- Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Munk Debates.
- Not long ago, a few thousand people gathered
at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto,
the fanciest performance space in the city to hear a debate,
parliamentary style, opening statements,
rebuttals, closing arguments.
- It's so strange hearing you debate, Malcolm,
because you listen to nothing that your opponents say.
(audience laughing) It's quite extraordinary.
I've met it before, but never quite so badly
as it occurs in you.
You keep saying things that neither of us have said.
Malcolm, why don't you listen to what comes out
of our mouths and try to learn something from it
as I am with you, but at the moment all I get
is you dismissing every single story we come up with.
- Turns out he was right.
And that was when DiCo told me
I had to come to Brooklyn again for listening lessons.
- When I teach debate, I teach it
as essentially competitive listening.
- How to listen effectively when you debate at work,
what you just heard was a tiny part
of a 90-minute Munk Debate from Canada.
They were debating the proposition, be it resolved.
Don't trust the mainstream media.
Before the debate, the host, Rudyard Griffiths,
invited thousands of people in the audience
to complete the poll, which resulted in the following.
48% of people agreed, don't trust the mainstream media.
52% disagreed.
Then Rudyard proposed a second question.
Are you open to changing your vote
on the resolution tonight?
I always say that listening
is the willingness to change your mind.
The result, 82% said yes,
they were open to changing their vote.
They will get an opportunity to vote again
at the end of the debate.
For the affirmative, Douglas Murray and Matt Taibbi
are speaking for the proposition,
don't trust the mainstream media.
And arguing for the negative
is Michelle Goldberg and Malcolm Gladwell.
A robust debate took place over the 80 minutes
and the audience was asked to vote again.
A reminder, the original score
was 48% agreed with the proposition,
don't trust the mainstream media.
Four out of five people were also willing
to change their vote.
On their final vote at the end of the debate,
the result, 67% of people voted for the proposition
don't trust the mainstream media.
The audience listened and they changed their mind.
In fact, this was the biggest swing
in the history of the Munk Debates,
Murray and Taibbi won Goldberg and Gladwell
were comprehensively defeated.
In Gladwell's own words, "We got creamed."
Upon reflection, Malcolm Gladwell decided
he needed to improve his listening.
They didn't lose because of what they said,
they lost because they weren't listening
to the other team or the audience.
To improve his listening, Malcolm reached out
to his friend, DiCo, at the Brooklyn Debate League.
As a result, Malcolm created an entire episode
of his podcast, Revisionist History
called, "Malcolm Goes to Debate School."
Many of the deep listening ambassadors sent me this episode
and said, "Oscar, you need to interview, Sasan Kasravi
from the Brooklyn Debate League,
an expert debater and educator."
I had a wonderful conversation with Sasan
and you'll hear from him shortly, as well as other parts
of Malcolm Gladwell's reflections.
Why should you listen to an episode about debate
and how does it influence your listening at work?
I want you to keep three concepts
in mind as you listen today.
The first, when you need to argue your proposition
to someone else or to a group of people at work,
you need to prepare, understand
and articulate both sides of the argument.
Can you argue their position as effectively
as you can argue your own?
If you can, you've probably discovered
that there are more than two positions to debate.
Maybe there's a third, a fourth,
and many other alternatives will emerge.
The second, you can be more persuasive
when you listen carefully to what the others are saying,
you're more likely to change their minds.
The minds of the speakers, the surrounding stakeholders
and other audience if you listen well,
noting their arguments and adjusting.
Finally, and number three, you can make note taking
one of your listening superpowers.
Not by learning how to transcribe,
note taking is about connection, content,
context, systems, and a visual shorthand.
Throughout our discussion today, I'll invite you
to pause and participate to listen and take notes.
This discussion will include what I consider a masterclass
from Sasan about how to effectively take notes
in the context of debate
and extremely limited time environment.
Does that sound like where you work?
I went into this discussion with an open mind about
note taking and realized that in complex debates,
in group settings, I needed to adjust
my orientation about 90 degrees.
Thanks for changing my mind, Sasan.
Before we begin, a big thank you to Jacob Smith,
the producer at Pushkin Industries, for providing permission
to use parts of the Revisionist History episode
from season eight in April, 2023,
"Malcolm goes to Debate School."
