How to have good arguments with world debate champion Bo Seo | ReThinking with Adam Grant

1. 0:00 – 3:12

   Bo Seo’s origin story: learning English, avoiding conflict, and finding debate

   1. AGAdam Grant0:00

      Hey everyone. Welcome back to ReThinking. I recorded today's conversation for another podcast I sometimes co-host, The Next Big Idea presented by LinkedIn. My guest is world debate champion Bo Seo, who might just challenge you to rethink how to have a good argument. Bo, such a treat to finally meet you.

   2. BSBo Seo0:18

      Such a pleasure. Such a pleasure. It feels like we've known each other a while now.

   3. AGAdam Grant0:22

      I thought Good Arguments was exceptionally insightful, and I learned so much from it. I was actually a little bit disappointed that I didn't read it before writing Think Again, because I could have rethought a lot of the debate chapter [laughs] in light of what I learned from your expertise.

   4. BSBo Seo0:37

      I mean, the, the same is true for me, except I had the benefit of going after you. Um-

   5. AGAdam Grant0:41

      [laughs]

   6. BSBo Seo0:42

      ... and, and I think I told you that reading that book changed my view of what, what this book could be, and just the generosity and attention you've shown to the community, and thinking about how its lessons could translate more broadly. That was really instructive for me.

   7. AGAdam Grant0:59

      Well, honored and, uh, I, I just learned a ton from your book, and I'm, I'm excited to be able to both dig into some of the greatest hits, but then also expand beyond them with some things I'm curious about. The place I have to start is, you are the world debate champion. How did you become that? I want to hear the story.

   8. BSBo Seo1:18

      [laughs] Um, took fifteen years, uh, or something like that. I moved when I was eight from South Korea to Australia, and I didn't speak English at the time. And I learned that the hardest part of doing that was adjusting to real-life conversation, and that the hardest conversations to adjust to were disagreements. And I was also wary at that time of drawing attention to my differences from my peers, right, as one of the few Asian kids in the suburbs of Sydney. And the combination of those two things made me resolve to be very agreeable. And the thing that broke me out of that was a promise that my fifth-grade teacher made me, which was that in debating, when one person speaks, no one else does. And to someone who had been spoken over and interrupted and spun out of conversation, that sounded pretty irresistible. So it was a kind of a fit really, and once I was in, I was hooked, and competitive instincts took over, the joy of learning, the sense that there was a set of procedures and wisdoms and actions and drills and skills that you could trust almost blindly and hope that the results would follow. That's what I took to. And I started competing for my state and then for Australia and then for Harvard, where I did my undergraduate education, and it didn't feel so much like chasing the prize of winning the world championship so much as giving in to this current that I think had been running, um, before I joined, that will run after I've left. This current of teaching people to make an art and a craft out of argument.

2. 3:12 – 4:43

   What people misunderstand about debate: critique isn’t enough

   1. AGAdam Grant3:12

      Well, that's a huge part of what I want to talk about today. I guess for starters, what do you think that most people get wrong about debate?

   2. BSBo Seo3:21

      One thing that comes to mind is that it's an essentially destructive activity. One of the skills that people learn to master is dismantling, critiquing, finding holes in, noticing the ways in which a thought is incomplete. But one of the things that you learn very quickly is judges, and so debates have an adjudicator, someone who says who's won, and they are a kind of a proxy for the audience who's listening. They usually don't look for reasons to vote against someone. They look for reasons to vote for someone. And in order to do that, there's a limit to what criticism can achieve. And so, you know, if you can think of two couples arguing about where to go on holidays, and one of them is suggesting Hawaii, and then the other person is finding all the problems with that. And then they say, you know, "What about Mexico here?" All the problems with that. And imagine the person who was proposing all those destinations getting fed up with all the criticism and saying after a while, "Well, what do you propose? Because at the moment you're arguing for staying on the couch, actually." Right? And so [laughs] I think debaters can become a little comfortable in that posture of critique, but it does catch up to them because you're always arguing for something, whether you recognize it or not.

3. 4:43 – 8:08

   Building a persuasive case: making your reasoning legible + the “Four Ws”

   1. AGAdam Grant4:43

      Yes. Okay. So that, that goes to one of the core topics of your book, which is how do you make your point? So talk to me about how to formulate a good argument, one that, [chuckles] that doesn't make the mistake that I too often make, which is going into prosecutor mode and telling you all the reasons you're wrong. That doesn't also slip into preacher mode and just proselytize, but actually makes other people think. How do you do that?

