Introduction
How can we communicate across differences of opinion? How can we find common ground with strangers?
In a time of increased polarisation, bias, and judgement, reinforced and deepened by the technological landscape, we must learn to speak well with people we disagree with. This resource runs through the Disagreeing Better skills workshop run at Progress 2026 by Jordy Nijenhuis from Dare to be Grey.
The Progress 2026 conference was hosted by Australian Progress on March 24-25 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Narrm/Melbourne. This article was produced by The Commons Library to enable ongoing learning.
Dare to be Grey
The following is an excerpt from the Mission Statement of Jordy’s organisation, Dare to be Grey. It sets out a good backdrop to this workshop, and the reasons this work is so needed.
Polarisation, disinformation, and hate are on the rise. This black-and-white worldview can lead to a downward spiral of division and alienation, and cause us-versus-them narratives.
Dare to be Grey works towards the prevention of this in society with this twofold mission:
- Creating awareness about the dynamics and pitfalls of polarisation, disinformation, and hate.
- Providing positive alternatives where they are needed.
These two elements reinforce each other: the more we know about the underlying dynamics, the stronger our alternative narrative is.
Depolarising Communication
In our polarized world, we’re caught in the trap of emphasizing how we are different, rather than how we are similar. We focus on what separates us, rather than the common ground we share, or the things that bring us together.
The media is a major framing actor that baits, simplifies, and polarizes us. Politicians do this too. In our current context, social media and the internet contribute massively to it—algorithms filter out nuance and difference, showing us only what will reinforce our views, putting us into silos and echo chambers.
As humans, we have a tendency to simplify. To define ourselves as an in group and an out group. But we forget our multitudes.
You’re not just a ‘Progressive’ – you are also a father, a soccer player, someone who has trouble sleeping, who loves to dance.
People on the Right also have multitudes, and between us, we have a shared humanity. Depolarising communication means making a deliberate effort to understand different perspectives and points of view, while suspending judgement and bias as much as possible.
Tips on Disagreeing Better
Conversations
- Approach with curiosity, not correction.
- Look for the emotion behind the argument—what is the person feeling?
- Share stories, not statistics. Stories humanize, statistics do the opposite.
- Find a tiny piece of common ground.
- Don’t try to win, try to understand.
Deep Democracy
The Lewis Method of Deep Democracy has important insights:
- Every voice matters, even the unpopular ones.
- Conflict is not bad, it’s a source of insight. What can you learn from this?
- Emotions are data. Listen for what’s underneath.
- Roles are not fixed. We all shift between positions. This is human.
- The goal is not consensus, but deeper understanding of each other.
Beneath the iceberg tip of our behaviour, there are emotions, thoughts, values, and needs—we need to find this undercurrent.
Some elements of Deep Democracy in a conversation or group setting:
- Check in: How are you and what do you need to make this more comfy? (We need boundaries).
- Create a space where it’s safe to say everything.
- Look for the oohs and aahs.
- Check out: What resonated? What hurt? How can we use this going forward?
There’s a lot of learning when you’re uncomfortable.
Emotions
We aren’t very capable of expressing our emotions. We feel hundreds of emotions per day, but whenever someone asks how we are feeling, we often respond ‘oh yeah pretty good’—but that’s not really how we feel.
How are you feeling right now?
You can use this Wheel of Emotions to prompt you to name how you’re really feeling.
Once we name those emotions and provide space to feel them and express them, we understand ourselves a bit better.
Remember that we can feel multiple emotions at once! Once we acknowledge we have multitudes of emotions, we become better at our work and in our relationships.
Facts or Emotions?
Most conflicts are emotional not factual:
- Facts alone don’t move people
- Stories humanise what arguments polarise
- Listening defuses emotional escalation
- Understanding ≠ Agreeing
Remember, most decisions are emotional.
Practising Disagreeing Better
A series of short exercises you can use to build your skills in disagreeing better and finding common ground.
The Power of Definition
When we have difficult conversations, we tend to use loaded terms. But these terms don’t always mean the same thing to everyone. Different people might have totally different meanings to words. A definition can easily be loaded with value: framed negatively or positively.
This group exercise is designed to get us to re-examine our own assumptions about the meaning of certain concepts that often lie at the heart of polarisation. It is meant to get everyone to think, get creative if necessary, and at the same time loosen our attachment to definitions or understandings of specific terms.
Objectives
- To deconstruct and redefine certain core terms
- To explore thinking outside of the box of assumed shared meaning
- To foster creativity and intellectual emancipation
Process
- Grab paper and a pen.
- Write a positive, negative, and neutral definition of a loaded word, eg democracy, far-right, progressive, manosphere.
- Once you’ve all written yours down, people read out their definitions in no particular order, and others hold up their hands with signs to indicate which one they think they are.
Examples of Definitions
Democracy
- Positive: A system of government in which the highest protection of minority rights is assured, due to various human rights laws and treaties.