Next, you'll hear from a few different voices,
including Sasan and Jonathan from the Brooklyn Debate League
and Malcolm Gladwell.
And for bonus points, at the very end
I've got the reflections of Douglas Murray,
Malcolm Gladwell's opponent in the debate
and his reflections on Malcolm's lack of listening.
- Hi, my name's Sasan Kasravi.
I am a debate coach working in New York
to bring high quality critical thinking education
to as many students in the city as we can.
- What's the cost of not listening?
- The cost of not listening is not knowing.
It's not being able to test your assumptions.
The foundation of what we do in debate.
There is this idea that every assertion
is based on assumptions.
So every belief that you have, everything that you think
you know about the world or your life
or anything that you've ever experienced,
you have a lot of assumptions embedded in that
where there's things that you don't know are true
but you're just assuming aren't.
And for any belief, there's probably more assumptions
you are making than there is evidence
that you have or good reason you have to believe something.
If you're trying to drive a car,
if you don't make some assumptions,
you can't really go anywhere.
Assumptions are the gas pedal of the car
where the more assumptions you make, the faster you move.
I think listening is what allows us to steer
and the cost of not listening is trading speed for steering,
which sounds appealing when you are in a certain mind frame
but is a lot less appealing when you head into a brick wall
- Without a break, you may up in a brick wall,
so I'm curious about the choice to place listening
on the steering wheel.
Have you considered the role of listening as a brake?
- The role of a brake in this analogy is confronting
and accepting the things that you don't know
and that you can't really work around.
When do you stop in a particular direction?
When is it not productive for you
to move past where you are?
The role of a brake is to decide when it's time to stop,
because any direction you move farther is not productive
toward accomplishing a valuable goal.
- We say listening happens before,
during, and after the discussion.
And this is true in debate.
There is a definite before, during, and after.
And there's two elements of preparation.
The first one is how to prepare for both sides.
And the second, which doesn't often happen in workplace
settings, is getting the participants to vote
by standing on one side of the room or the other,
so you know what you are dealing with in terms of who agrees
with a resolution and who does not.
- What does actually preparing for a debate
in the academic world look like?
I've been doing 10 hours of research
in the last couple days on academic tracking,
on the benefits and harms,
and I probably have another 10 hours ahead of me
before I feel confident that the arguments
that I have prepared on this topic
are to the level of quality that I want them.
So what does that look like?
The first thing I'm curious to learn
is what is the common understanding of this issue?
If I'm going to watch two other people debate about this,
what are the arguments that is going to be brought up
by the side that's for it?
What are the arguments that are gonna be brought up
by the side that's against it?
And I want to make sure I understand
what each side likes about those arguments
and what their motivation behind it is,
what they're trying to accomplish.
In debate, we break an argument down
into different components.
And by argument I mean anything
that you're claiming to be true,
anything you're advocating for, right?
And we hear people say things like,
"Oh, that's a good argument,"
but what do we mean by that?
What are the qualities of a good argument?
Because the answer you normally get is a good argument
is one that persuades people.
But how do you know if it'll persuade people?
Or you find out that you should support your idea
with evidence, but you don't know
what the idea you're supporting with evidence
is supposed to be.
A good argument is three things.
It's true.
The claim you're making is supported by reason and evidence.
It's relevant to your audience to the thing
that you're there to discuss.
There's some sort of shared question that we're trying
to answer and your argument is relevant to that.
Most importantly is it's important.
So there's a lot of arguments
that you can make about any given topic that are true,
but ultimately when somebody comes to a decision about
that big question, it's not like, oh, well,
there was 12 reasons why we should do this
and seven reasons why we shouldn't,
so I guess the 12 side wins.
Usually it comes down to the one most important issue
that was raised.
And that can be the only topic, the only argument
that one side brought up.
In terms of preparing,
first you wanna know what the landscape is,
then you wanna try to figure out
what would the best solution to this question look like?
And after that it's thinking about what are the arguments
that nobody else is thinking about?
And I can figure out if we're talking about academic
tracking, what the basic discussion
is most likely to be within an hour on any topic.
The other 19 hours is the aspects of this issue
that people aren't thinking about.
And that's really where your strength as a advocate are
because your audience is going in
trying to have an open mind, but to the degree
that they understand the question being asked,
they have some opinion on it,
and them hearing you sound pretty isn't really going
to challenge their assumptions.
