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Cory, a longtime teacher, reflects on the difficulty of teaching students to disagree productively. 

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Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments. How we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Everything is arguable. Absolutely everything. Think of something that you think is so self evidently true that nobody could possibly debate it. And I can guarantee that someone, somewhere, maybe on Reddit, maybe in real life, is making that case.

That birds aren't real, pseudo conspiracy is a great example, and there are many, many others. These are arguments over the Mandela effect. Do I really remember Mickey Mouse wearing suspenders? Did that really happen? That's another one. Or think of a time you've been gaslit. Your friend didn't show up at a dinner party that you planned, and when you confront them, the friend says they think they were actually there, or that somehow you were misremembering the whole event.

Or think of what philosophers call solipsistic fantasies, but most of us just think of [00:01:00] it was all a dream type scenarios. These are Matrix type narratives, in which nothing is real, except the mind. The fact that everything is arguable is a blessing and a curse. That we can contest anything shows how big our world is, and how creative many of us are.

Widespread agreement can also be boring and predictable, but it has several downsides as well. Bad faith actors easily exploit uncertainty, and without them, if everything is arguable, our beliefs, the comforting truths that we cling to, can be plagued by doubt and second guessing and we can feel vulnerable in an erratic world.

I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on When We Disagree is Corey Werkheiser. He is the Director of Career Success in the School of Business at the College of Charleston. He is also the host of Busywork, a podcast about all things business.

Corey, [00:02:00] Tell us an argument story. 

Cory Werkheiser: Well, I'm, I wish I could give you a good argument story. I'm, I'm not an arguer by nature. I tend to be, uh, I tend to fight my arguments later in my head. Like I'll go back and think about how I should have said, but I don't like to do that because I find myself not being very good at, at, at those situations.

But what I do working in the school of business is very much focused on helping our students get into the workforce successfully as they graduate from the college of Charleston. And I know one thing that is going to come up at some point. Are situations where they have to argue a position or defend a position or advocate for themselves where that may get Controversial or adversarial and I don't know that they're always prepared for that I saw an article a week or two ago, it was New York Times, the executive editor was talking about journalism in general and how different journalism is from when he had started 40 years ago or so.

And one of the things he mentioned was he feels like it's, it's difficult for generational [00:03:00] today to, to be comfortable with dissenting views. And, you know, I, I feel like my entire working career, and I've, I've been in education for a long time. I was a teacher for 12 years in, in, in high school, uh, which, which saw him in a lot of situations that were, were probably confrontational and difficult, you know, that I was helping to diffuse.

But I think, you know, one of the problems that I run into with students is they're not aware that that's going to be a situation. They think they're going to go, they're going to start a job. Job's going to be fine. They're going to be good. It's going to be 40 years. They're going to retire when every day they're going to be fighting a battle to some point.

Um, so helping students understand this healthy discussion, being able to be prepared to defend themselves and advocate for themselves, but also doing that in a positive way. So there isn't damage to the corporate culture when they're working on those things. I know you've, you've recently done a, done some kind of a presentation on that too, right?

I do, I 

Michael Lee: do some trainings along these lines. Spoke to business leaders about contentiousness in the workforce. Let's start with like a couple of [00:04:00] questions that I'm struck by your story. The first one is let's start with biography. You mentioned that you're not contentious by nature and then quote, not really good at those situations.

Yeah, talk that through a little bit. If you don't mind. 

Cory Werkheiser: I've, you know, I'm one of these people when, when the anger starts to rise, it goes right to my face. So it's very obvious. I think I know I've got good affect tolerance. When somebody is telling me a difficult situation, I can handle that. I don't have a, an overaggressive response or, or even like if it's a serious situation, I'm not going to be, Oh no, it's terrible.

How did you, I have very good affect tolerance on those things. But if it's a, if it's something I feel passionately about, That may be causing the blood to rise. I feel like it goes right to my face and I don't do well in that. I may say something that's not, not well articulated or effective. And so I tend to avoid doing that just because I don't want to say something that's going to be.

That I'm going to regret later. I'm one of these people that believes that not saying anything is lots of times the better course of [00:05:00] action, because if you can't articulate it well, then you end up creating a situation that's difficult. I think part of that stems from being a teacher, being in the classroom.

Michael Lee: You 

Cory Werkheiser: have 35 students and they all have an opinion about something and you have to moderate that and contain that and guide that. Um, you know, I, I was always proud of the fact that when elections came around, my students never knew where I was going to vote. Because I was happy to argue points that weren't necessarily what I believed simply to get student to, to have to defend what they believe.

