Does Sam Altman exploit Mirroring?
A psychological technique the Open AI CEO uses to build rapport?
TWITTER:
[Children of Light] @luminal_church Mar 8,2024
Anyone who thinks Sam is a good person hasn’t seen an interview with him. He does mirroring. He appeases the speaker.
This is not a good trait for any human to have.
End: Twitter Post
COMMENTS:
As one board member summed up Altman, he has “two traits that are almost never seen in the same person.
The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction.
The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.”
QUESTIONS:
Have you experienced deliberate mirroring?
I believe I have, when I reported an identity theft to a police officer. He used exaggerated mirroring to try to make me feel at ease.
Do you know of a good video the shows an example of deliberate mirroring?
When is mirroring good? When is it bad?
My guess is that the Twitter poster above objects to the sales mirroring technique found at the end of this article:
“Sales mirroring technique 1: Use the three-word trick”
ARTICLES:
1) Mirroring in Interviews and the Workplace, Indeed
Mirroring is a technique that can be used in interviews, meetings and other business settings to help build a rapport with the person you’re speaking to. It’s something many people do unconsciously, but it can be learned and is a useful technique to use in interviews and sales meetings.
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What is mirroring?
Mirroring involves using the same phrases, postures and gestures as the person you’re speaking to. It often happens organically in friend groups and with couples. Young children also tend to mirror people they look up to. In work contexts, mirroring is something an interviewee, salesperson or manager might do deliberately to help build a rapport with someone they’ve only just met.
As an interviewer, if you notice an interviewee mirroring you subtly, this could be a sign they’re a skilled communicator. Combined with other signs of emotional intelligence, the ability to mirror people effectively is a positive attribute for anyone who is going to be in a people-facing position.
How does mirroring work?
This technique works because of a concept known as limbic synchrony. When people see someone adopt a posture or express an emotion, special types of neurons known as “mirror neurons” activate in their brain, triggering a response or feeling as if the watcher had performed the action themselves. This action is why some people find it difficult to be around those who are distressed and enjoy being around those who are happy.
Mirroring in interviews or other business contexts can subconsciously make the person you’re speaking to believe you’re their friend. This approach makes it easier to win them over. Since job interviews are a two-way process, mirroring is something both the interviewer and the interviewee can employ. When you practice mirroring as an interviewer, trainer or manager, you make the person you’re speaking to feel at ease, helping your interactions go more smoothly.
Tips for successful mirroring
Successful mirroring requires paying attention to the other person’s posture and mannerisms and reflecting them subtly, for example:
Reflecting their posture
In an interview, performance review or training scenario, you’ll most likely start with a relatively formal posture and expect the interviewee or team member to behave similarly. As the meeting progresses, you may wish to adopt a more relaxed posture to make the other person more comfortable, and they could do the same.
Pace and tone of speech
Talking loudly to someone else who speaks softly can come across as intimidating. Matching their tone could put them at ease. The same applies to the pace of speech. If you’re leading a meeting and aren’t pushed for time, trying to reflect the other person’s pacing can give them a subconscious feeling of talking to a friend.
If you find yourself rushing because you know the interview is at risk of overrunning, consider disclosing this rather than simply talking faster. This method will reduce the risk of the interviewee feeling dismissed or rushed by your sudden change in mannerisms.
Use of language
In job interviews or training scenarios, some use of jargon or formal language is expected. If you’re speaking to a prospective client or someone you’ve just met at a trade show, you’d want to communicate with them using similar language as them. That doesn’t mean dropping slang or emotive language. Staying professional is important. However, there’s little point in being stilted and formal or using language the other person would find confusing or intimidating.
Gestures and mannerisms
Pay attention to the gestures and mannerisms the other person uses. Perhaps they nod or tilt their head while you’re speaking or wave their hands when they’re talking. Work similar gestures into your own behavior during the conversation, but don’t overdo it.
The secret to successful mirroring is to be subtle. If you copy everything a person is doing in an exaggerated fashion, they may take that as a sign of disrespect. If you’re normally someone who sits still while listening, nod only if you actually agree. If you don’t naturally gesticulate but want to mirror someone who does, choose moments where it would make sense, such as gesturing for emphasis. Carefully selected motions will help you build a connection with the person you’re speaking to.
What should you avoid when mirroring?
Mirroring should be subtle. It’s important to avoid “copying” a person in a way that could be seen as offensive. This consideration is particularly important if you’re trying to build a diverse team and are interviewing people from different cultures. Some actions to avoid include the following:
Copying a person’s accent
Imitating any unusual speech patterns
Mirroring hostile or negative visible demeanor (such as crossed arms)
Immediate or exact copying of gestures
Imitating tics or nervous gestures
Practice mirroring in low-stress social scenarios until you get used to doing it. If someone leans forward, crosses their legs or clasps their hands together, don’t immediately copy them. Instead, slowly shift your posture so it looks similar to theirs. This approach will be less obvious but will have a similar subconscious effect.
Other rapport-building techniques
Mirroring isn’t always appropriate. If someone is stressed or nervous, mirroring them could worsen the situation. Other rapport-building techniques may work just as well. Being mindful of your own demeanor and tone is the first step toward putting the person you’re speaking to at ease.
Active listening is also useful. Make eye contact if the person seems comfortable with it. Ask questions to ensure you’ve fully understood what the person is saying. Even if you think you’ve understood their point, try paraphrasing it back to them. This method will show them that you’ve been listening and will also give them a chance to correct anything you misunderstood. In job interviews, note how your candidate responds to final questions. Have they been paying attention during the interview? Did they research the company before coming?