And so how do you prepare for a debate?
You wanna first understand the landscape
of your audience is going in with a certain set
of assumptions about this topic, certain pros and cons
that they currently understand.
You have to figure out what those are.
You have to figure out what value system
they're probably using to make their decision
on whether they like that idea or not.
You have to decide is that a good value system
for them to be using?
Is there a different value system that you think
you know a different value that they have
that you can attach to this?
You can't change their values,
but can you get them, for instance,
to instead of being focused on their finances,
to be focused on their safety.
And once you know what that is, you have to consider all
of the different inroads that they haven't considered
in their decisions because that's the only way
you're going to really get an audience
to reconsider their position coming into a discussion.
- The short excerpt you're about to hear next
is from the Revisionist History podcast where Malcolm
goes to the Brooklyn Debate League.
The recording takes place inside a classroom
with a range of school age participants as well as Malcolm.
Jonathan Conyers is the first voice you will hear,
and he's setting up for a mini debate.
Wouldn't it be great in a workplace
if everybody stood up on the left and the right
where they stand on the issue or the decision to be made
before the discussion takes place?
And how about we vote afterwards,
so we know where everybody stands?
Not sure that every workplace is ready for it.
Let's listen to Jonathan.
- Ready? Y'all ready? - Yes, sir.
- All right, open forum, look up.
Being able to listen is the most important skill
a debater should have.
All right, stand up.
You know the routine.
If you agree, you're on this side.
If you disagree, you're on that side.
Come on, come on, come on.
- Jonathan, Kick things off with a warmup exercise,
open forum.
A mini debate on the question of the day.
What's more important to a debater?
Being a good listener or a good talker?
- Being able to listen is the most important skill
a debater could have.
Being able to listen is the most important skill a debater-
- Debating is not only about using information
against information, but it's also about obtaining something
and understanding it in order to use information
to fight it.
- You also said you have to listen to your opponent.
So that's also a very important skill
to listen to your opponent, 'cause if you don't listen to it
and you just drawing stuff down,
you might say the wrong things or write down the wrong thing
as to what your opponent is saying.
- Hold that thought for a moment.
You might write down the wrong thing.
This becomes very important for the balance
of our conversation.
Taking matters not just in debate,
but also in your workplace.
Before, during, and after.
Let's talk about during the debate.
A lot of people think that world class debaters,
people who are persuasive and can change minds
do so through oratory.
They do so through rhetoric.
They do things the way they articulate their ideas,
yet I suspect they're also great listeners.
- You have to be.
When I teach debate, I teach it
as essentially competitive listening.
And to a debater, the most impressive skill set,
and the one that sets the top level debaters
apart from people who are starting out
is not the strength of writing an argument.
The argument is just context for what the debate
is going to be.
If you like chess, all of your preparation
is just the opening moves of a chess game.
And in chess, all of those opening moves have names,
but nobody at a high level of chess is winning or losing
based on which opening move they're using.
And the same thing is what we should expect to happen
in a debate where we will take 10 students
to a debate competition and they're paired up,
and so there's five debate teams.
There's one topic that everybody is going to debate
and they're all going to go off into separate rooms
and they're going to all make very similar arguments,
if not just the same starting script for how they're going
to advocate for their side of this issue.
But at some point in that debate,
just like in a game of chess,
that debate will become an entirely unique debate
that only this version of this discussion has ever existed.
Every other discussion about this topic is a slightly
different discussion based on what points have been made,
what's been responded to, what hasn't been responded to,
what has been effective, what hasn't been effective.
And what makes a good debate a good debater
isn't their strength of writing a good speech
for the first part of the debate.
It's their ability to recognize
what's happening in this debate.
What have I said that is working?
What have they said that is a concern?
What have they said that's weak?
What's good about it?
What's bad about it?
And that in the moment responsiveness,
and always putting yourself in the position of the listener.
That is your primary concern,
which is the the third party, which is the judge.
In competitive debate, there's always a third party.
It's the thing that makes it the most different
from just arguing with somebody in real life.
Because in competitive debate, the debate will end
and someone will tell you if you won or you lost.
And so you always wanna be putting yourself in the position
of what has this person heard?
What are they thinking in this moment?
