True listening requires giving up the prerogative of your own mental model. You have to allow them to set the rules of engagement, no matter how bizarre, so that they let their guard down and realize you are not a threat, because you have no intention of blaming them for anything. The way they set these rules will reveal their assumptions and constraints, which thoughts and actions are open to them. If you can tell an authentic story that speaks to these assumptions, you can break through, because stories speak to emotions expressed in the body, which fortunately refuses to go along with even our most well-reasoned rationalizations.
The price of such effective action is we have to be willing to give up the petty payoffs we cherish in our arguments with each other: not only the blaming but the cynicism, the martyrdom, the self-righteous indignation, the outrage, the winning, the making others lose, the being right, the making others wrong.
And after all that, you may still fail to convince them to your point of view. Are you willing to not win in order to keep the conversation going?
Tiago Forte, The Throughput of Learning