Make conversations as interactive as possible. Look for areas of common ground, share stories that you think the other person may be interested in and try to use analogies that you’ll both understand. These small changes could help make communication easier. The answers a candidate gives to casual questions in a job interview can often be more informative about their suitability for a job than their technical or skills-based answers.
2) Want To Nail An Interview? Use Mirroring, Forbes
The day has arrived, your job interview with a top executive in a high profile company. Your training and credentials are exactly what they’re looking for in a job candidate.
You’ve never been the shyest person. In fact, most of your peers would say your interpersonal skills are uncanny, and you’re a great conversationalist. You’ve prepared for the interview, identified your personal brand, and you’re ready to sell it.
You walk into the interviewer’s office and greet him with a hardy handshake. But you notice your interviewer flinches slightly. You brush it off and take a seat. The interviewer begins shuffling through papers, sweat forms on his eyebrow, and you notice his hands shaking slightly.
Without looking up, he asks you, “What interests you in this position?” You wait a few seconds, thinking he’ll look up and make eye contact with you—he doesn’t.
So you put on your most jovial tone and start talking about how the position fits a lot of your skills and also provides you with room to grow. You go into a long-winded speech about how the company’s culture is so appealing, and how you’re ready to work with a group of dynamic people.
After you’re done, you stare at the interviewer who has now become—your victim. The interviewer seems more nervous than ever—the next question he asks, and every question following, comes out in a hardly audible whisper. But you just shrug it off and continue to be loud and outgoing.
The interview ends. You leave. You never hear back from that company.
What Went Wrong?
First of all, you failed to meet the needs of your interviewer. Think about it, he seemed shy, nervous, and slightly introverted. You, on the other hand, were loud, exciting, and overpowering. Instead of catering to what he needed from you and building rapport, you decided to take charge and dominate the interview, which made your interviewer even more uncomfortable.
It’s Time to Adopt the Art of Mirroring
There are many ways to establish rapport, a relationship of mutual trust and understanding, and the Mirroring Technique is a great one. It’s about connecting. When mirroring goes well, the person you’re speaking with, whether a customer or an interviewer, deems you trustworthy because, subconsciously, they find similarities that connect you both.
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How do I perform the Mirroring Technique?
Mirroring is the practice of adopting another person’s behaviors, mannerisms, and ways of speaking. When performed well, it’s as if you become a mirror image of the other person. Here’s why it’s important:
People trust those who are similar to themselves. It puts them at ease and makes the conversation run more smoothly
When done right, you put yourself in the customer’s shoes (in this case, your interviewer’s shoes). When you do this, you force yourself to see the world from their perspective—which can be a gratifying experience for both you and them.
Had you lowered your tone and acted less aggressively in your hypothetical interview above, the interviewer would likely have felt more at ease and the conversation would probably have been more fluid.
There are three rules to successful mirroring:
1. Mirroring is NOT mimicking. It’s subtle. The person to whom you’re speaking should never feel that you’re copying them. So for example, if an interviewer rubs his nose or puts his hand on his chin, you should wait about 30 to 50 seconds and then touch your face in a similar way. Note: You don’t need to do exactly what the other person is doing; you just need to do something similar. Another example is listening to the language they use. If they say “pop” instead of “coke,” you should do the same. Listen to their phrasing, language, and sentence structure and try to recreate it in your own language patterns.
2. Only reflect positive speech and body language. If the interviewer seems angry or annoyed, that’s a behavior you don’t want to take on yourself. In cases like this, try to be positive and friendly, and you may help them open up.
3. Don’t get distracted. You want to notice and reflect back your interviewer’s mannerisms, but don’t pay so much attention to what they’re doing that you stop hearing what they’re actually saying. Remember that one of the reasons mirroring establishes rapport is that it forces you to see things from someone else’s perspective.
Go Out and Try It
The Mirroring Technique is a skill, and in order to get good at it, you need to practice. Don’t let the first time you do it be with an interviewer for a job or a customer for an important sale. Go home, call up some friends, and practice over the phone. Ask a colleague to go get coffee with you, and see if you can implement some of the above skills. When done right, mirroring can help you bond and connect with your prospect by forcing you to pay close attention. It could mean the difference between getting the job and not getting the job, so don’t take this skill for granted.
What is the psychology behind mirroring?
For centuries, philosophers puzzled over how humans truly understand each other. Back then, they had no science to rely on, just speculation. Fast forward to today, and we’ve unlocked decades of research from psychologists, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists. Yet, even with all this knowledge, understanding how we intuitively ‘get’ one another still remains a bit of a mystery.
The key lies in mirror neurons – a groundbreaking discovery in neuroscience. First identified by renowned researcher Giacomo Rizzolatti while studying monkeys, mirror neurons are responsible for our instinctive ability to mimic the actions of others. These neurons fire not only when we act but also when we observe someone else doing it. This explains why we often yawn when we see someone else yawn, cringe when we witness a fall, or feel the weight of someone else’s grief.
This neural mechanism’s discovery has helped us understand intentions and learn by observation. What makes mirroring particularly effective in sales is its subtlety – it influences prospects without being detected, avoiding any sense of manipulation.
Sales mirroring technique 1: Use the three-word trick
In Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss talks about the power of simply repeating three words back to the other person. Those can include the last three words of what someone just said or the most important three words of what someone just said.
For example:
Sales Pro: “How is your current product management system working for you?”
Prospect: “It’s working pretty well.”
Sales Pro: “Your current system is working well?”
By repeating back the same idea to the prospect, you prompt them to continue explaining a thought. Most people would respond to the above statement by diving more into how their current system is working for them, or introducing any concerns that they have with it.
“Yeah, it’s been working well except that it doesn’t yet integrate with our CRM…” That’s your cue to take the conversation forward and make it meaningful.