   2. BSBo Seo5:08

      I think those categories, um, in your book were so helpful to me and, and how I thought about these issues. And I would say two things, and then I'll try and give you the framework of how a debater actually constructs arguments. So the first part is there's a huge part of argumentation which is making your thinking visible and legible to the person across the table from you, right? And so often I think we think an argument is just a random collection of thoughts or just emoting as if the thing you're trying to demonstrate is your sincere belief in the thing. And I think usually that is not what's at issue. Um, it's about whether you can invite in the other person so that they too can partake in that certainty and that point of view. So I think one is there's a, a quality of making yourself legible. There's a vulnerability that comes with that, right? Of saying your certainty is based on something and that something might be flawed, it might be incomplete, and letting people into that reasoning. And I think the second part of how we do it is It's not just about what you think is important, but what the other side might be thinking about. And in some ways, debate doesn't look like that on surface because it does look like one person speaking and another one speaking. But behind the scenes and in people's mind, there is, at the best moments of debate, that kind of anticipating what the other side might be asking, right? The conversation that's unfolding in the audience's mind. And so to give an example of that, how we put together an argument in debate is to say there are two basic things that an argument has to prove. The first is that the main claim that you're making is true, and the other is that it's important. So if you're arguing that we should become vegetarian because it's good for the environment, you have to show that it is in fact good for the environment, otherwise you don't really have legs to stand on. And you have to show that the fact that it's good for the environment means that you should go vegetarian as opposed to privileging, you know, the quality of taste or our lifestyle or something else. And one of the things that I came up with for the book as a way for people to hit those basic burdens is to say an argument should answer four Ws. What is the argument that you're trying to make? Why is it true? When has it happened before? So can you give an example? And who cares, right? Why should that change our mind or why should it change our behavior? So the big step, I think, is in recognizing an argument is not just an expression of what you think. There's a craft to it, and that craft involves, in the end, being responsive to the questions the other side is likely to have for you.

4. 8:08 – 10:58

   How to rebut without backfiring: aim accurately and replace what you break

   1. AGAdam Grant8:08

      That goes to another topic that you have a lot of skill in and you spend a lot of time thinking about, which is, uh, how to give a good rebuttal. We, we live in a world that is full of bad arguments that I just feel this strong impulse to debunk, which strangely never goes well when I follow that impulse. [laughs]

   2. BSBo Seo8:25

      [laughs]

   3. AGAdam Grant8:26

      Talk to me about how to rebut an argument, particularly from someone, uh, who is not necessarily receptive.

   4. BSBo Seo8:34

      The first thing is reckoning with the loss that comes with having your arguments destroyed. It's a loss of ego. It's a loss of self sometimes. It's a loss of direction, right? Because you used to have these thoughts that would guide what you do and the things that you pursue, and you've taken that away from them. So I would work backwards from a recognition of that loss. Now, there are two things that I think can help with that. One is you have to listen. It's something like, you know, you go for the king you can't miss. [laughs] Um, if you're going forward in that-- from that posture of criticism, you have to put in the work beforehand of knowing that it's well aimed, right? So in debating, you're really listening, paper and pen, writing down almost verbatim what the other side said. And in this component of the activity, it's in your best interests to be as faithful a scribe as you can be for the other side, right? Because otherwise they'll say, "You didn't actually respond to what I said. You, you talked about something else completely, and that doesn't have to change anything about me," right? And given how we shield ourselves from criticism, we're very prone to doing that, of saying, "That didn't have anything to do with me. You missed." So the first point is it has to connect. And I think the second part is once you've gone through the process of dismantling an argument, and the starting place for that is where we started the previous answer, which is the two things that an argument has to do, right? Is it true? Is it important? And the process of rebutting an argument starts from that. With-- what are you attacking? What's the basis of your attack? Are you saying this is untrue or are you accepting that it's true but that it's unimportant? And once you've done that, you have to provide an alternative, right? Because that helps people with that sense of loss. You wanna give them something that's more attractive even. And the listening is a big part of that. And once you know where it is they're coming from, what they're after, supplying an answer that is more attractive to them than what they believed previously, I think can be a useful move.

5. 10:58 – 13:26

   Learning to lose: debate as play, repetition, and decoupling ideas from identity

   1. AGAdam Grant10:58

      As you're talking, I'm thinking about Kahneman and Tversky prospect theory and the idea that people are often more motivated to, you know, to defend against a loss than they are to seek a gain. And I think that one of the mistakes I make a lot is I wanna tell people, "Here are all the benefits of, [laughs] of, of believing this evidence I'm bringing to the table." And I forget that people already associate benefits with clinging to their existing beliefs, which are more familiar and more certain. And as you talk about loss, it gets me thinking about the possibility that maybe I could lead with, with inviting people to consider the bad things that might happen if they cling to a wrong belief rather than the good things that will happen if they adopt a right one. What do you make of that?

   2. BSBo Seo11:42

      I mean, it brings to mind, um, there's that Elizabeth Bishop poem about the art of losing, and she says, "How do you do that?" Um, you do it through repetition. You lose little things, um, like keys and stuff, and it gets bigger and bigger. And one of the things I've noticed in debating is you're gonna lose a lot, right, if you're a competitive debater. The world championships has five hundred teams and one winner. So you're gonna be in the four ninety-nine, and I was every single time [laughs] except twice, Ryan.