Yeah. And I never would, I never would say, Hey, here's, here's why I stand on an issue or here's how I feel about it. Because I didn't want them to know. I wanted them to be able to defend themselves, what they were saying. 

Michael Lee: And there's very educational value there in kind of switch side debates and encouraging people to adopt positions they don't necessarily agree with or see the world through one another's eyes.

But it is also as somebody who's done this in the classroom a way to avoid having any of my own skin in the game Because I don't have to get into the [00:06:00] fray. I don't have to get my blood boiling I don't have to defend anything that I personally believe because i'm mr Objective right in my ivory tower and just letting other people do the stress tolerance building of debate while I stay above the fray 

Cory Werkheiser: Well for me, it was always dealing with, you know, 16 17 year olds who are so impressionable I didn't want to be the cause of an opinion You I didn't want to be in a situation where something I said led them to be like, Oh yeah, mom, I guess I should believe that.

Cause that's, that's what Mr. Work thinks. 

Michael Lee: Uh, 

Cory Werkheiser: it was more important to me to be like, look, you know, here's here's, there are always two sides of an issue. You may not agree with both sides. But there always will be different sides of an issue. 

Michael Lee: As an aside, Mr. Work is a hell of a nickname. 

Cory Werkheiser: Yeah. I kind of regret that when I got here, everybody started calling me Corey and that stuck because I really prefer that.

Michael Lee: I would as well. And so to transition from your past teaching career to your current collegiate, both teaching and. Advisor role. Yes. So part of your role then dealing with this [00:07:00] contentious corporate culture as the New York Times had mentioned and many others have remarked about is to prepare students for a contentious culture in the workplace, because perhaps they'll graduate business school being excellent accountants.

Sure. Lacking in both perspective and communication skills to argue for their position or to manage objections to their position. Sure. Is that right? 

Cory Werkheiser: Yeah. And, you know, depending on where you end up, there's always going to be arguments about something. It doesn't, and we tend to always think about religion or personal or political, and those are obvious, but there can be arguments about what, how are we going to spend the budget this year?

Or, Hey, we've got a, we've got a reduction in force coming up. We're going to riff some employees. Who are we going to riff? And there's there's a very contentious situation there of I may really like this person and not want them to get Uh laid off, but you may think otherwise and now we've got a now we've got to argue about that and and The significance of that is we're arguing about somebody else's livelihood, you know in that [00:08:00] sense so being prepared to Be effective and forceful without being aggressive And and being able to negotiate to a point is is very is very important You And I think a skill that maybe not every student is aware they're going to need almost daily when they get into 

Michael Lee: work.

I'm curious about how you do this. In other words, what are the, I'm a student, the audience is a student. What are the nuts and bolts by which you teach somebody to prepare for, um, a contest of ideas, to advocate for their own positions respectfully? And to listen and give credence to another side, even if they're feeling an immediate knee jerk, negative reaction to hearing contrary views.

Cory Werkheiser: Well, I'm fortunate in that we, we work with a lot of business people in the school of business. I get a lot of good stories and, uh, especially in my class, which is a career development class. It's, it's story time, almost every class. Hey, I was talking to so and so, uh, last week, they mentioned this situation that came up.

[00:09:00] Let's let's talk about that, you know, let's discuss what what happened there. What were maybe some better solutions that could have come along Um, you know, I think that's important and then in my individual advising with students as they come into my office I've got this internship. I'm going to be there this summer.

All right, let's talk about what you know What that's going to entail what are you going to need to do? Um, here are some situations that may come up based on previous interns that i've spoken with Um, you may not be expecting that there will be a situation where you have to negotiate But you may be in a situation where you have to negotiate with a new client potential client Certainly what I run to run into a lot this season with the may graduates Is negotiation of that initial salary offer?

And I think a lot of students just expect that here's the number i'm going to take it I'm, just so excited. I got this number without thinking that there needs to be some back and forth And I leave and tell my students, like, I think, I think you're a business student. If I'm hiring you for my company, I'm going to be a little disappointed if you don't [00:10:00] try to negotiate a little bit, at least so that you can prove to me that you're prepared for the business world.

And, uh, it's important to, to be able to explain. Here's how that works. Here's what that looks like. And then kind of advise and guide through that process because it's very scary. When you're 20 something years old and you're you're afraid if I throw a counter offer They're going to they're going to revoke the offer entirely 

Michael Lee: And 

Cory Werkheiser: that's not how that happens if it's if it's a reasonable counter offer Anyway, 

Michael Lee: this is i'm struck by a kind of an interesting irony here Which is that you spend at least as a person as a human interacting with the world You mentioned not wanting to engage In conflict debate, maybe some suppression, maybe some avoidance And then being in a position not only just to assess contentiousness Debate argument antagonism in the workforce, but then to prepare students to deal with the very thing That you don't want to do as a human.

