Listen across disagreement by cooling your amygdala and asking better questions

Disagreement can feel like danger. Your heart speeds up, your pupils widen, and you brace for a fight. That’s your amygdala working to protect you. In a budget meeting, a colleague argues for a cut you hate. You notice your breath turn shallow and your shoulders rise. If you speak now, you’ll likely argue past each other.

You slow your exhale and let your body drop an inch in the chair. Then you say, “This matters to you because you’re looking at runway.” They nod. You continue, “How did you come to that view?” They describe a painful miss last year. You reflect the steelman version: “So your best argument is that a smaller scope beats a failed launch.” The tone shifts. Now you can discuss trade-offs instead of trading barbs.

A micro-anecdote: two neighbors clashed over a proposed street closure. After one asked, “What experiences led you here?” the other shared a story of their child’s near miss with a speeding car. The conversation moved from slogans to speed bumps.

Neuroscience shows that when threat systems spike, listening centers dim. Slowing your exhale engages your parasympathetic system, making it easier to hear. Research on perspective-taking and “steel-manning” indicates that summarizing the strongest version of an opposing view reduces polarization and improves decision quality. The aim isn’t to agree, it’s to understand the path that produced the view, then decide together what to do next.

When a disagreement heats up, first slow your body with three longer exhales so your thinking clears. Name their stake in neutral terms to show you’re tracking, then invite their story with a path question like “How did you come to that view?” Listen for experiences and values, not just claims, and steelman their best point before you make yours. This won’t magically align opinions, but it will raise the quality of the conversation and your final decision. Try it in your next tense meeting.