   3. AGAdam Grant12:15

      Twice. Yeah, not just once, twice. Let's be clear. You can win once by luck-

   4. BSBo Seo12:19

      [laughs]

   5. AGAdam Grant12:19

      ... not twice. Um, and-

   6. BSBo Seo12:23

      I think that repetition is important because it shows you what happens after you've lost an argument. In some ways, not much. And I think one of the things I think a lot about now is there's a big element to debate, which is it's a game, and it's play, and it's a place to experiment. And one of the things that, it, that makes losing easier is you're often assigned a position. So you, you- there's a topic that we should ban zoos, and they tell you, "Adam, you are on the affirmative side of this topic." Now, you may, in fact, be on the affirmative side in your mind. You may believe that. Um, but that bit of role play gives you a kind of a plausible deniability, right? To say, "Within this space, we're just playing a role, we're playing with ideas, we're experimenting." And that decoupling of the loss of ideas of, from the loss of self is a kind of a training, too.

6. 13:26 – 18:39

   Agreeableness as self-betrayal: why avoiding conflict shrinks your life

   1. AGAdam Grant13:26

      I- I've been thinking a lot about this recently because as a fellow highly agreeable person, I avoid arguments still. Unless I, you know, either feel extremely strongly about my data on a topic or I feel that a relationship is sufficiently secure that I'm not gonna offend somebody by disagreeing with them-

   2. BSBo Seo13:43

      Yeah

   3. AGAdam Grant13:43

      ... um, I, you know, I still avoid it a lot. And I think the disservice that I've done myself by doing that is that I don't practice the skills when the stakes are low. Uh, and then, you know, it's much harder to use them when the stakes rise. And I, I think your idea of, you know, of turning it into a game, of practicing it, of arguing for things that you don't necessarily believe strongly or care about deeply, um, is how you, you end up building those muscles up. I think the, the aha moment here is, for me anyway, is that one of the best ways to get people to disagree more and more thoughtfully is to help them think about the cost of not doing so.

   4. BSBo Seo14:20

      Mm.

   5. AGAdam Grant14:20

      And I've been too focused on the benefits, right? [laughs] Here are all the good things that will happen with- if you disagree. I still don't like disagreeing. Well, what are your fears? What kind of world would it be if great minds always thought alike? It wouldn't be great minds anymore.

   6. BSBo Seo14:36

      Well, I think the other part of it is I, you know, I always think back to my childhood because I, I lived this life, right? I lived the life of being very agreeable. And I think if you look back on my elementary school report cards, the adjective that's used most often [laughs] might be agreeable, you know? He's very pleasant. Um, a great guy, lovely person. And how did it feel to be that agreeable person? I experienced it as a kind of self-betrayal, which is you have these thoughts, and you find yourself holding your tongue, and that alienates you from yourself. But it's also to hold the other person at an arm's distance, right? To put a limit on the kind of relationship you can have with the person across the table from you, with the society that you're sort of becoming a part of, right? And that's a loss, too. Um, it's a loss of a, um, a, a more profound, a more risky venture, right, which is, um, intimacy. Which is intimacy.

   7. AGAdam Grant15:50

      Bo, it's so interesting that you just said profound because I, I [laughs] that was the word that came into my head when you said agreeableness is an act of self-betrayal. That is profound. I think we often talk about it as people pleasing-

   8. BSBo Seo16:03

      Mm

   9. AGAdam Grant16:03

      ... and think, "Oh, well, you know, I do this because I wanna be polite."

   10. BSBo Seo16:07

       Yeah.

   11. AGAdam Grant16:08

       And, you know, uh, I'll protect people's feelings today and then maybe find a way to help them tomorrow by being a little more honest with them.

   12. BSBo Seo16:16

       Mm-hmm.

   13. AGAdam Grant16:17

       When you reframe that as an act of self-betrayal, um, I realize that, that being excessively agreeable anyway is an integrity violation, that I'm, I'm not standing by my principles, and that is not something I can tolerate. So now, like [laughs] I know, I know what's gonna happen. I'm gonna be in an Uber-

   14. BSBo Seo16:35

       [laughs]

   15. AGAdam Grant16:35

       ... and the AC is gonna be blasting.

   16. BSBo Seo16:37

       What have I done? [laughs]

   17. AGAdam Grant16:38

       And I mean, I... and, and normally I would just say, "Well, it doesn't really matter, so I'm gonna bite my tongue." But I'm gonna hear your voice in my head and say, "This is an act of self-betrayal not to speak up and say, 'M- m- my, my teeth are chattering. [laughs] Could you please turn down the AC a little bit?'" But what I love about this also is that if I frame it as self-betrayal, I'm not gonna shy away just because the stakes are low. I'm gonna say, "Well, this is a, this is an opportunity to practice where the risk is low, um, standing up for, for some of my principles."