Cory Werkheiser: I think part of that goes [00:11:00] back to teaching I'm comfortable helping other people with those things I enjoy that it's just personally with us because I do have strong opinions about things And I find myself in a situation where i'm in more of an advisory role. 

Michael Lee: Yeah, 

Cory Werkheiser: I don't feel comfortable saying those things, if it's going to be, if it's going to come across, I don't ever want to come across as saying.

Because I'm in this role, this is what I think. And therefore that's correct. I don't ever want that to be the situation. 

Michael Lee: So much of dealing with conflict is knowing what to say. Of course it is knowing your relative power position versus the other person's kind of the range of possibilities in the moment, and maybe preparing for that ahead of time.

Part of it is knowing how to listen and not have the kind of knee jerk reaction but actually hear the other person so you can make sure that you're understanding their, their position and responding to the case as they make it, not the case as you imagine it in your mind. Right. Or the case, a similar case that somebody else has [00:12:00] made that they've kind of heard somebody else say before.

Right. But fundamentally, on an internal level, so much of it is about stress tolerance. Just being comfortable in the moment in a contest of ideas. And some of that can be taught and some of that must be experienced, almost like exposure therapy in a way. So how do you then, whether it's for yourself or students or both, increase that stress tolerance?

Cory Werkheiser: Part of it is just, I think it's just practice. It's especially when you're, we're starting a new role and, you know, it's, it's, it's difficult for a soon to be graduate or right out of school, because for really 16 years of your life, K 12 and then four years of college, there's, there's not much decision making.

We like to tell students they're picking classes. They're really not, they're following a degree path. We like to tell students they're making a lot of decisions about things are really not. There's a lot of things that are set up. Housing situations are, are mostly not big [00:13:00] decisions. Um, budget situations when you're a student are, are usually limited.

You're not making major decisions about those things, and then all of a sudden you graduate and you're doing all of those things full-time yourself. Um, I think it's, it's probably the biggest shock for a recent graduate is trying to figure out how to negotiate all of that, navigate all of that on top of learning a new job and learning all of those things.

But over time you start to develop those skills because you have You've had that experience you've learned those things and sometimes you've learned them the hard way And that helps you to build that tolerance. I look back on my own my own Ability to discuss something I do better if in the moment. I don't respond and later on I think about it I'm, very good at that follow up email Where I can where I can You Rework it and let Grammarly help me a little bit on what I need to say and really think maybe even draft and hold it in Draft for a couple of days and go back.

It's like nah, [00:14:00] that was that's not what I need to say here I can reword that better 

Michael Lee: Um, 

Cory Werkheiser: and then send that follow up. So the solution was I didn't get angry. I didn't explode. I didn't say something. I shouldn't I had time to reflect That is where I'm better. Um, working with students, I think it's helpful for me to give them the, the idea that sometimes you, you don't have that, that luxury.

Sometimes you've got to make a decision right away, but lots of times it's just talking about, Hey, here's a situation that's come up. Uh, this is what another student dealt with and how they handled it. Just so you're aware. And so that, that learning experience back there can help the next student. 

Michael Lee: One of the things you mentioned at the outset that I wanted to come back to is about generational differences, both from the perspective of employers hiring younger folks who are entering the workforce.

as well as from your own position in coaching, advising, teaching generations of high school and college students. There's so much discourse now about stress tolerance, to go back to that phrase, [00:15:00] and generational differences potentially in stress tolerance, especially as it relates to conflict. There is a lot of chatter from older folks in the workforce that they're not seeing a lot of stress management skills from Gen Z, Gen Alpha.

There's also social psychologists who've gotten quite famous, as well as a few sociologists. talking about statistical proof for that idea. Do you see that? I don't know. I don't have a dog in this fight, pardon the metaphor, and I'm not an expert on the subject. And I'm, but I'm curious, you've kind of been on the ground floor of this teaching generations of students in this very specific area.

What do you think? 

Cory Werkheiser: I, I, I don't disagree with that. I think that there, there is a level, I always put things in the lens of my parents and my grandparents. And and I think about my own growing up in the 70s and the 80s versus my grandparents growing up in Great depression of world war ii and they good grief.

I had no stress, you know, I I didn't deal with anything They were thinking about the next meal and you know, are we going to destroy? Fascism, you [00:16:00] know, and then I'm thinking about my life in the eighties and, you know, what, what kind of bike do I, am I going to get for Christmas? That was probably the most stressful thing.

