Habits of a Peacemaker

Outline

Habits of a Peacemaker (2024) presents ten habits for turning tense or potentially harmful conversations into constructive dialogue. It emphasises intellectual humility, careful listening, patience, fairness, and the ability to disagree without denying another person’s dignity.

• Tense or potentially harmful conversations can be turned into constructive dialogue through a set of learnable habits.
• Intellectual humility, the willingness to accept you may be wrong, is a starting point for settling conflict.
• Careful listening and patience help people feel understood before any attempt to solve the problem.
• Fairness means treating the other side justly, even when you disagree with them.
• You can disagree with someone strongly without denying their dignity.

Steven Collis is a law professor, author, and specialist in constitutional rights and public dialogue. As the founding faculty director of a centre devoted to freedom of expression, he studies disagreement, difficult conversations, and the habits that allow people with opposing views to communicate productively.