   18. BSBo Seo17:10

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   19. AGAdam Grant17:11

       Oh, this is exciting. I love this.

   20. BSBo Seo17:13

       And one of the things that I found in actually making the jump, right, is that you may be rewarded for it, that people might rise to the task. Because and I love the phrase people pleasing. I don't think people just wanna be pleased. And that's actually not a flattering description of them and their motivations either. People wanna be challenged. They wanna be connected in a deep sense, right? They wanna see you for who you are. And so the way I would surmise it is the cost of these self-betrayals of a reduced relationship with others is a smaller life. And that's a smaller personal life, but it's a smaller communal life, too. And this is actually, you know, a good time to be doing some of this reframing, Adam, because I think we see the costs of one way of thinking about polarization is people on opposite poles just congregating with the people who agree with them. The s- the social costs of that are obvious, and one of those costs is the space of the public is shrinking, right? And the life that we share, the overlap, that is becoming smaller, too.

   21. AGAdam Grant18:26

       Yeah. Oh, I love the idea of now saying, "If I can have better arguments, not just more of them, I, I can have a richer life and I can expand my experience."

   22. BSBo Seo18:39

       Yeah.

7. 18:39 – 21:37

   Handling bullies and bad-faith arguers: rules, naming tactics, and opting out

   1. AGAdam Grant18:39

      Now, what about, of course, the people who don't wanna be challenged? Uh, you've written about self-defense and how to defeat a bully. Talk to me about arguing with somebody who, you know, whether it's watching national politicians, uh, bullying their opponents on stage, [laughs] whether it's your uncle at a family dinner, [laughs] like how do you deal with a bully? What have you learned about that? And can you give us an example to bring it to life?

   2. BSBo Seo19:06

      Sure. I think the first thing is bullies, as on playgrounds, as at the Thanksgiving table, um, are often motivated by fear. The fear of being made a fool of, of losing an argument. So one of the more important lessons in the book, I think, is that every disagreement should start with some agreement, and that's ground rules of how we're gonna conduct this exchange. So we're gonna have equal time. We're gonna take turns so you don't have to interrupt me, but you're gonna get a chance to respond. And we're gonna come to an agreement too about what the disagreement is about. So in a disagreement that starts out being about the dirty dishes, it's not on the table that I love you. This is really just about the dishes. And that kind of boundary setting, that kind of agreement and consensus, I think can be useful. Now, bullies are people who flout those norms, right? And so that's where they present issues that require some resolution. How I think about it is in two ways. One is to diagnose the common moves that bullies make, so people dodging the argument, right? People twisting the points that you're making. People wrangling, which is similar to the example I gave before about the, the holiday makers, right? Saying no to everything without ever proposing an alternative. And being able to say to that person, "What's your proposal?" So the first approach is to be able to name exactly what is happening because I think there's power in even that, of knowing what the bully at work or at school or in your personal life is doing and having some agency to respond. But I think the, the second approach that all of those tactics lead up to is some people aren't interested in having a debate. They really do wanna just kind of hurt your feelings, right? And I think it's at that time you wanna pause and say to the person, "Well, is it a debate that you're interested in having or is it something else? Because I'm not interested in just a name-calling match." And so being able to name a discussion for what it is and to choose whether you engage in, in it or not, I think that's another way in which we gain some amount of control.

8. 21:37 – 26:40

   Meta-conversation and collaboration: ‘you and me vs. the problem’

   1. AGAdam Grant21:37

      Two points that I w- I wanna build on that you made. The first one is the idea of, of actually having a conversation about the conversation.

   2. BSBo Seo21:44

      Yeah.

   3. AGAdam Grant21:44

      It's amazing how quickly that can take the wind out of the sails of somebody who might be, you know, bullying you or just even getting overly heated, right? And losing control of their emotions. You know, it's, it's not helpful [laughs] I found to say, "You're raising your voice," 'cause then they're like-

   4. BSBo Seo22:00

      [laughs]

   5. AGAdam Grant22:00

      ... "No, I'm not!"

   6. BSBo Seo22:02

      [laughs]

   7. AGAdam Grant22:02

      Uh, but to ask, "Do you think this is the most constructive way that we could have this disagreement?" Or is, you know, "Is there a better process we could use? I feel like we're not hearing each other." Um, it often snaps people out of the heat of the moment. So that was one thing that struck me. And then the other, I guess you reminded me of something I used to do when I was, uh, when I was working as a negotiator long time ago at Let's Go. I was doing, at the time I was, um, negotiating advertising contracts and I'd have somebody, a client express a ton of interest and then I'd hear from their boss and the boss was extremely skeptical and just, you know, shooting down all my proposals and badgering for discounts that they knew from prior projects were, were ge- not even feasible within company policy. And one day I just, I ran out of ideas and I, I [laughs] said to them, I said, "It seems like you're playing good cop, bad cop, where [laughs] like one of you is trying to, you know, to build harmony and, and support and maintain rapport and then the other's job is, you know, is to kind of beat me up a little bit. Is that what you're doing?"