Michael Lee: There was the specter of nuclear winter. 

Cory Werkheiser: Yeah, I know. But that was going to be over in a few seconds. I didn't worry about that that much. I thought, you know, I'm going to have 15 minutes to be concerned about that. And then it's all going to be gone. I'm going to be carbonized. You know, I think the biggest thing is when you look at generations and how they grow up, um, you know, my parents were very much.

figure these things out, but they were always there for guardrails. Um, I do feel like, you know, I, I worked with high school students. I had very limited interactions with parents. It was very unusual for me to hear from a parent. And when I came into, uh, higher education, I thought, well, I'm never going to hear from parents.

I hear from parents. I get phone calls about questions about, um, scholarships, advising questions about job searching and things. I always feel like this should be a question that should be. coming from the student that I should be dealing with, with the student. And of course [00:17:00] I'm severely limited in what I can say anyway by FERPA regulation.

So usually my, my, my knee jerk answer to that is it's a very good question. Why don't you have your son or daughter reach out to me and I'd be glad to help them. 

Michael Lee: That's a good answer. 

Cory Werkheiser: Nine times out of 10, that's what happens. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Cory Werkheiser: But, um, I do feel like sometimes there is way more parental involvement.

Even into 20s that I didn't have my parents by the time I got to college. My parents are like, you're gonna figure it out. Oh, you screwed that up. Well, that's your figured out, you know, that's, you're gonna fix that. Um, and that was a great learning experience for me. And I did stupid stuff and learn good mistake, you know, uh, learned good skills from those mistakes.

But I do anecdotally, maybe, although you're saying there, there may be more data than I realized anecdotally. I feel like students are being given. Way more protection, way more coverage later in life than, than I would have seen in my generation. Definitely, certainly in my parents and grandparents generations.

I don't think [00:18:00] that's, I don't think that's an illusion. I think that's true. The problem is, I feel like when you don't have a chance to develop those skills in dealing with stressful situations when you're younger, It gets really hard to do that as you start to age. 

Michael Lee: The last question is kind of a doozy.

It seems like there are at least three ways to talk about conflict in the workforce and then to, as you say, prepare students or to prepare anybody working in this environment for that conflict. One, conflict is bad and should be avoided or suppressed or worked around as safely as possible. Two, conflict is inevitable and, like traffic, it's just something you're going to have to deal with, so prepare yourself for that outcome.

And three, conflict is good. Conflict helps us make decisions. Conflict clarifies the truth of the situation. Conflict gets all of the potential options into the room so that we can make the best possible [00:19:00] decision. Which of those do you opt for the most when you talk to students or employers about conflict in the workplace?

Cory Werkheiser: Well, I don't think traffic is a good word to use because I get pretty angry in traffic most of the time. Um, you know, I for me it's and again, I I've learned I know myself I know how I deal with situations that are difficult. I have worked with people that were unflappable You know, they could have somebody screaming at them and it doesn't bother them.

They're fine with that I've learned from my own experience that I do better when I have time to reflect i'm not good in the moment You I'm not a good arguer in the moment for sure. I do better when I have a chance to reflect. Um, you know, I feel like probably it's one of these things where over time you knew you have to develop that system that works best for you.

For me, it's probably been situations where I said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing. and learned, okay, the fallback on that was then I had to do damage control [00:20:00] and I had to apologize and, and I'm happy to do that. I've never had a problem admitting when I was wrong. I just don't like to have to do that.

I would rather not create a situation where I have to give an apology. So, you know, for a lot of people, my advice would be particularly in students I'm working with right now is you're going to have to figure out what works, what works best for you and learn how to use that process within what you deal with day to day.

And if you can do that, you're going to be fine. But if you know, Like, I know that I'm not good in that immediate moment. Then don't lash out in that immediate moment. 'cause it's never gonna turn out. Well learn how to, to, I, I don't, maybe the word is internalized. I don't know. I don't feel like I hold on to grudges.

I, I don't, I I can't. We even tried to think about an argument here at the beginning. I was like, I don't, I I can't, I can't recall one. I'm sure I've been in them before. I just, it's just not something that I hold onto. But being prepared to know this is where I'm good. This [00:21:00] is how I work well. This is how I can handle these situations.

And then finding ways to make sure you're in the situation that you can, you can handle it effectively. It is, it's a learning experience. It's taken me years to figure that out. 

Michael Lee: Mr. Work, thank you so much for being on When We Disagree. 

Cory Werkheiser: Hey, thank you.

Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at whenwedisagree at gmail. com.