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Echoing Is Politically Correct Insurance
Here’s a quiz: You’re talking with a pharmacist and you ask her,
“How long have you worked at the drugstore?” What’s wrong with
that question?
Give up? It’s the word
drugstore
. Pharmacists abhor the word
because it conjures up many industry problems. They’re used to
hearing it from outsiders, but it’s a tip-off that they are unaware
of, or insensitive to, their professional problems. They prefer
pharmacy
.
180
How to Talk to Anyone
Technique #45
Echoing
Echoing is a simple linguistic technique that packs a
powerful wallop. Listen to the speaker’s arbitrary choice
of nouns, verbs, prepositions, adjectives—and echo
them back. Hearing their words come out of your
mouth creates subliminal rapport. It makes them feel
you share their values, their attitudes, their interests,
their experiences.
05 (171-198B) part five 8/14/03 9:18 AM Page 180
Recently, at a reception, I introduced one of my friends,
Susan, as a day-care worker. Afterward Susan begged, “Leil, pul-
eeze do not call me a
day-care worker
. We’re
child-care workers
.”
Whoops! Time and recent history quickly make certain terms
archaic.
A group’s intense preference for one word is not arbitrary. Cer-
tain jobs, minorities, and special-interest groups often have a his-
tory the public is not sensitive to. When that history has too much
pain attached to it, people invent another word that doesn’t have
bitter connotations.
I have a dear friend, Leslie, who is in a wheelchair. She says
whenever anyone says the word
handicapped
, she cringes. Leslie
says it makes her feel less than whole. “We prefer you say
person
with a disability
.” She then gave a moving explanation. “We peo-
ple with disabilities are the same as every other able-bodied per-
son. We say
AB
,” she added. “ABs go through life with all the same
baggage we do. We just carry one extra piece, a disability.”
It’s simple. It’s effective. To show respect and make people feel
close to you, Echo their words. It makes you a more sensitive com-
municator—and keeps you out of trouble every time.
How to Make Them Feel That You’re Like “Family”
181
05 (171-198B) part five 8/14/03 9:18 AM Page 181
I recently had to make a presentation to fifteen men in a corpo-
rate meeting. “OK,” I said to myself as I stood up, “fifteen Mar-
tians and one Venusian.” No problem! I’d read
Men Are from Mars,
Women Are from Venus
. I’d explored neurological differences in
men’s and women’s brains. I knew all about gender-specific body-
language signals. Hey, I teach communications differences. I was
well prepared to talk to these men, get my point across, and fend
any questions.
Everything started out fine. I’d conceived my presentation
clearly and concisely, developed each theme, and presented it flaw-
lessly. Then, I sat down and confidently invited questions and open
discussion.
That’s when it fell apart. All I remember is a horrifying bar-
rage of questions couched in football analogies.
“Do you think we dropped the ball on that one?” one man
asked.
“Yeah,” another responded. “But can we make a fumble
recovery?”
Those two I understood. However, when it got to pass cov-
erage and intentional grounding, I started to lose it. When one
182
How to
Really
Make It
Clear to Them
✰
46
05 (171-198B) part five 8/14/03 9:18 AM Page 182
Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.
guy raved about a Hail Mary pass being needed to save the deal,
I suffered the ultimate humiliation. I had to ask, “Uh, what does
that mean?” The guys looked at each other knowingly and then
smiled condescendingly as they explained it to me.
That night I had sadistic fantasies of fifteen women running
the company and one man left scratching his head as we bandied
about childbirth analogies.
“We won’t get his new proposal ’til the third trimester,”
reports the account exec.
“Yeah, but that’s six months away. Let’s get it by C-section,”
responds the comptroller.
“Why bother?” asks the marketing VP. “All his ideas are devel-
oped in vitro anyway.”
“I’m about to go into postpartum depression,” murmurs the
CEO. The lone male employee is left as confused and humiliated
as I was in the face of football analogies.
Ahem, the aim of this book is not to feed fiendish fantasies,
but to improve communications. To that end, I offer the follow-
ing technique based on analogies, not just football analogies.
Because old-boy analogies are unsportsman-like conduct with the
girls.
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