How to diffuse emotion in a disagreement: Mirroring

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] It feels like you are taking a rabbit and you're putting it in a hat and then you're pulling it out in front of them and you know that they're not gonna be surprised. They watch you put the rabbit in the hat, but it turns out that that's not what happens at all. This is the Man's cool podcast bonus episode. Welcome back to another bonus episode of the podcast. At its core, what these episodes are the ones, when it's just you and me talking are my attempt to distill some skills, some ways of thinking, some ideas into lessons that can make you a tangibly better communicator. And if anybody can come up with a better name than a bonus episode, which I'm sure you can then hop on over to the Vance Crow podcast Facebook page and leave me a note there because I'm at a loss. I go to title these things and I just, I just don't even know what to call 'em. So I know there are those of you out there that have some great ideas. I'd love to hear them. But until then, why don't we just jump right into today's idea? Without question, the most important negotiation skill I have ever developed I did not learn in graduate school. And that's saying something because I had a chance to go to one of the best negotiation schools in the entire country, the Seton Hall School of Diplomacy and International Relations. And I studied underneath a man named Dr. Jang Wong, who is one of the most preeminent cross-cultural negotiation scholars in the world.

Vance Crowe [00:01:34] And so I had an opportunity to study all about interest based negotiations and how to handle multilateral conversations and how to make sure that culture doesn't cloud your interactions with people from somewhere else. And I really felt pretty confident that I had learned everything that I needed to learn in graduate school. And maybe that's actually the problem with graduate school. But I had left graduate school and gone on to work at the World Bank, and there I actually put to use a lot of the skills that I learned under Dr. Wong. And in fact, there are things that I will come on and talk about in future episodes about what I learned and how you can apply it to your communications. But if I think about the most important foundational skill, I didn't learn that until way after graduate school until far after I'd been working at the World Bank. And that skill is something that is so simple and actually obvious that when you first go to start using it, you'll feel really awkward because you're going to think to yourself, they're going to know what I'm doing and they're not going to like it. But in fact, the opposite is true. People will almost never notice that you're doing it. And even if they do, they'll love it that you're doing it. And that skill is the skill of mirroring. So mirroring is really simple.

Vance Crowe [00:03:06] It is. If somebody is saying something to you and you can tell that the conversation is going in a direction that isn't necessarily productive, you're starting to feel people's emotions rise up, you're maybe even hearing their voice get louder, then what you wanna do is repeat back exactly what you heard that person say. And so if I were to put this in an example, imagine you have a couple and they are fighting over chores at the house and somebody starts saying, you know what the problem is, you'll never take out the trash, and things are always a mess here, and I'm really upset with you. And they, they keep going and they talk for a little bit. Instead of you replying back with your natural reaction, you instead just let them finish. And then you say, so what I'm hearing you say is you are upset that I'm, I don't take out the trash. And there are these other things that are not clean that you are thinking it's my responsibility to take care of. And I'm not doing that. Is that correct? Now, the key to doing this is that when you repeat back for them, you are repeating it back for them in as high fidelity as you possibly can. And you are responsible for taking out all of the emotion on your side of the argument. You don't get to put in a barb, you don't get to treat their argument with any kind of sarcasm. You know exactly the tone that you can put in, particularly if you're with somebody that you've known for a long time. The way you word things is just as important as what you say.

Vance Crowe [00:04:41] And so when you get done saying that, you would imagine that they're going to be like, yeah, that's exactly what I mean. But that's not actually what happens. You see what happens when somebody is layering emotion and they're really upset with you and they start talking with you and and they get angry, you hear their voice increase and you hear the emphasis of what they're saying get more intense. And so when you repeat back for them what they've said, it triggers something in the brain. I don't know exactly why it does this, but I have seen it happen so many times where it's almost like the person is raising their voice at you because they feel like the only reason you don't agree with them is because you must not have heard them. So when you repeat back for them exactly what you heard them say, you lower that because they are now processing their argument in a different part of their brain. And so they start to calm down, they start to slow down. Now you're definitely not out of the woods because you're gonna get done repeating back for them exactly what you heard them say, and then you're gonna say, is that correct? And now you have to have the humility to listen to how they reply, because sometimes they're gonna say, yeah, that's right. That's what I said. And sometimes they're gonna say, no, that's not what I said. What I said was, and they're gonna change it a little bit. And sometimes they change it a little bit because they've now heard their argument in a different way and they realize, no, I didn't frame that quite correctly.

