Force Prompt: It’s like Sith Lightning, only nastier.
Note: I continue in my *not* actually endorsing any of this in anyway; it’s more than a little vicious. But it is interesting to study.
A while back, now, Dan made a a post about what we called the ‘Dark Side’ of Active Listening, which we’d recently talked about. In it, he describes a couple of what are, basically, Dark Side force powers; taking the skills of Active Listening and twisting them to your own ends.
I was on a train, today, and I came up with another one. I haven’t actually tried it on anyone, of course. [Although, just occasionally, I worry that I may’ve invented the entire Dark Side out of absent-minded stubborness…]
During the course of what we shall call a ‘normal’ conversation, you may’ve noticed that people cut across one another, in a bid to say whatever it is they want to say. During a ‘listening’ conversation, on the other hand, the Force User, doing the bulk of the listening, is likely to give out signals to the person doing the (bulk of) the talking.
You’ll probably have heard ’em, at some point or other – things like “Mm-hm,” and “go on,” and so-forth. These utterances don’t interrupt the flow of the talking, and don’t take too much brain-power to process, so whoever’s talking doesn’t have to take their mind of their own thought process to see if they need to work out a response; they’re just little prompts from the listening Force User to show that they’re still paying attention, and aren’t sat their composing a shopping list and looking blank.
Enter the new Dark Side power: Force Prompt.
By way of illustration, I shall carry on from where Dan’s original example, in which a boss demanded to speak to a tardy employee, left off: we join the scene in the boss’s plush corner office, where the boss is winding up his talk to the tardy guy – an avid Darksider, as we have already seen.
Boss: …I mean, looking at the records, you’ve been late in in the mornings on more than 20 of the previous 31 working days which frankly isn’t good enough.
Darksider:Mm-hm
Boss: Not only that, but you’ve also been leaving early for lunch on a regular basis, and you’re often not back at your desk until gone 2:15. Now I know that you’re not having any problems at home, because we have discussed this before, and you’ve always said everything was fine,* so I really can’t see any explanation for this other than sheer laziness.
Darksider: Mmm.
Boss: Frankly, I’m afraid it’s all getting rather serious; I can afford to give you one last chance to sort this out, but I’m afraid it really will be one final chance.
Darksider: OK…
[pause]
Darksider: … Go on…
That’s the Darksider using Force Prompt, right there; the Boss has wrapped up what he wants to say, and, because the Darksider hasn’t been interrupting, but has just been listening attentively, he’s said everything he wants or needs to say – the Darksider’s given him all the space he needs to say what he wants, and so the Boss has, logically enough, said it.
Then the Darksider prompts him to continue.
In essence, having listened so well to what the Boss has to say, the Darksider now refuses to stop listening.
The Boss, then, has nothing left to say, and is left with two realistic options:
1) He can repeat bits of what he’s already said, which is likely to make him sound rambling and vacant, as he searches for a new way to phrase what he’s said only seconds before.
(Even if the Boss takes this option, the Darksider can carry on listening all day; at some point the Boss is going to be driven into the second option:)
2) The Boss can send a clear, definite signal that there’s nothing left to listen to: “OK, well, I’ve said my piece,” for example, or “Well, er, that’s all I’ve got to say, really,” – a sentences which shift the balance of authority and automatically make it sound like the Boss is apologising for taking up the Darksider’s time by talking to him.
Finally, of course, the Boss can skip options 1) and 2) and try for the really brave option 3):
3) Say Nothing and Wait
… And Wait…
…And Wait…
He’s onto a losing battle with this one, although it’s a gutsy move to try: the Darksider can just sit there in silence, with an open posture, and with his head slightly to one side, still listening to the Boss. That’s pretty cruel of the Darksider, since many people don’t get on well with silence, and especially not in situations like this one, where the Boss is going to end up running back over what he just said and thinking of ways it would’ve sounded better.
Eventually, the Boss is going to be forced into taking something like option 2, just to stop the silence and deliberately cue the Darksider into talking. That’s fine; the damage should be done, by then…
…Even if it really, really is the Darksider’s last chance, the whole encounter is likely to leave his Boss feeling strangely uneasy – because the Darksider forced a shift in the balance of power – and, with a bit of luck, won’t be in a hurry to call the Darksider back, even to sack him, because he associates talking to the Darksider with feeling awkward and not knowing what to say.
Like I say, I’ve not tried it on anyone. I’m not really a big fan of Darksiding as an actual course of action, and I don’t suggest you do it. On the other hand, it’s fascinating stuff, and I’m pretty sure this is a Darkside tactic that’s going to battle it out with Force Mishearing for my favourite Darkside power.
And I really do think it’s fascinating how something really useful like Active Listening can be warped into something genuinely cruel and heartless. Scary. But fascinating.
This Jolly Thought For the Summer Holidays was brought to you by Mister JTA’s Random Evilness, 2006. Terms & conditions apply.
* [Note that I never said the Boss was especially sensible]