Where do I want to move their attention to?
And the only way you can do that is listening
because the best debaters are the ones that can best
put themselves in the position of the listening
and decision making audience.
And it's a tricky thing to balance, both listening
to everything your opponent is saying
in terms of processing what exactly they're claiming,
how you want to respond,
but also at the same time processing
what effect is this going to have on the third party
that's listening to this?
The judge.
Is this persuasive to them?
Do they like it?
Do they not like it?
Because ultimately you can't respond
to every single thing somebody else says
and you have to make some decisions about
what's important and what's not important.
And the only way to make those decisions effectively
is to be a really good listener.
If you don't know what somebody else said,
you have no tool with which to know what bits are important.
- In trying to notice and listen, people use note taking.
Done well, it can liberate your listening.
Done poorly, it can actually crash your listening
and you need shit to deploy airbags.
What's effective note-taking look like in a debate?
- Debate has a unique style of note taking.
It is a combination of what we would call an argument map.
An argument map is a visual representation on a page
of how a discussion has gone.
Imagine like visualizing this point
was responded to with this other point.
And it's also a combination of shorthand,
which is necessary to be able to not miss details,
which you inevitably, even the best debaters
will inevitably miss some details.
And again, you have to deploy some thoughtful listening
'cause it's not transcript making.
It's you're listening and deciding what
of the one third of this information
that you're able to write down,
what is the thing that is important to write down?
Let's say you're starting at the top of the page
and you're working your way down.
We'll capture everything that someone has said.
Let's say it's a perfect transcript.
That's a court transcript.
And then the next lawyer comes up
and the next lawyer makes a case.
And the court once again has a perfect transcript.
It's really difficult to visually tell
by looking at those two pages of transcript,
what did the first lawyer say
that the second lawyer never responded to?
The form of note taking that we do in debate flowing
is instead of having one page for one speech
or going vertically down, we split the debate into columns
and the columns represent each speech that we know
is going to be happening in the debate.
And the first column is just every basic argument
that the first speaker makes.
The second column, you write how the other side
responds to that and you place an argument
next to the argument that it's responding to.
When Malcolm Gladwell came to our class
and I was teaching him this card exercise,
the exercise is I'm gonna name a bunch of cards.
- Good day, it's Oscar.
I'm just gonna quickly jump in here
and signal what's about to happen.
Sasan is going to read out a range of cards
and you need to keep track of them.
Then he's going to read out a different set of cards
and you need to keep track of that too.
When it's finished, I'm gonna jump back in
and deconstruct what's just happened.
- Hello, my name is Sasan
and I'll be speaking on the affirmative today.
My first argument is the three of hearts.
And we know that's true because of the four of diamonds.
You can't forget about the jack of spades.
A lot of people tell me 10 of diamonds.
But what those people don't realize
is first off ace of hearts, secondly, the six of clubs,
and finally the nine of spades.
That's it.
That's the speech.
So you should have these written down.
Okay, great.
- How did you go?
Did you write out the full name
or did you use a shorthand code?
Did you write from left to right
or did you write from top to bottom?
Did you write at all?
Did you try and keep it in your head?
After a while you realize you get pretty lost in the debate.
- Now we're going to do the negative speech.
I'm the negative and I disagree
with everything that guy said.
He says three of hearts more like the seven of diamonds.
People like to talk about jack of spades,
but what they don't realize is king of hearts.
10 of diamonds is okay.
if you don't remember that the ace of spades is there.
And as far as the ace of hearts goes,
more like the two of hearts.
Finally, they brought up the nine of spades.
Nine of spades, nine of seriously,
because have you never heard
of the queen of clubs?
That's my whole speech.
- How did I do?
I was terrible.
I could keep up for the first minute
or so then I fell behind.
I miss things.
Sasan gets up and talks about playing cards
and I can't keep up.
- How did you go?
Did you feel like you wanna rewind
and do the exercise all over again?
So the first time there were seven cards,
and the second time there were only five cards.
Did you notice that the four of diamonds
was not refuted nor the six of clubs?
None of those points were refuted.
Sasan only refuted five points directly
and he ignored two points.
This is a really good example of listening
to what's not said.
When I heard it for the first time,
rather than trying to remember everything,
I wrote down the following.
And I did it from left to right
rather than from top to bottom.
