Repeat what they just said

I am rerunning this tip this year in honor of the election and in honor of my friend, David F. who died a year ago last July. I still miss him.

Dave used to run a program for kids. He dealt with thousands of parents, who sometimes said some shocking things.  He taught his staff to do one simple thing when a parent said something that might be objectionable.  He had them repeat what the parent said as a question.  Not try to restate what the person said in their own words (which is harder), just literally to repeat the same exact words.

This goes against my first impulse and one I have seen others use, which is to attack the person for saying that shocking thing.  

Instead, the trick is to repeat the objectionable statement in a calm, non-threatening tone of voice, but with a question mark at the end.

My friend found that there are three types of ways that people respond.

·       The first is that they reconsider what they said and take it back. 

·       The second is that they explain more about what they meant in other words and a further conversation is easier to have.

·       The third is that they double down, repeating the same words over again, sometimes raising their voice.

With responses one and two, the conversation changes and gets more productive. With the third response, it doesn’t. It makes it worse! But this third response didn’t happen often.

My friend uses this in other situations also. He described a conversation with his granddaughter, who came home from school saying, “I hate Mr. X!”. He said, “You hate Mr. X?”  It turns out that she is having a hard time understanding what that teacher is saying, not that she actually hates the teacher.  That lead to a different conversation.

Other tips on listening can be found here.