think you're absolutely right and I also get that question a lot. It's probably the most frequent question I get is some form of when, if ever should I not enter into these conversations? Or how do you expect me to handle it if this person doesn't X, Y, or Z?

Give me respect or recognize my humanity, et cetera. And I agree with you a hundred percent that there are lots of times when it's, it might not be a conversation worth having. So the answer to your question is I keep my eyes on my particular prize and the long game, which for me is educating today's students.

In a way that will help prepare them to do better than we're doing so that they can can wrestle with the problems that we're [00:24:00] handing to them and they can work across lines of divide and disagreement more effectively than we've been able to do. So since that's always what I'm trying to do in that situation number one, I'll go back and say just at a, maybe a little bit more of a personal level.

I try to take these opportunities 'cause I get better at all of this when I practice it. So that, that's part of it. Part of it is wow, this is tough and I wanna see what can come of it. 

And I, I did learn from it but again, getting back to the bigger picture, if that's what I'm trying to do, then the people that are least receptive to my message are sometimes the people that, that I need to spend more time with.

And so there's a situation where there's a father. In a nearby state who could be in a position to support or oppose his school's, his child's school's curriculum on or opportunity in the classroom to engage in a certain dialogue or to be [00:25:00] open to media literacy that's gonna expose that kid to different points of view, et cetera.

And I wanna do all I can do to help that cause And if it means trying to reach that parent and help them better understand what we're all about here I'll try to do that. And I think, I tend to hope that those seeds can go a long way. That he may spread the word and be like, oh, I believe this conversation I had with this guy when he's thinking about some curricular initiative they've just heard about in his daughter's school.

Michael Lee : Kent Lenci, thanks so much for being on when we disagree. 

Kent Lenci : My pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

Michael Lee : When we Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Ks and Lance LayLaw. Reach out to us at When We [00:26:00] disagree@gmail.com.