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Comment by thatsamonad | Hacker News Reader

A somewhat related approach that I’ve found incredibly useful in my career is repeating what -others- have told you back to them, a lot.

It’s honestly amazing to me how much mileage I’ve gotten out of simply saying, “I heard you say X about Y. Does that sound right to you?” a couple of times during discussions just to make sure that everyone is clear that we’re all discussing the same thing.

It seems like “common sense” to clarify your understanding of someone else’s communication but I haven’t run into very many people who actually take the time to do it.

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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 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.

Mirroring 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.")

If I'm understanding you correctly, Mirroring is simply about repeating, verbatim, the last part of what someone said, right?

That's right. It's repeating the last part of what someone said.

Or 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".

I 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.

Entirely 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.

It 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.)

heh, 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.

That's right. Just what you said, that is right. :-)

No, mirroring also includes copying non-verbal cues. And sometimes, suddenly not mirroring is also effective to draw attention and make a point.

> suddenly not mirroring

Sounds like a candid camera experiment waiting to happen

Anti mirroring the interviewers / recruiters during an interview

No, 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)

We 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.

> 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.

Robert Bolton dedicates three chapters to this technique in People Skills (1979), highly recommended.

I 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?

"Am I overlooking something?" Oh, how clever. Using the "no" oriented questions already. I see what you are doing.

Things just got meta.

All possible successor states of any state. - Leslie Lamport, via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup

God, I just realized how hard they’re going to claim how much their company is discussed on the web.

Right, 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.

What about "no" orientated questions? I tend to ask questions like this, but have never read Chris Voss' book.

If you still didn’t get it, you just used a method that Chris Voss recommended in his book.

I picked that up, I'm wondering what's special about "no" orientated questions and why he recommends them.

Or are you talking about my comment? In that case I'm quite confused.

E: ok this is amusing. I found this article: https://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/how-to-get-buy-in-sta....

- Ask a "no-orietated" question

- Go silent (Effective pause so they can answer)

- Follow-up with a calibrated "what" or "how" question

- Repeat as necessary

This feels very similar to my default communication style, so it's funny to see it documented like this.

I use mirroring all the time, and anchoring pricing works really well in a world where people believe you should never be the first to state a number. I also think getting to understanding without accepting or agreeing is a really powerful lesson/technique. So considering how easy of a read that book is I think there's a decent pay-off.

What do you mean you weren't able? What happens when you try?

In the context of a project, it also gives the 'mirrored' a chance to reconsider.

Additionally, 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?”

It's a good book.

I wrote a little review + gist here: https://nts.strzibny.name/learning-negotiation-never-split-t...

100% agree.

This is not only useful for improving communication but for making other parties satisfied they are being heard.

I do this too and it gives people an opportunity to clarify their views, which everyone appreciates, and often leads to them explaining broader motivations which helps develop trust.

Similarly, if you missed a part of what someone said, repeat back everything you did hear as part of the question. It confirms you were listening and avoids an excessively long or rephrased answered.

For example, "We reviewed <garbled> and found the events hadn't been logged." -> "You reviewed what and found the events hadn't been logged?"

Other than the social hinting that “yes, I am listening and value what you’re saying”, I’ve found this technique to result in uncovering sincere misunderstandings much earlier in conversation which is invaluable.

It’s hard to clear the air after arguing about different things for 20 minutes.

Also it's not that rare that the other party forgets what their original stance on something is and in turn argue against you on that issue. Reminding them that hey this was your idea too can help you resolve that debate if it's unnecessary.

How could you possibly distinguish that from your own misunderstanding of their position?

By repeating it early (soon after being said) and often.

Oh, well if that's what you're doing, they probably haven't forgotten their original position. People usually try to save face and it takes a very high character to directly admit a change of mind.

I worked as international sales for a while. I had to make a lot of phone calls and take a lot of phone calls often from all over the world with less than ideal sound quality and drastically different accents.

When an angry customer called me to complain about shipment, product or what not, due to aforementioned difficulties associated with intl calls, I had to first make sure I understand what they were saying. I try my best to put together what the situation was and repeat back to them in my own words for them to confirm. I kid you not, angry customers always get much less angry once they realized that I understand their situation.

The emotional change resulted from being merely understood was so amazing and the interaction was always precious to me like I made a new friend.

Back brief.

https://www.velaction.com/briefback/

This is a part of a type of inquiry called Clean Language Questions and it is indeed useful.

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