The first steps in conflict-resolving communication often involve disguising or feigning certain emotions—that is, insincerity.  None of the experts (at least in the methods I’ve studied so far) explicitly uses the term 'insincere,’ but that’s the way it feels before you’re accustomed to it.

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu—who has more experience with conflict resolution than you or I should ever hope for— wrote, “keep remembering that negotiations, peace talks, forgiveness, and reconciliation happen most frequently not between friends or between those who like each other.” We undertake political conversations, he pointed out, “precisely because people…detest one another as only enemies can.”

In his book, No Future Without Forgiveness, Tutu cited the courage of Israel’s President Ezer Weizman at the 1999 funeral of Jordan’s King Hussein, for shaking hands with Nayef Hawatmeh, whose guerrillas had in 1974 killed 24 Israelis. As Mr. Weizman and Mr. Hawatmeh shook hands, respectful of King Hussein’s legacy, their thoughts and feelings were surely far from warm and cuddly. However, this simple gesture, Tutu wrote, served to humanize them both and remind the world that tolerance is never unthinkable.

On a more everyday scale, I and my fellow students in a six-week course in compassionate communication had a hard time getting past our initial feelings of insincerity as we began to practice recommended conversational techniques.

We were encouraged to use actual irritants as classroom examples. My example was: Your husband asks a question such as, “What do you think we should plant in the vegetable garden next spring?” Then, just as you start to answer, he interrupts with a monologue about the various options he is considering.

When this would happen (about twice a week), my sincere response was either to clam up or to bark “If you didn’t want to hear my answer, why did you ask?”

The compassionate communication gurus instead recommend: 1) describe the situation objectively; 2) name your feelings and 3) identify your need that is not being met. I learned I was supposed to say, “When you start talking while I am answering your question, I feel frustrated because my need for being heard is not being met.”

Near the beginning of the class, when we were all beginners, we would break out laughing as we practiced. It felt so clumsy and false.

Nevertheless, I gave it a try the next time my husband interrupted me. I’m no actress, so I delivered the prescribed line in a flat monotone—not angry, not hurt, just sharing information. It felt so insincere, I could not even look at him while I spoke.

I’ll be damned if it didn’t work.

My husband didn’t seem to notice how awkwardly insincere I felt. He did, however, sincerely appreciate the information, and my comment started a good discussion. We discovered we had different perceptions of what constitutes an interruption. He didn’t feel he had asked a complete question until he had shared all his thoughts, while I thought I should respond whenever he finished a sentence that ended with a question mark. In fact, he thought I was the one who had been interrupting, since (his perception) I habitually started answering his questions before he was done asking them.

In a way, our discomfort with the compassionate-communication techniques is curious: it's not as if routine life lessons hadn't already taught most of us the value of hiding our reflexive feelings when entering difficult conversations.  

One of my favorite insincerities in the workplace is pretending I don’t notice slights, insults, or discourtesies. Early in my career, a mentor counseled me, “Never attribute to malice anything that can be explained by incompetence.” He was talking about statistical errors, but most people know that’s good advice in a lot of situations.

First, when we are not certain of the motives of others—that is, almost all the time—incompetence is more likely to be the accurate assumption. Most workplace slights—not being copied on a memo, having your idea presented by someone else as if it was their own, that sort of thing—truly are inadvertent.

Second, even when the insult is intentional, pretending no insult was made is a productive strategy. A famous instance of this on a global stage was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when John F. Kennedy’s White House pretended it did not receive an inflammatory missive from the Kremlin. Kennedy had his staff act as if the cable never arrived. A more collaborative message arrived the next day, allowing the two superpowers to get on track toward the crisis’ eventual resolution.

On a more familiar scale, I used to work with a woman I’ll call Donna, who continuously engaged in one-upsmanship with her peers and subordinates. Some could work productively with her anyway. Those were the people who were able to ignore her condescending remarks and insults. They were insincere with her, to be sure—they pretended to be unaffected, or that they had misunderstood, or that they simply did not hear. I suppose there are people who will repeat an insult until their target acknowledges a wound, but most, like Donna, will not bother repeating the insults and will eventually get down to work.

As long as we are human, we cannot prevent ourselves from feeling hostility, disdain, or even hatred. If the intent of a conversation truly is nothing more than making sure the adversary knows he is despised or that you consider him to be an idiot, displays of sincere emotions will be effective—but to those ends only.

If the intent is to establish honest communication that might eventually accomplish understanding, persuasion, or even resolution, leading with a show of sincere negative emotions will only delay—if not prevent—the conversation you want. I haven’t seen any experts say this explicitly, but I think we might as well admit it: A certain amount of strategic insincerity is often the only way to kick out of the starting blocks when you want to engage an adversary in conversation.

Have you ever tried therapeutic fake smiling? Next time you’re alone and feeling anxious, sad, or angry, force yourself to smile. It doesn’t matter that the smile isn’t sincere; just do it. Notice that in a few moments, your blood pressure will go down, your mood will improve, and you will feel less tense.

I think the same sort of attitude adjustment might happen when we feign respect for our ‘enemies’ on the other side of the debate, regardless of our sincere feelings. Just do it, and see what happens.