Listen like you might change your mind. Otherwise you’re just waiting for your turn.

Listening while your reply assembles itself is not really listening, and people feel the difference even when they cannot name it. The conversation turns into two prepared statements taking turns. What makes someone feel heard is not attention exactly, it is the sense that what they say could land somewhere and move something.

Try one rule in your next disagreement: ask a follow-up question before you say anything of your own. Just one. It slows you enough to catch the second half of what they were saying, which is usually where the real point was.