TLDR: Moving beyond mirroring and ‘tell me more’ into collaborative discussion can be the difference in language use.
Last week, I was reflecting on phrases I tend to say more often than others, and one kept coming up was:
To test my understanding…
In sales training you often hear about the concept of mirroring, or repeating back the last few words someone said with the intonation of a question.
“…intonation of a question?”
Yes, so as to ask a question made up simply of the words you just heard. It has the effect of causing someone to clarify what they just said more deeply.
Another favorite of salespeople is “tell me more,” but in recent years I’ve exchanged both for “to test my understanding, what you’re saying is…”
This gives me a chance to share what I heard, and the speaker the chance to clarify the gaps between their thinking and mine, avoiding the all-too-often experience of two sides of a conversation not conveying what it is they were truly trying to get across.
Try it out.
See you Monday.
PS: My first book, Inevitable, is now available on Amazon.
About Inevitable. Founders nor career professionals have the time to read every book or listen to every podcast on operating with an entrepreneur's mindset. The goal with Inevitable was to create a powerful cliff notes style handbook, distilling advice from around the tech world on building generational companies. At the end of each chapter there is a QR code to a digital repository with the full-length works if you do choose to go deeper on any given topic.
The other one I like is “what I’m hearing is...” similar idea