   8. BSBo Seo23:09

      Yeah.

   9. AGAdam Grant23:09

      And it was so interesting. Um, the, the bad cop started laughing and he said, "You got me." [laughs]

   10. BSBo Seo23:16

       [laughs]

   11. AGAdam Grant23:17

       Completely changed the relationship and I guess, um, Neil Rackham in his, his classic study of, of what differentiated great negotiators from their peers would call that summarizing behavior and testing their understanding. And it has to be done gently was my, was my experience. 'Cause again, [laughs] you're a bully [laughs] . Like it, it probably doesn't bring out the best in the person, but you know, to just kind of casually say like, "Oh, is this like, is this a good cop, bad cop routine?" And give them a chance to either own it or disclaim it and either way it would force the bad cop to be a little bit more reasonable. I found that really powerful and you were articulating the theory behind why that worked which was I was not only naming the tactic in my head, I was putting it on the table in a way that gave them a better option. Talk to me about that.

   12. BSBo Seo24:04

       On the conversation about a conversation, it's suggesting that a disagreement is something that you're building together and I like the word building because the point of the exchange is you want to leave in a better place than where you started, right? And actually in some points of disagreement- There is a strain of optimism behind people's choices to disagree. Because the other option is for me to silently think, "You're an idiot," and I have, I don't have anything to do with you. Whereas making clear my position, trying to do the work of persuasion suggests we still believe there's something positive that can come out of this exchange, right? And so that con- in that moment when you're having a conversation about the conversation, I think it's helpful to think about yourselves as collaborators. You're not just people who disagree. You're also people who, at this moment, in order to have a fruitful conversation, you're working together, right? And, and so the book is called Good Arguments.

   13. AGAdam Grant25:12

       Yes.

   14. BSBo Seo25:12

       And people always ask, w-what's a good argument? And I had a thousand different answers to this. It's revelatory, it's informative, it helps you be heard. And ultimately, what I settled on is a good argument is one in which both sides walk away feeling like they would do that again. Because that's all that's required for the conversation to continue.

   15. AGAdam Grant25:38

       Oh, I like that a lot, and it, it reminds me of, of something that, uh, Liz Fosslien and Molly West Duffy introduced me to. Uh, they did, I thought a, a brilliant drawing of basically a bad argument is you against me, and a good argument is you and me-

   16. BSBo Seo25:52

       Wow.

   17. AGAdam Grant25:53

       -against the problem.

   18. BSBo Seo25:54

       That's fabulous. Yeah, it's fabulous. You know, one other benefit of what you were saying before about good cop, bad cop is I do have this theory that there are all these scripts, right, that we're following. There are all these rhetorical scripts that we're following at any given time, and the more we're able to illuminate what it is that we're doing when we talk to one another, because I think this is one of the most complex activities there is. I think when we're arguing, we're doing a thousand different things. The more we can master that craft, the more we can see the limits of any one approach, right? So I see debate as one answer to a broader question, which is how do we disagree better?

9. 26:40 – 32:05

   Is debate truth-seeking or persuasion? Why we need more than one mode

   1. AGAdam Grant26:40

      Do you know Mercier and Sperber, The Argumentative Theory of Reason?

   2. BSBo Seo26:44

      Yes, I do. Yeah.

   3. AGAdam Grant26:45

      Okay, good. So maybe, maybe for the audience's benefit, I'll just give a quick summary of, of what I took away from it and then bridge it to, to one of the things I just discovered from you. [laughs] So they basically said, "We think that people have the capacity to reason so that they can get smarter, like learn, and make better choices." But [laughs] people are really bad at reasoning. So what's going on here? Like, what did reasoning evolve to do? And they argue that the purpose of reasoning is actually to persuade, not to think. And one of the ways that they, they try to advance this idea is they show that people struggle in regular reasoning tasks where they don't have to make an argument. But if you have to reason to convince, people actually get better at their reasoning, except there's a wrinkle, which is that when you're arguing, your primary goal is not to find the truth. It's to be right or to win or to val-validate what you already believe, and so confirmation bias and desirability bias kick in. And so I think my, my takeaway from that work was we can make people smarter at reasoning if they have an argument where the goal is to find the truth, not to convince. And that might be persuading the other person that their view is incomplete. It might be, uh, convincing the other person that there's, um, you know, there's knowledge that hasn't been taken into account, right? There are a bunch of different ways to, to shift that. But I guess what, what this makes me wonder, and [laughs] it's, it's ironic given that you've won two World Debate Championship titles, is, are we doing this wrong by debating? Should we be arguing actually to discover a truth instead of to persuade an audience?

