As soon as you begin any debate, your immediate priority is to figure out if the other side is willing to change their mind.

Most people don’t argue to learn. They don’t argue to further their understanding. They argue to confirm their beliefs and prove their superiority. These discussions never go anywhere, never change any minds, and never uncover new evidence. In short, they’re a complete waste of time. Avoid these arguments.  

The good news is that there’s a simple test to figure out if the other person is open to changing their mind.

Adam Grant, author of Think Again, explains:

In a heated argument, you can always stop and ask, “What evidence would change your mind?” If the answer is “nothing,” then there’s no point in continuing the debate. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it think.

Any variation of “What evidence would change your mind” will work. The exact message isn’t as important as the meaning.

Alan Jacobs, author of How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds, recommends the following:

…this is true of many communities of conspiracy theorists, those who believe that the Holocaust didn’t happen, or that Lyndon Johnson was behind the Kennedy assassination. “The question is, ‘Could you show to those people a set of facts that would lead them to abandon what we consider to be their outlandish views?’…the answer to that question is no, because all people who have a story to which they are committed are able to take any set of counter-evidence and turn it back, within the perspective of the story they believe in.”

Don’t accuse the other person of being one-sided; let them reveal it. Ask questions. Don’t make accusations. Nothing shuts down an opponent’s openness faster than an accusation, even if you are right. Rely on a question and let the other side do the rest.

Imagine you’re working on a project and you disagree with the approach or a key assumption. Instead of attacking, lead with a disarming but thoughtful question: “What would have to be true for that approach to work?”

In their book, Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, Chip and Dan Heath describe the power of that question:

If you think an idea is the wrong way to approach a problem and someone asks you if you think it’s the right way, you’ll reply no and defend that answer against all comers. But if someone asks you to figure out what would have to be true for that approach to work, your frame of thinking changes. This subtle shift gives people a way to back away from their beliefs and allow exploration by which they give themselves the opportunity to learn something.

You don’t determine if someone changes their mind. At best, you can encourage the process through tactful questions. Everything else depends on the other person. How you go about this is everything. No one will listen to you if you come across as arrogant or offensive, no matter how right you are. So lead with compassion if you want to change minds.

Many beliefs become dogmatic. That is, they are supported only with passionate conviction, not hard evidence.

Rolf Dobelli, author of The Art of the Good Life, shares his approach to deal with dogmas:

When you meet someone showing signs of a dogmatic infection, ask them this question: “Tell me what specific facts you’d need in order to give up your worldview.” If they don’t have an answer, keep that person at arm’s length.

One word of advice. Before you start thinking everyone else is the problem, recall Richard Feynman’s advice, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Pose these questions to yourself. How open are you to changing your mind? When was the last time you changed your mind on a substantive matter? Is it always the other side that’s the problem? Do you get your news from the same sources, all with the same bias? When was the last time you read the news from the opposite political side? If you answered negatively, you have work to do, because before you worry about changing other people’s minds, you need to change your own.