I'm not sure the correct lesson is being learned here. He gives a set of things you can do to calm the situation down, but I don't get the feeling that he knows why.
First, people want to know that you understand them. Repeating back what they said helps. But even better is to rephrase what they said, so that they know you understand. And if you don't understand, that can be corrected before you go any further.
Second, people want you to listen. Once you've established that you understand, repeating everything back is really, really annoying to both sides. Gentle noises show you're still listening, if you use them at the right time. You may have to return to repeating if things get complicated.
Third, you identify their problem so that they can see it clearly. In this case, he's labeling their emotions, which is just part of the problem. But it could lead to them realizing that they need to fix it in a way that relieves that emotion. "It would be nice if there was another way to do that" is another way, but the other option can't be too obvious or it comes out as sarcasm.
And last, you either solve their problem, of let them solve it on their own, inception-style. You've led them by the nose to the problem in part 3, and now it's time to let them solve it. If they just can't, you'll have to help them with the solution a bit.
Until this point, I guess I didn't understand just how little of this other people understood. I've been empathizing with people for years and helping them solve their problems. It was especially helpful when I was doing phone tech support, but continues to be helpful in software development and personal relationships.
When you get good at this, you don't even think about what you're doing. You just do it because it's fairly obvious what the right response is at every moment.
Gentle noises show you're still listening, if you use them at the right time.
The key being "at the right time." I used to know a guy who had the strangely off-putting habit of doing this with the completely wrong rhythm, giving the impression that he wasn't actually listening – and I don't know, maybe he never really was. It was as if he was counting down a random number of seconds to mutter "mm-hm" in a vacuum.
Comments
I'm not sure the correct lesson is being learned here. He gives a set of things you can do to calm the situation down, but I don't get the feeling that he knows why.
First, people want to know that you understand them. Repeating back what they said helps. But even better is to rephrase what they said, so that they know you understand. And if you don't understand, that can be corrected before you go any further.
Second, people want you to listen. Once you've established that you understand, repeating everything back is really, really annoying to both sides. Gentle noises show you're still listening, if you use them at the right time. You may have to return to repeating if things get complicated.
Third, you identify their problem so that they can see it clearly. In this case, he's labeling their emotions, which is just part of the problem. But it could lead to them realizing that they need to fix it in a way that relieves that emotion. "It would be nice if there was another way to do that" is another way, but the other option can't be too obvious or it comes out as sarcasm.
And last, you either solve their problem, of let them solve it on their own, inception-style. You've led them by the nose to the problem in part 3, and now it's time to let them solve it. If they just can't, you'll have to help them with the solution a bit.
Until this point, I guess I didn't understand just how little of this other people understood. I've been empathizing with people for years and helping them solve their problems. It was especially helpful when I was doing phone tech support, but continues to be helpful in software development and personal relationships.
When you get good at this, you don't even think about what you're doing. You just do it because it's fairly obvious what the right response is at every moment.
Gentle noises show you're still listening, if you use them at the right time.
The key being "at the right time." I used to know a guy who had the strangely off-putting habit of doing this with the completely wrong rhythm, giving the impression that he wasn't actually listening – and I don't know, maybe he never really was. It was as if he was counting down a random number of seconds to mutter "mm-hm" in a vacuum.