I wrote, 3H, 4D, JS, 10D, AH, 6C, 9S.
I used a shorthand way so I didn't have
to write anything out in full.
Now writing it from left to right was a rookie error.
That's the way we write.
It's not the way we build an argument map.
And Sasan's gonna spend some time helping us understand
how to do that a little bit further on.
The second time around, I heard the following.
7D, KH, AS, 2H, QC.
This left to right approach for me didn't create
the right kind of effective visual shortcut
that an argument map creates going from top
to bottom vertical rather than horizontal.
The horizontal approach didn't allow me
to do a quick scan and see what was missing
and see what was related in the debate.
My listening lesson is something that James Clear mentioned.
You rise to the level of your systems.
In this case, my system and process
needed to be flipped 90 degrees
to help me listen effectively to what was said
and more importantly, what wasn't said.
Let's join Sasan now as he explores a little bit further
how to build a visual argument map.
- You're gonna write them all down.
And, Oscar, we talked about this and you said
that you had a shorthand for that,
a two letter shorthand where 7S means seven of spades.
That is exactly what you should be doing,
but it's not just about are you able
to write down every card that I set,
the exercise goes on and the next step of the exercise
is now I'm the second speaker
and I might not even go in the same speaking order.
I might not touch on things and I'll skip things.
And the skill challenge is to stay organized
and finish with this visual representation.
For example, once you're through a whole debate
and you have five columns filled,
you'll be able to tell even when this card example
where we're just talking about an abstract imaginary debate,
which point was raised that got talked about
at every opportunity, what was raised by the first debater
that the second debater failed to respond to.
And the first debater caught it and brought that up.
That you can visually tell.
What got not responded to
and then nobody ever brought it up again.
And these skills are important in debate
because the less a point is responded to,
the less resistance there is in that path
to convincing the judge that your point is right.
It becomes really important to us in a regular discussion
if you and I are just having a conversation about tracking
in schools, you might tell me a little bit about
Sydney's system and what's effective about it
and what's not effective about it.
And I'll latch onto one bit of that
and I'll say this thing that you said
that is effective about it, we have some version
of that in New York, but it's not working the same way.
And I think it's maybe for these three reasons.
And then you'll latch onto one of those three reasons
and you'll say, here's what I think that actually is.
And there's all these things in a natural conversation
that get introduced but don't get pursued farther.
And the two parties, or at least one of the parties
tends to forget they were ever brought up.
And the skill set that you get trained in debate
is to not lose that perspective and to be able
to look at a sheet of paper and be able to tell,
am I winning this argument
in terms of whatever this sheet of paper represents?
Do I have an advantage here?
Is this worth my focus?
And in the context of debate, that is really helpful.
- Your mind may have just exploded thinking about
all the permutations of this in your workplace.
Your takeaways are this.
Don't take verbatim notes.
Create a visual map that maps not only your position
but the other.
And notice the progress of the positions.
If you take notes in a graphical, visual and shorthand way,
your attention is not as distracted and hijacked
when you're taking verbatim notes.
There are some professions listening right now
say we have to take verbatim notes.
It's our professional standard.
It's critical.
This is true.
There's not the context we're referencing.
For those of you who need to allocate fixed resources
and you need to get into a debate and have a manager
or director or vice president to give
some kind of a approval, take the time to map
what the possible counter arguments to your points are
and do that in a visual way
so you can keep track by scanning.
The minute you give your attention
to the notes you're taking, you're not listening
to the other position in the conversation.
This is a muscle we can all develop.
How long do you think it takes us
to develop this flow muscle?
- In the context of debate,
but think of it in terms of athletic skill
in your personal life, let's say a gym or jogging
versus a competitive environment.
Building the muscle and the ability to do this.
A lot of students start to get this down within three,
four months of once a week practice for one debate a week.
And part of the reason it takes that length of time
is because it's, they need that time
to develop their own style of doing it.
And to see a bunch of different scenarios,
it might take them a couple weeks to be able
to map out one particular argument and discussion.
But what happens is then the next argument
and discussion doesn't go in the same way
and doesn't work the same way.
And so all of a sudden you're back
to trying to figure it out.
I'd say after about four months, you are in a place where,
okay, you've probably experienced most
of the cases for this.