Vance Crowe [00:06:17] I'm gonna, I'm gonna retry. And sometimes they change their argument a little bit because they realize they sound a little bit crazy. And so if you're in this conversation and you're doing this mirroring and you get this far, the next step is now not to reply to what they've said. Instead you ask again, is there anything else? Which means you're opening up that door for that conversation to get wider. And they may actually take that door and go walk right through it. Yeah. You know, another thing is that the bathroom isn't cleaned up. And you know, you said you were gonna start taking the dog for a walk every day and you haven't done that. And so again, as soon as they get done with their argument, with absolutely no emotion embedded into your words, you repeat back for them exactly what you heard in as high fidelity as you possibly can. And you do that until the other person feels like they have gotten all of their ideas out. And each time when they get done and you repeat it back for them and you say, is that correct? And they either say yes or they correct you, then you say, is there more now? A couple of things are gonna be going on in your head. First of all, it feels like you are taking a rabbit and you're putting it in a hat, and then you're pulling it out in front of them. And you know that they're not gonna be surprised. They watch you put the rabbit in the hat. But it turns out that that's not what happens at all. You know, people truly love and long to feel understood. And so even though it's obvious to you that you are repeating back for them exactly what you said, they now get to experience the feeling of being understood.

Vance Crowe [00:07:58] They're processing their argument in some different way. They know for certain that you have heard them. And so a whole bunch of the conflict that's there dissipates. And it's actually a pretty amazing experience because most of our lives, in those times when things are getting tense, no one ever understands us, and we feel really alone. So if you mirror back for someone effectively, and you are able to temper the emotions there, you can watch the face of a person that now feels understood. One of the most important human emotions in the world is to feel understood. And even in the midst of an argument, a disagreement, you gave that to the other person. Now, I'm not suggesting that at the end of the mirroring, you have just allowed them to speak and you haven't responded. You get through a period, it usually takes 3, 4, 5 minutes. And when they get all the way done, eventually you'll say, is there more? And they say, no, that's it. That's what I wanted to communicate with you. And then you say, okay, I've got some responses to that. And then you put out your perspective and you wanna keep it in a chunk. Your perspective should be a chunk that is large enough that you're expressing what you think but is not so large that there's no chance that the other person could repeat back for you. Now, if you're really looking at advanced mirroring, you get all the way done with your little chunk of perspective and you say, and the other person is they start responding.

Vance Crowe [00:09:39] If they, if they start layering in that emotion, you respond by saying, just wait one second, would you mind telling me what you heard me say? And again, you have to have humility because if the other person is not aware that they should strip out all of their emotion and that you're truly trying to get to the core of the problem, they may add in a whole bunch of emotions and, and resentment and anger and all kinds of things into that. And you just have to ignore that. And the way that you ignore it is you say, no, that's not exactly what I said. What I actually said was, and then you put it back to them and you assume that the emotion that they are repeating back to you, that they are mirroring back to you is done as a result of you being unclear. And maybe that's the most important part of mirroring, is that it forces you to take on the responsibility for the only thing that you can take responsibility for, which is yourself. In communications, it's so easy to imagine that the reason that the other person doesn't get what you're saying is because they're wrong or they're bad, or they're not paying attention, or they're just, they're just doing it on purpose. But even if all of those things are true, it doesn't matter because at its core, the only person you can control is yourself, which is why mirroring is such an amazing technique, because it reminds you in a non-confrontational way, the only thing I can do is clarify what I'm saying as best as I can, and not allow the desire that I have to get emotional here to get in the way.

Vance Crowe [00:11:26] So you ask the person to repeat back for you what you heard them say, they layer something on that you didn't mean, and then you just have to say what you're saying. Again, only this time say, you know, you can even point out, I, I noticed that you think that I'm doing it this way. Well, this is what exactly, I mean, so this is a skill that is really, really simple to begin, but to master will take you years. But actually it's okay that it's gonna take you that long. I'm not an expert at it. I'm pretty good. I've used it in conflicts with your friends. It's a good skill to use. I've used it a lot at work. I've even used it on the stage when there are hundreds and hundreds of people in the audience, and me and the person asking a question are not getting along. And the tension is rising. So you can use this in all different scenarios, but I am certain that I can get better. I'm certain that I can get tighter on the way that I explain their point of view. I'm certain that I can be more patient and strip out more of my emotion, but you get better and better and better as you use it. And the more you use it, the more you see that this is such a powerful skill and such a powerful technique that you want everyone you know to know it and to use it not even for your own benefit. You see how wonderful it is to have conversations where you can break down that emotion, you can make people feel understood, and you can get to the end of a problem.

Vance Crowe [00:12:58] So I'm gonna wrap up for this week. I am so glad you're here. I hope you've enjoyed this conversation. If you like these types of communications ideas, I hope you'll go check out my website, Vance Crowe dot com. You can always communicate with me on Twitter. And if you've got a group of people that you think would benefit from learning skills like this, how to communicate and how to negotiate, please contact me. Let me know. Let's set something up. This is my passion, it's what I love doing. I'm gonna be traveling a bunch in the next couple of weeks, so I'm gonna try and keep up with the interviews and these how to episodes. But until then, we'll talk to you later.