- Negative: A system where people relinquish their vote to a handful of representatives, most of who are subject to lobbying and other corruptive influences.
- Neutral: Democracy is a system of government.
Far-right
- Positive: A passionate sect of society grounded in traditional values, the protection of ones own community, and opposition to government control and corruption.
- Negative: A bigoted, xenophobic and misled sect of society grounded in anti-immigration, patriarchy, and white supremacy, who pose a significant political threat to a just society.
- Neutral: The term for people who fall on the furthest right side of the ‘left-right’ political spectrum
Progressive
- Positive: People fighting for positive change in our world, towards peace and justice and equality.
- Negative: Annoying woke activists who have no sense of unity, national pride, or traditional values.
- Neutral: The term for a broad alliance of leftist advocates.
When we have conversations, definitions are often loaded. If you want to progress a conversation, ideally you should stick to neutral definitions – this can help you build common ground.
Wisdom of the No
Explore the internal dialogue that often accompanies disagreement, hesitation, or resistance. The aim is not to resolve the tension immediately, but to recognise that what feels like a simple “no” may contain useful insight.
This is a tool to use if you have a decision to make; if you’re facing a conflict, or you need to pick a position or a side.
Objectives
- To explore tensions and conflicting perspectives within ourselves
- To recognise that hesitation or resistance can contain insight
- To increase self-awareness about how we form opinions
- To practise reflecting on disagreement before responding
Effectively, it’s a pros and cons list you go through by yourself, framed almost as a debate between two versions of you:
Process
- Start by listing things that would lead you to a yes.
- Then, physically, turn around and face yourself
- Now, you do the no list.
- Start arguing with yourself. Talk it through. Rebut.
- At some point, you need to make a decision, you need to pick one or the other. You have made your decision.
- Ask yourself: “How can I get the other me to agree with me?”
Truths of a Conflict
Step outside your own position and engage seriously with the perspective of someone you disagree with. By attempting to argue the other person’s position as convincingly and fairly as possible, you are encouraged to move beyond assumptions or stereotypes and instead explore the reasoning, experiences, and concerns that may shape that viewpoint.
Objectives
- To help you understand and articulate perspectives you disagree with
- To challenge simplified or stereotypical views of opposing positions
- To practise intellectual empathy and perspective-taking
- To recognise that conflicts often contain multiple perceived truths
Process
- Ask a buddy to come along and role play together.
- Argue together against your movement, with one of you playing each ‘side’.
- You can switch sides as many times as you want throughout.
This forces you to walk a mile in the shoes of your perceived opposition. It will allow you to find the points you agree with in the opposition, to find some common ground.
Lived Experience Exchange
We invite you to move away from debating positions and instead share personal experiences connected to an issue or disagreement. Rather than presenting arguments, statistics, or political viewpoints, participants share stories from their own lives that shaped how they see the issue. By focusing on lived experience, the conversation shifts from trying to win a debate to understanding the human realities behind people’s views.
Objectives
- To shift conversations from debate to personal understanding
- To explore the experiences that shape people’s views and reactions
- To foster empathy and curiosity through storytelling
- To recognise the human realities behind different perspectives
Think:
- What is your lived experience?
- Why did you encounter this issue?
- How will it affect your life or your community?
Stories humanise what arguments polarise.
Sharing the personal story of an individual, especially a heartfelt human one, can bring down the temperature of polarised political conversations. This is something to consider when building media campaigns, when trying to bring people around on an emotional or polarising issue.
You might make them consider the human consequences to issues and conversations, so maybe we shouldn’t fight each other!
The Wrap-Up
Disagreeing Better is all about:
- Showing that no human is one sided
- Nuance matters
- Words shape reality
- Curiosity opens dialogue
- Remember, we can do this at scale.
For more, head to the Dare to be Grey website.
About the Speaker
Jordy Nijenhuis is a storyteller, campaigner, consultant and trainer based in The Netherlands. He is the director of Dare to be Grey, an award winning organisation that aims to counter polarisation, disinformation and hate. He co-founded the European Observatory of Online Hate (EOOH) is the lead trainer of the Digital Media to Counter Disinformation and Hate course at Radio Netherlands Training Center (RNTC). He is involved in a variety of different projects, and trains media professionals from all over the world in (social media) campaigning, storytelling and countering radicalisation, hate speech and disinformation. He believes that media is a powerful tool for behavioural change, and that we need new creative approaches to achieve fundamental change.
Explore Further
- Dare to be Grey
- Overcome Toxic Polarisation: A Political Courage Challenge
- Peacebuilding: A Democracy Resource Hub Guide
- Deep Canvassing, another approach to depolarising conversations:
- Fighting Fire with Listening: How Climate Conversations can help Tackle Misinformation
- Bridge Building and Power Building: An Ecosystem Approach to Social Change
- Explore the Australian Progress collection on The Commons Library
- Explore other resources from Progress 2026
- Australian Progress Events & Training