The Hindu Business Line : How clean is your language?

INTERVIEWS have become a familiar and inevitable part of our daily lives. We are participants or observers at interviews all the time, thanks to the TV channels flooding us with talk shows and wordy duels, especially during the recent, hectic weeks of elections. For the journalist, the marketing man, the HR manager and market researcher, the interview is a staple in his life and a tool. It is how he makes a living.

Being able to conduct good interviews is of course important but being interviewed is equally so. Bookstores are filled with much well-meaning advice from trainers and other professionals, especially where the job interview is concerned. The market researcher knows that asking the right questions is more than half the task achieved in getting the right information from the market.

Indeed, there are books written on just how to ask the right questions. The way one phrases the question can predetermine the answer. For example, `Have you stopped beating your wife yet?'

A new science has developed recently around the discoveries of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which focuses almost exclusively on creating the right mental and emotional state for eliciting information. It rests on the principle that you play back to the person being interviewed the exact words that he uses in order to make him open up and speak about himself.

Inevitably, however, such techniques which are based on sound psychological principles become tainted with the reputation of being over-smart and manipulative.

Some Web sites boldly advertise the secrets of influential communication as "getting people who want to do what you want them to do" and "becoming judiciously persuasive and influential." As always with any new device, America's Fortune 500 corporations pay thousands of dollars to train their staff in NLP.

One aspect of interviewing to obtain in-depth insights into behaviour that has always appealed to me is what is called the use of `clean language.' This means using open-ended questions without any value judgement and in such a way that there are no direct yes or no answers. It makes all the difference between, for example, asking a person "Did you like this book?" and "What did you think of this book?" The latter opens up the possibility of the person saying something which is, first of all, revealing beyond a yes or no; whether he liked it on the whole or not and secondly, gives you a handle to turn, in going forward with the interview. With a follow-on such as "What did you like about the book?" you can tap into the next level of feelings and emotional responses if the person gives you an example of an incident or a description. Here again, clean language requires you to refrain from putting words into the person's mouth and to ask questions based only on his reply.

So a conversation could run like this:

"I like the characters."

"What did you like about the characters?"

"They are so realistic."

"In what way you think they are realistic?"

"It could be anyone in our lives."

"Can you think of some examples of how it relates to your life? What did you feel when you came across this character? What did you feel, then?" and so on.

In other words, one successively uses the words used by the respondent to guide the discussions forward smoothly and without friction. Notice how the interviewer does not interfere with the flow of words at all but merely opens up the topic with as many possibilities as he can think of. Questions beginning with phrases such as how did you feel, what did you think, in what way, and how did you mean, can you say a little bit more about that are very good tools for facilitating discussions.

It is astonishing to see in how many different ways and in how many different fields such facilitating conversations are useful. Conducting a management group discussion is certainly one of them. Talking to a group of managers or interviewees is another. Focus groups with consumers is one more frequently used possibility. In all of these, commonality is that the person who is asking the questions is very much more like a mirror that reflects to the speaker what he is saying and gently and unobtrusively guides him forward. It is based on a deep faith that learning and sharing anything significant must be approached with a certain self-effacing humility.

Clean language can be used at job interviews, in discussions with difficult colleagues and subordinates, disciplinary proceedings and even resolving sometimes painful conflicts. Not surprisingly, very few people are actually taught this skill, except perhaps in the specialist fields of consumer research and some branches of psychology. In fact, clean language would be most useful almost in any walk of life where strong differing opinions are likely to be expressed and where there is a need for working together - as in political coalitions!

As a marketing person it is important to learn the techniques of informal interviewing in an unstructured manner, regardless of what function one holds within marketing. It is not enough to just leave it to the market research professionals. Every sales manager who wants to understand in depth some difficult issues relating to his dealers and his sales force would find this of great value.

As with many practical skills, there is not a great deal one can teach on the subject in the classroom or by a lecture. What is far more important is to keep practising it and learn it on the job. There are thousands of Web sites which promise a great deal of help in this direction. You can start by making a search and perhaps looking at one or two books on the subject. But the most important aspect to bear in mind about being a capable interviewer is not about showing off one's skills but rather, developing the ability to listen actively, without interfering with the process of conversation. (Please see figure.)

The nine basic clean language questions given are the ones which some experts have described as a "metaphorical psychescape."

The benefits of using clean language are reportedly quite astounding. A friend of mine who is a systems thinker and counsellor in the UK says that this is very valuable in therapy as well. It gets the clients to increase their own awareness of their processes. It encourages them to be observers of their own repeating patterns and helps them to make connections between them.

Apparently at a certain stage, in this process (as with any intensive dialogue), the process takes over and the counsellor and client (or the interviewer and interviewee) are led by the process. They recede into the background and genuinely free two-way perception takes place. When this occurs there is potential for opening the doors to entirely new ways of thinking and doing.

As all of us must surely begin to appreciate the need for working together and living together with less friction in an increasingly troubled world, perhaps we need to understand ways of using clean language in all our interactions in such a manner that it leaves the least residue after the interchange. To me, it is this aspect that justifies the very apt adjective of "clean" in describing this process.

(The writer is Director, Institute for Financial and Management Research, Chennai.)

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