Every day, in every organization around the globe, people disagree about everything from pricing strategies to hiring decisions to major acquisitions. And disagree they should. Research across every social science shows that disagreement offers important benefits: Divergent perspectives spark creativity, prevent costly errors, and drive better decisions. But, of course, there is also risk: Disagreement handled poorly can have massive interpersonal and financial costs.

Over the decades there has been a plethora of recommendations from academics and consultants on how people can disagree constructively. Some instruct people to think and feel in certain ways toward their counterparts: “Put yourself in their shoes.” “Have compassion and empathy.” “Try to understand them rather than judging them.” Others tell them what to do and say: “Ask clarifying questions.” “Make ‘I,’ not ‘you,’ statements.” “Use open body language to signal receptiveness, friendliness, and a willingness to engage.” Nevertheless, despite this wealth of advice, conflict persists.

Over the past 10 years we have conducted dozens of experiments on how people in a variety of settings can disagree more constructively. Our key finding: People’s internal mental processes (the think and feel techniques) have a limited impact on outcomes for a simple reason—we can’t read other people’s minds. This means that for others to notice, appreciate, and react to our conflict-management attempts, our thoughts and feelings must be reflected in the things we do and say. Mental states must be translated into observable behaviors.

We tested this idea in a recent study involving 1,113 Americans drawn from online platforms that people join to earn money by participating in research. Three groups wrote messages to somebody who strongly disagreed with them about a hiring policy. One group got no specific guidance. Another received the classic guidance about considering the other side’s perspective and being empathetic to people with different viewpoints. The final group received instructions about the specific words and phrases they should use to express their receptiveness to opposing viewpoints. People on the opposing side of the argument who read the messages from the third group—in which writers were instructed on the specific language to use—viewed them as the most objective, intelligent, and trustworthy of the three groups, and the ones they were the most willing to work with in the future.

The implication: Organizations should train people to modify their behavior during disagreements in the most concrete ways possible. More specifically, they should get people to be more attentive to their linguistic behavior—to carefully choose the words they use—because, as we explain below, unlike a person’s thoughts and feelings, language is observable by counterparts, trainers, mentors, or anyone else interested in improving communication during disagreements. We can also directly measure language with technology and effectively train people to improve how they speak to others during challenging conversations.

How One Mind Affects Another

Let’s consider a disagreement between Sarah and Lisa, two fictional people who are debating their approach to an upcoming work task. Sarah wants to be respectful, curious, and considerate of Lisa’s perspective. This is her intended mental state—the way she wants to think and feel during the conversation. Yet, the reason Sarah is trying to embrace this mental state is the hope that Lisa will perceive her to be thoughtful, trustworthy, and insightful.

During any interaction, however, Lisa can only observe Sarah’s behaviors—primarily the words, phrases, and sentences she speaks. Sarah’s behaviors help Lisa learn about what is happening in Sarah’s mind. Changing verbal behavior is the most effective way to overcome two key problems that often cause disagreements to spiral into conflicts.

The intention-behavior gap.

If you have ever made a New Year’s resolution, you may be familiar with the intention-behavior gap—the idea that people often fail to follow through on their best-laid plans. Our intentions to spend less, exercise more, eat healthier, and learn another language often collapse under the pressures of real life.

This kind of failure is common in interpersonal conflict too. Staying calm and communicating constructively requires effort and is hard to do while struggling to understand your counterparts and feeling angry at their seeming failure to understand you. It is challenging to effectively respond with respect and curiosity when someone is directly contradicting some of your most deeply held beliefs and values, even if you are doing your best to maintain an open mind. In other words, even if Sarah intends to be respectful and curious, that doesn’t mean she will be able to keep herself from interrupting Lisa or responding critically.

In a series of studies that we conducted over the past few years, hundreds of participants overwhelmingly agreed that expressing curiosity toward people who disagree with them was a good idea. However, when we asked them to express their desire to learn about other people’s opposing perspectives, they often failed; they got caught up in making their own argument. For example, many participants thought that simply couching an argument in the form of a question such as “How can you believe that?” or “Can you honestly say you think that is a good idea?” would do the trick. Although a disagreement with a stranger in a research study is much less emotionally fraught than most disagreements in real life, people still couldn’t bring themselves to enact what they knew to be the right strategy.

The behavior-perception gap.

Even when we manage to perform the behaviors we intend, there is no guarantee that they will be perceived as we hope. This is the behavior-perception gap. The things we do and say with the intention of communicating a certain mental state are not always perceived that way by others. At the end of the day our conversation partners get to determine how we came across. And unfortunately our behavior often affects others in unexpected ways. In our example, Sarah might believe that the question “Why would you think that?” will show that she is curious and wants to understand Lisa’s perspective. However, Lisa might interpret it as a sarcastic taunt.

In our research we saw this pattern emerge when we asked participants to read messages expressing a perspective they disagreed with and rate the extent to which the writer expressed curiosity or receptiveness toward the opposing view. We often saw a disconnect between how curious and receptive the writers rated themselves and how curious and receptive the readers rated them. Often, when working hard to express curiosity and receptiveness, people relied on the wrong signals.

To disagree constructively, organizations need to think of how to close both the intention-behavior gap and the behavior-perception gap. That entails helping employees (1) learn behaviors that will be interpreted as intended; and (2) successfully execute those behaviors.