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Repeating what others said back to them is called “mirroring” and is an effective technique for not only confirming your understanding but also showing others t
by __turbobrew__ 5y ago
Repeating what others said back to them is called “mirroring” and is an effective technique for not only confirming your understanding but also showing others that you are actively listening.
I recommend reading “ Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It” by Chris Voss if you are interested in conversation tactics.
- kqr 5y agoMirroring is different from what your parent comment talks about. Mirroring is simply about repeating, verbatim, the last part of what someone said. So as a response to your comment it might be something like "Conversation tactics." Your parent comment seems to be talking more about summarising someone else's point in your own words, which is a deeper reflection on what someone means, and an even stronger signal that you're actively listening. (That summary is what gets you a "that's right" in the terminology of Voss. Mirroring is used to get your counterparty to expand on what they're saying, not just go "that's right.")
- bryan_w 5y agoIf I'm understanding you correctly, Mirroring is simply about repeating, verbatim, the last part of what someone said, right?
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoThat's right. It's repeating the last part of what someone said.
- tharkun__ 5y agoOr did. E.g. you are on a business meeting and your counterpart just took his glass of wine and sipped. Mirror it and sip your wine a few seconds later. Or do it with your hot date. Mirroring works. Most of the time. As apparently does using someone's name. Most (not all) people like hearing their name. Try to find out if they like or dislike hearing their name and either use their name a lot or very very seldomly. I.e. for most people even in a 1 to 1 conversation say "Thank you Brent" and not just "Thank you".
- andrei_says_ 5y agoI do like hearing my name but find salespeople repeating it incredibly annoying, mechanical and insulting. If you’re pitching me your new product you get one “that’s a great question” and one ridiculous insertion of my name before you get a hard no. Coincidentally these crappy tactics usually go with crappy products so it’s an easy win.
- Karunamon 5y agoEntirely serious question; is this intended to work over text? It might just be me, but seeing the same text highly visible in two comments by two people makes it stick out in an awkward way.
- cutemonster 5y agoIt wasn't about repeating the last part -- it was about repeating the important main things in what the other person said. I think that can work in text. (Or repeat the things you want to hear more about. And s/he will tend to understand and talk more about that.)
- me_me_me 5y agoheh, I see what you did there :) On a side note I found the book to be interesting, and I used few of his techniques to negotiate price of my now current house.
- Simplicitas 5y agoThat's right. Just what you said, that is right. :-)
- webmobdev 5y agoNo, mirroring also includes copying non-verbal cues. And sometimes, suddenly not mirroring is also effective to draw attention and make a point.
- cutemonster 5y ago> suddenly not mirroring Sounds like a candid camera experiment waiting to happen Anti mirroring the interviewers / recruiters during an interview
- cutemonster 5y agoNo, instead, it's repeating the things the other person said that s/he thinks is important. Which can be the last things, or not. It's not enough to be a parrot -- one also need to understand the other person's perspective: what among the stuff s/he said, does she care the most about (At least how I remember it)
- beachy 5y agoWe used to call it discovery agreement when I was at IBM. Summarizing what they said (show you understand it) but like you're just now discovering the truth behind it - together with them. The only sales technique that's really stuck with me.
- fsckboy 5y ago> Mirroring is different from what your parent comment talks about. Mirroring is simply about repeating, verbatim well, that might be conversational mirroring, idk, but mirroring is a body language phenomenon, where one person crosses their arms, then the other does, one crosses legs, and the other one does, etc. it's something people do naturally, unconsciously, and it indicates agreement. then, it is suggested by salesman types, one should engage in a conscious (cynical) version of it where you mirror somebody on purpose, to make them think that you are in sync with them.
- scns 5y agoRobert Bolton dedicates three chapters to this technique in People Skills (1979), highly recommended.
- bartvk 5y agoI found that book by Chris Voss only interesting because of his stories as a hostage negotiator. But I wasn't able to put any of his advice into practice, not anything whatsoever. Am I overlooking something?
- bulbosaur123 5y ago"Am I overlooking something?" Oh, how clever. Using the "no" oriented questions already. I see what you are doing.
- ignoramous 5y agoThings just got meta.
- contingencies 5y agoAll possible successor states of any state. - Leslie Lamport, via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
- Aeolun 5y agoGod, I just realized how hard they’re going to claim how much their company is discussed on the web.
- lstamour 5y agoRight, they should have been inspired by something less generic… like the alphabet - it worked for Google and Amazon (the logo has an arrow from A to Z). Feels like Meta is just as generic in that it can be used to describe everything.
- ZephyrBlu 5y agoWhat about "no" orientated questions? I tend to ask questions like this, but have never read Chris Voss' book.
- splitstud 5y agoIn the context of a project, it also gives the 'mirrored' a chance to reconsider.
- codyb 5y agoAdditionally, I feel like putting things into my own words can be helpful, or asking for further details. “Ah okay, so ingress hits our service named BigMouth, which… acts as a load balancer and proxy essentially?”
- strzibny 5y agoIt's a good book. I wrote a little review + gist here: https://nts.strzibny.name/learning-negotiation-never-split-the-difference/ https://nts.strzibny.name/learning-negotiation-never-split-t...