In a competitive setting, I think it takes probably about
two years for it to no longer play a factor
in who wins or loses.
The reason for that is the difference between
your physical abilities in exercising for health
and how long it takes for you to get comfortable
jogging for health and then how long it takes
for you to be competent jogging competitively.
In debate, we're not just keeping track of notes
to keep track of what was said.
We are keeping track of notes because the other side
is trying to push our limits in how much
we can handle competitive academic college debates.
They do tend to be faster than regular conversation.
I'd say it takes a couple years to the point
where note-taking is no longer the determining factor
in who wins the debate.
But in terms of the ability to engage
in that note-taking style effectively,
I'd say two to four months.
- What's the question I haven't asked
at the intersection of debate and listening?
- The motivation for why you're listening
and how that shapes the quality of your listening.
There's a lot in your book about listening
to understand meaning and intent and context and feelings.
And in the context of a debate,
those things will only matter to me
if I think they will matter to the judge,
and I usually don't think they will matter to a judge.
In other words, my concern isn't what you meant,
my concern is what you said
because I'm not debating against your intention.
More so than that, in academic debate,
the sides are, you prepare both sides of the topic
and you're told in this round you're going
to advocate for this side.
So it's less often a exercise in that form of empathy
for another human being's intentions.
It's more a question of what are the things
that you are saying?
I would've been surprised if we had never talked about
that distinction.
But also I think there's a lot to be said about
the ways in which the kind of listening we use
for a debate setting aren't productive in every setting.
- What a masterclass.
I wonder what you are taking away from today.
I wonder what's different in your thinking about
note taking, preparing for both sides of the debate
and the importance of listening and speaking
while you're in a situation where you need
to debate something and to make progress.
I'm curious, what did you take away from today?
Email me, podcast@oscartrimboli.com.
That's, podcast@oscartrimboli.com
with the subject line, debate.
I'm curious what's changed in your thinking
with regard to note taking especially.
I'm also curious about what it means for you
in terms of preparing both sides of the debate.
Just a couple of tips to improve your visual note taking.
Practice and practice frequency
is a point that Sasan reinforced.
If you wanna make improvements,
you've gotta increase the accuracy of your practice
as well as the frequency of your practice.
So I would recommend practice this first
in a one-on-one environment, in an environment
where you've got high trust
and it's a low risk conversation taking place,
then move to a low risk environment.
Maybe the trust isn't high, but maybe it's a little lower.
And then finally, practice in high trust environments
where groups are present because you are listening
and your note taking, start small and then expand out
till you eventually get to group meetings.
There's a couple of additional podcast episodes,
episode 36 with Justice Michael Kirby,
how to listen like a high court justice
where he talked about using a tree.
The tree was having the trunk as the center of the argument,
the branches, the supporting arguments and the leaves,
important pieces of evidence
equally reinforcing the importance of visualization
and using visual approaches to help you
is Dr. Boris Conrad.
And he's a world memory champion.
He's episode 65 where you can explore some techniques
that he reinforces about not being a stenographer,
but being a visual note taker.
There's no shortage of resources
to support you in your listening journey.
If you'd love to get access
to important techniques like note-taking,
we have a fundamentals course.
If you'd like to be added to the wait list
for the fundamentals course, which we have once a quarter
in groups of 10 to 12, no more, no less,
so that we can practice our listening together,
just send me an email podcast@oscartrimboli.com
with a subject line, fundamentals.
I'm Oscar Trimboli and along
with the Deep Listening ambassador community,
we're on a quest to create 100 million deep listeners
in the workplace and you've given us
the greatest gift of all.
You've listened to us.
Thanks for listening.
- What did you do right in that debate
and what did he do wrong?
- Oh, I listened to him and he didn't listen.
He spent most of the debate.
I had Matt Taibbi on my side.
He had Michelle Goldberg on his.
I said to one point to Matt,
"What's Malcolm Gladwell writing?"
He spent the whole time scribbling on this pad
and then would say something utterly inane.
He would say something he'd already said.
It was so preposterous and we were bored of it
and the audience was groaning.
I actually said to him, it's very weird
seeing you try to debate, Malcolm,
because you listen to nothing we say, nothing.
And in his sort of post match analysis, some months later,
he said, "I should have listened to my opponents."
(thoughtful music)