Communicate knowingly!

People are almost always disagreeing, by default, either with others or with themselves.
That happens not because they wouldn’t have meaningful reasons to lay agreement on but rather because they are not spending one second on searching for such reasons.

People are so programed to compete with others that they forget competing with themselves.

The twist is, I’ve found, that for one to become able of paying attention to others, one shall first learn to thoroughly scrutinize their own way of being, their own way of listening.

It is one’s understanding of being present that determines one’s capacity of integrating that which they are hearing.
Slowing down and having a look in one’s mind mirror will always inform one’s consciousness about the real reasons of their presence in one place at one moment in time.
And honoring that truth will drive you towards an efficient and effective communication.

Now, it remains true that no matter the type of talk you are in, it will still take two to tango, hence this is no waiver for the other’s responsibilities on the quality of the exchange at hand.
However, it takes at least one to start on the right path or get out of a wrongly directed conversation, and I see no reason why you would leave such opportunity off your hands.