Index | Parent Index | Build Freedom: Archive

REPHRASING

3.  Rephrasing. I mentioned Rephrasing in passing when I introduced the Coding-Decoding diagram earlier in the chapter.  In Rephrasing, you put into your own words what you believe the speaker to be saying, and then reflect that back to him or her - that is, give him or her feedback - to check the accuracy of your understanding.

A couple of examples. An assembly-line worker might complain to his supervisor about maintenance problems on a piece of machinery. His identification of the trouble is vague: "Things are really going to hell around here." The supervisor could assume he's talking about maintenance, and maybe he'd be right and maybe he'd be wrong. A surer way of identifying the problem would be to ask the worker, "You mean that machines are breaking down?"

Or a purchasing officer might tell a member of his department, "We're getting screwed on these overruns." The department member could, without asking, take that to mean that a supplier is overcharging - or he could ask: "So you think that ABC Industries is padding its invoices?"

In each case the Rephrased question accomplishes the dual purpose of Reflective Listening in general: It clarifies what the first speaker has expressed imprecisely, and it reinforces him or her to give you more information.

A couple of technical observations. Notice first that each Rephrasing statement in the examples begins with a kind of introductory "keyword" that identifies what is to follow as an attempt at clarification. In the first example it's "You mean? . . ." In the second it's the small word "So." Other examples of introductory words or phrases for Rephrased statements would be "It seems to me you feel . . .", "You seem to . . .", and the old reliable "In other words . . .".

Second, notice that the Rephrased statement in each case is not simply an echo of the speaker's own statement. In Rephrasing, always beware of the "parrot trap," and exercise your imagination to come up with a version of the speaker's comment that is more than a simple carbon copy. Remember that the double purpose of Rephrasing - as of Reflective Listening in general - is to clarify and reinforce. Neither of these benefits is achieved by a verbatim reproduction of a comment. In fact, if your response to "Things are going to hell around here" is "You think things are going to hell," it's likely to have a counterpro-
ductive effect because verbatim transcriptions can easily be read as mimicry, mockery, or both.

The most useful kinds of Rephrased statements are those which seek clarification by attempting to specify (Pinpoint) what the speaker is getting at. You'll notice that this is the case in each of the examples above. The assembly line worker expresses a general sense of dissatisfaction, and the supervisor then attempts to verify that it's the broken machines that are on his mind. The purchasing officer mentions "overruns," and his colleague tries to pin that down: is it overcharging she means, or something else?

Asking a Rephrased question in this kind of Pinpointed manner serves the purpose of clarification even when your idea about the other person's feelings are off base. Take the first example above. It's possible in this case that the worker would come back to the supervisor with, "Yes, it's the damn machines." It's also possible that he would say, "I'm not talking about the machines. That's just a temporary problem. I mean that management just doesn't seem to care. They have no contact with us anymore." But in either case - whether he was right or wrong about the machines - the supervisor would still have clarified the specific reasons behind his employee's frustration and enhanced his own ability to resolve them.

Ironically, there is a problem associated with many Rephrased statements that grows directly out of the fact that they are used to Pinpoint the issues. Rephrased statements are really a kind of Close-Ended question: in each of the examples given here, it would be possible for the initial speaker to answer the Rephrased question with a simple, and nonproductive, yes or no.  Because this is so - because there's a danger that Rephrasing can close off rather than open out the conversation - we always advise the people to whom we teach Reflective Listening to use Rephrasing with caution, and to use this technique in conjunction with the Open-Ended questioning technique.

In the first example, for instance, suppose the worker responded to the supervisor's query about the machines with a simple, "No, that's not the problem." The supervisor could then resort to the Open-Ended questioning technique to further clarify the worker's concerns, "I don't quite understand what you're getting at, Roger," he might say. "Could you tell me more about why you think things are going to hell?" The bottom line here is a logical enough lesson: it's only when all the Reflective Listening skills are used interactively that you create the most fluid and productive communication.

One last point about Rephrasing. It is not appropriate for every communicational situation, but only for those where someone says something that is important, complicated, and/or confusing. Situations, in other words, where clarification is needed. I
can give you a simple guideline for knowing whether or not it's time to Rephrase something you've just heard. Just ask yourself, "Do I understand what this person means? Do I know exactly (in a Pinpointed way) what he's talking about?" If you do, you don't have to ask. If you don't know for sure, go to Rephrasing.

Some people resist the idea of Rephrasing - of throwing a person's comment back at him - because they have the notion that it's insulting or rude to do so. That's nonsense, and to a manager who needs information so he can get his people moving, it's dangerous nonsense. In today's extremely compartmentalized and specialized business, environment, it can be a fatal error. I've seen chief executives of major companies talking to their own financial officers or engineers, and obviously not knowing what's going on, and yet not being willing to say, "Stop and explain that again," because they don't want to be shown up as ignorant. Big mistake. Finance officers and engineers can lose anybody these days, and if you make a decision based on what you think one of them has said to you, you're stacking the deck against yourself.

The same principle applies no matter who you're talking to, or at whatever level. My partner of twenty years, Tom Joiner, is one of the most brilliant people I know, and for that very reason getting him to explain something to you simply can be like asking a physicist to explain relativity in twenty-five words or less. Tom has lost me a hundred times. But I learned a long time ago that if I stop him in mid-sentence, say, "Do you
mean . . .", and ask for clarification, things eventually get simpler. And we stayed partners.

It's never rude to ask somebody for clarification. What's rude is nodding when you don't understand. When you do that, it always comes back to haunt you later. The way out of that tangle is Rephrasing.

Previous | Contents | Next

Index | Parent Index | Build Freedom: Archive

Disclaimer - Copyright - Contact

Online: buildfreedom.org - terrorcrat.com - mind-trek.com