   4. BSBo Seo28:33

      The most direct answer to your question is we shouldn't only be debating. And debating is an incredible engine, right? It's hugely generative. When the competition juices are flowing and you're in the room and you're competing and you're in front of an audience, right? And one of the reasons why I like debating as a lens into the question of disagreement is I think often, you know, textbooks on disagreeing well require people to be like angels, right? We're kind of sitting in this ideal space, being very polite to one another. But in my experience, disagreement doesn't feel like that. Disagreement feels like risk. It feels like danger. It feels like spectacle. You're playing with fire. And that experience is hugely generative. It forces you to innovate. When someone comes up with rebuttal, you have to respond. So your argument is constantly evolving. But importantly, that's an hour in your day. That's how long a debate round takes. And this is a point that kids understand instinctively. So when you look at a debate competition at the local middle school or high school, they, they're absolutely going at it for an hour. And then on the bus ride home, you're gonna hear one of the kids turn to another, their competitor, and say, "You know, you had a point there." And so there is this implicit understanding that we're doing one thing when we're in the debate room, we're doing something else when we're on the bus home. And the conversation on the bus home is a lot richer for the argument that we had in the debate room. And the conversation in the debate room, um, the potential dangers of that being the only mode of interaction is softened by the fact that there will be the bus ride home. And so I completely agree that the broader project of truth finding, of relationship building, of making our differences work for us and not against us, that's what all of this is in service of, right? And I think just, um-

   5. AGAdam Grant30:33

      Yeah

   6. BSBo Seo30:34

      ... to go off your point about, um, Mercy and S- and Sperber, one of the tasks that we do when we're coming up with an argument is we do something called side switch, where in the last five minutes before you go on, you turn to a new sheet of paper and you write down the four best arguments for the other side. Or you go over the case as you've written, as though from the eyes of an opponent, and try and poke as many holes as you can find. Now, this is a silent process. Um, it's a mental process, but it, it, it reminds me of what you're saying about reasoning being irreducibly social, right? And that when you can internalize the mind of the other, the voice of the other, and make room for that in your reasoning process, it helps us be better, right? I think it's actually-

   7. AGAdam Grant31:28

      Yes

   8. BSBo Seo31:28

      ... very hard to think about what thinking on your own might even look like. It's about how will an audience receive this? How will your very smart friend receive this? And inviting those voices so that we're in conversation even when they're not in the room with us, I think that's a very special thing.

   9. AGAdam Grant31:48

      I strongly agree, again, annoyingly. [laughs]

   10. BSBo Seo31:53

       [laughs]

10. 32:05 – 34:38

    Lightning round: favorite scenes, rule changes, hardest topics, and counterintuitive advice

    1. AGAdam Grant32:05

       All right, so let's, let's go to the lightning round. Standard ground rules are trying to keep answers to about a sentence, but you know, if you need another one, so be it. And you can pass once if you dislike a question.

    2. BSBo Seo32:16

       All right.

    3. AGAdam Grant32:17

       First one is, do you have a favorite debate scene in a movie or a show, or a movie or a show that you think best represents debate?

    4. BSBo Seo32:25

       It must be The Great Debaters, um, with Denzel Washington. Who's the judge? The judge is God. Why is he God? Because he decides who wins or loses, not my opponent.

    5. AGAdam Grant32:37

       Hard to argue with. If you could change one rule in debate tournaments, what would it be?

    6. BSBo Seo32:42

       I would allow people to speak twice.

    7. AGAdam Grant32:45

       Ooh, I love that. Um, what is the hardest topic that you ever had to debate?

    8. BSBo Seo32:51

       In the grand final of the World Universities Championships that we ended up winning, I was the first affirmative speaker arguing that the global poor would be justified in pursuing a complete Marxist revolution. And I was wearing a tuxedo at the time, which was, um-

    9. AGAdam Grant33:08

       [laughs]

    10. BSBo Seo33:08

        ... a terrible choice. [laughs]

    11. AGAdam Grant33:12

        [laughs] Wow. Do... Is there video footage? I, I need to watch this.

    12. BSBo Seo33:16

        The global poor all around the world, and no matter what country in which they live, currently live in a system of dictatorship. They live under a dictatorship known as no alternatives, shackled by capital that's been unjustly acquired, constrained by landed gentry who have no incentives but to pursue their own interests, and chained by the fact that they can't do anything but to look at the question of their own subsistence. They're unable to reach out for the right to liberty and to self-determination that we think inheres in the human condition.

    13. AGAdam Grant33:53

        Is there an argument that you're proudest of, that you made?

    14. BSBo Seo33:57

        I think the arguments that I'm proudest of are arguments where I had to argue against something that I really believed. That experience of just stepping completely outside of my normal patterns of thinking and having to empathize as best I can with the other side, I thought that was a useful exercise.

    15. AGAdam Grant34:18

        Mm-hmm. Absolutely. We should all have to do it more often. What's the most counterintuitive tip that you would give on how to have a better argument?

    16. BSBo Seo34:27

        I think it would be to choose your battles, and that means letting arguments go even when you know you can win.

    17. AGAdam Grant34:36

        Hmm. So hard.

11. 34:38 – 36:19

    Choosing wisely: the RISA checklist for deciding whether to argue

    1. BSBo Seo34:38

       Yeah. And this is a problem, I think, um, that comes up in our personal relationships the most because of a wonderful reason, which is with our loved ones, we choose to share so much of our life together, right? So there are lots of different things at any given time we could argue about. So an argument about who's taking out the trash can also become what your in-laws did, what happened last month, what happened with the children. And so being willing to let things go, to be able to focus our energy on the disagreements that matter, that are likely to yield the best results, um, I think that's a quality of judgment. And one of the tools that I give that I think could help with that is before launching into an argument to consult, um, the RISA checklist, which is to check whether the disagreement between the two parties is in fact real. It's not an imagined slight or something like that. It's important enough to justify the disagreement. It's specific enough, so you're not debating the virtues of liberalism [laughs] in the 20 minutes, um, that it's gonna take you to drive to, um, where you're going out for dinner. And to check that the two sides are aligned in their incentives for wanting to have the disagreement. So you're checking that the other side isn't in it just to, to hurt your feelings or even just to vent. So that's real important, specific, and aligned, and I think it's not just about being an effective arguer or forceful advocate, it's about knowing the settings in which that's welcome and it's likely to be most effective.

12. 36:19 – 41:26

    Teaching kids to argue well: debate in schools, and protecting room to experiment

    1. AGAdam Grant36:19

       Mm-hmm. Okay, so this, this brings us to our, our last topic, which is education. I worry a lot that we are raising kids to be argument illiterate. And I don't think this is entirely new, right? Many of us grew up in households where we were told that, [laughs] you know, that children were meant to be seen but not heard, or that, you know, that it was bad manners to disagree with someone, uh, and that one of the fundamental rules of politeness was, [laughs] was to seek harmony, uh, rather than discord. But it does seem to be getting worse, [laughs] um, you know, as polarization rises, as arguments, um, intensify, and as p- as communication is, you know, is increasingly technology mediated. The skills of, you know, of having good arguments seem to be in short supply.

    2. BSBo Seo37:06

       Yeah.

    3. AGAdam Grant37:07

       So what do we need to do in schools? Uh, what do we need to do as parents? How do we teach arguing well from an early age?

    4. BSBo Seo37:14

       I think the first thing is to view the instinct to argue as something that is already there, right? And when you look at kids, and I think about the young kids in my life, they're always kind of playing devil's advocate or pushing the boundaries just to see how they'll be received, right? Or they're kind of poking and probing. And there's a lot of things that happen in one's life that I think dulls that instinct. It can be the sense that adults are not taking them seriously. It can be the sense that to succeed in schools, it can feel like you just need to anticipate the wishes of the teacher as opposed to coming at it and challenging norms. So I think the first thing is recognizing it's an instinct to be responsive to rather than to implant. Um, I think that can be one, um, useful thing. I think there, there's lots of wonderful work being done thinking about how we implement debate, um, pedagogically. So the one great advantage of a debate club at schools is it requires no equipment. It's cheap, actually, right? And so there have been, um, experiments like in Broward County in Florida, where every school, I think, rolled out this program in public schools. And I think having those clubs, um, uh, at each of these schools will be useful. There's wonderful work being done at the curricular level of thinking about how we have debates in the classroom, right? So that things are contestable, um, that we see the things we're being taught aren't the only ways to look at it. I think those can be useful.

    5. AGAdam Grant38:55

       Yeah.

    6. BSBo Seo38:56

       One thing I'm thinking a lot about nowadays is in addition to a lot of the headwinds that you described about the powerless position of children, one particular problem I'm seeing a lot is kids from a real young age are being exposed to broadcasting and brand building. And I think this affects us adults too, of thinking that whenever we speak in public, we're almost like mini public figures. And, you know, most of us have the joy of not being recognizable [laughs] so that you can be a fool sometimes. And, and one of the great things about childhood, I think, should be that it's a safe space in which to play and to experiment. The debate room is one version of that, but it's not the only one. And I think reclaiming some sphere of the private, especially for children, and saying, "You're not locked into one identity. Um, you're not locked into one position. You're still figuring it out like the rest of us," I think that's one important principle for education, and it's a, a principle for adult education too. Like, how do we play? Um, and how do we find room in which to experiment? But what, what do you think? What, what do you think? Yeah.

    7. AGAdam Grant40:17

       No, I like that. I like that a lot. It, it speaks to something I hear a lot from my students, which is growing numbers of them are afraid of voicing their views in the classroom. And it's not because they're afraid of being told they're wrong. Um, sometimes it's because they're afraid of offending someone. But just as often, what I hear anecdotally at least, is they're worried that somehow, like, the fact that they were playing a role, right, or taking a side is gonna get taken out of context, and then it's gonna ruin their reputation because it'll get posted on social media, or it'll get spread in a very visible way. And they're like, "I don't actually believe that. I was just trying out this idea," or, "I was pushing the boundaries of, you know, of a, an assumption that I thought needed to be questioned." And I think that that's a problem, right?

    8. BSBo Seo41:05

       Yeah.

    9. AGAdam Grant41:05

       If, if students can't speak out loud about ideas that they may not personally believe but they think might move an argument forward or diversify, uh, you know, [laughs] a, a room full of group think, um, you know, I think that, that stifles learning.

    10. BSBo Seo41:23

        Yeah. Yep. I think that's right.

13. 41:26 – 44:00

    Bringing structure home: trials, debate rules, and separating ‘testimony’ from decisions

    1. AGAdam Grant41:26

       The, the other thing, the other thing I was just thinking about as you were talking, and maybe we'll wrap on this, is last summer I went and visited some friends. And [laughs] we, we were at dinner, and their, their two kids got into an argument. And they said, "Okay, we're gonna have a trial." They said, "We're gonna be the jury, and you're each gonna make your case, and then we're gonna deliver a verdict." And it was so, so fascinating to watch. I thought it was such a powerful way to give ch- kids a chance, similar to the, the rules of debate, to really be heard, to really formulate an argument, to be taken seriously, like, like you experienced in fifth grade. And it made me wonder, should we be bringing more of the institutions and, and formal structures that we apply to a debate or a courtroom into our homes? Like, should we, even with our partners, uh, should we say, "Let's have more arguments following the rules of a formal debate"? Because we know that means we're gonna listen as well as talk. We know that means we're really gonna have to be responsive to the other person's points.

    2. BSBo Seo42:31

       I love what you're doing because one part of it is thinking about, well, what is it about those settings, right? And what are the norms? And I think those norms are generally useful, generally translatable. But the harder edge of the question is, how do we wanna bring the artifice in, right? These kinds of different structures in. And I think there is a case for- Recognizing in, in that explicit way the different things that we do when we argue. So debate, and certainly a trial, is aimed at getting a resolution, right? But some arguments actually the aim is not to get a resolution. And I, uh, sometimes have this with my partner. It's just saying, "We're actually not coming to a decision at the end of this discussion." And I just say, "Let's just take an hour just to say some stuff, just to exchange ideas, almost giving testimony." And then in a different conversation, we can then have a more outcome-oriented, um, structure of thinking about here's where we're going. And I've found that useful, um, in my life, and it may well be that all the associations of a trial and those kinds of things are hard to translate in whole, but certainly that kind of design and of being able to say, "We're doing slightly different things," we can make room for many different kinds of conversation in our lives. I think that can be productive.

    3. AGAdam Grant43:57

       That resonates strongly. Bring it on.

    4. BSBo Seo44:00

       Yeah. [laughs]

14. 44:00 – 45:26

    Closing challenge: finding more points of disagreement for deeper learning

    1. AGAdam Grant44:00

       Okay. So i- in closing, let me just say that this is, uh, this has been extremely thought-provoking and enjoyable, and I, I think the one, the one major topic that we didn't cover from your book that I'm gonna deliberately leave hanging-

    2. BSBo Seo44:16

       Yeah

    3. AGAdam Grant44:16

       ... is finding topics to disagree on. I feel like we need to find more topics to disagree on. And so I'm gonna throw out a challenge to you, Bo, which is between now and whenever we next interact, either find some topics that you think we disagree on or teach me how to better find topics we disagree on because we found a lot of common ground today, and I wanna learn more from disagreeing with you.

    4. BSBo Seo44:40

       I'll take that challenge on. Um, and let me just acknowledge you, Adam, on the record. There are two names on the cover of my book. One is mine, and the other, through the blurb you gave, is yours, and that's not an accident. You know? It, it, it reflects the influence you've had on me and the kindness that you've shown me in the publication of this book. So I don't think the recognition compensates for that, but it does acknowledge it. Um, so thank you, and thank you for this conversation.

    5. AGAdam Grant45:10

       It's an honor, and it's an excellent book, and I'm just thrilled that I got a chance to, to keep learning from all the thoughts that were in between the pages.

    6. BSBo Seo45:18

       And we'll do it again soon, I hope.

    7. AGAdam Grant45:22

       You can hear more episodes of The Next Big Idea wherever you're listening.

Episode duration: 45:27