Adaptivity & Resilience: Three Level Playbacks
In This Episode
Want to create rapport faster? Understand a problem sooner?
Learn the Three Level Playback in this episode and add it to your leadership toolkit.
Transcript
Vanessa Tanicien, narrating: Hello, and welcome to The LeaderLab, the podcast from LifeLabs Learning where we study what exceptional leaders do differently. Each week, we distill our findings into powerful tipping point skills, which are the smallest changes that tip over to making the biggest impact in the shortest time. The result? You become a better leader, faster. I'm your host, Vanessa Tanicien, and I'm a facilitator at LifeLabs Learning and a leadership development nerd.
Vanessa Tanicien: So, throughout this month, we are focusing on the macro scale of adaptivity and resilience, which also includes how we help others we care about handle difficulties in life. So, today with me to discuss what's called the three-level playback, I'm really excited to unpack this with you all, is Robleh Kirce. His background is in industrial organizational psychology, and he has been coaching and studying leaders for the last 10 years. Roble also once hiked in 100-degree weather at Joshua Tree Park, wearing jeans, a button down, and a leather backpack, so I'd like to welcome to The LeaderLab, Roble Kirce.
Robleh Kirce: Yeah. Thanks, Vanessa. That was one of my top, I don't know, 40 or 50 introductions for sure. I appreciate it.
Vanessa Tanicien: When I saw that photo of you, I hysterically laughed for about three minutes. I'm not kidding.
Robleh Kirce: We're not sharing that though, right? That's just between you and me?
Vanessa Tanicien: And a couple, hopefully, millions of listeners. So, I would love to dig into this idea of the three-level playback. I'm familiar with the playback, which is mirroring or paraphrasing what somebody has said to you. We know that hostage negotiators use it, stockbrokers, surgical teams, those types of folks in high pressure situations. What is the three-level playback, exactly?
Robleh Kirce: Yeah, so you've already got the basic concept, but for the sake of it, the idea behind a playback is you're simply paraphrasing back what you saw or what you heard from somebody in a conversation. And to your point, this is a technique that's been used by a lot of professions, probably topmost of that would be the psychology profession. Psychologists will often use this as a therapeutic technique to really build rapport really quickly with folks. That being said, there are some secret levels to this that the average person is not aware of. It's something that, honestly, I feel sometimes a little uncomfortable teaching it because I think it can be so powerful, it can be misused in the wrong hands.
Vanessa Tanicien: Is this like a Jedi mind trick?
Robleh Kirce: Oh, it's as close as it comes. If you're really trying to build rapport with people, of course, you can paraphrase back the content of the message. That would be level-one playback. This is something Harry Weger's written quite a bit about. When we do that, to your point, it helps build that rapport. It also builds this social attractiveness. We want to spend more time with people that use just that first level of technique, but then, there's two other layers to this.
Robleh Kirce: The next layer is feelings. Emotions are almost always being conveyed in any interpersonal conversation. It's often not explicitly discussed, but you can see it on people's faces. You can hear it in the words they choose to use. The third level of playbacks would be this underlying need that's present in conversations, as well, I also look at as almost this underlying commitment that is present in the conversation, so they're really trying to accomplish something. They want it to occur, and whether or not they're succeeding is up for grabs, but we want to make sure that we're at least paying attention to these three levels if we're really trying to build that deep relationship.
Vanessa Tanicien: Content, feelings and/or needs are the things that we're clueing up on?
Robleh Kirce: You got it. You got it. And so, we put it in this context of creating resilience for folks that are around us. They're coming to us with concerns. They're coming with uncertainties. We want to make sure that the first thing they do is they feel understood in the conversation, and when you're using these three levels of playbacks, I guarantee you, people are going to feel understood. They're also going to want to spend a lot more time with you, so be careful who you use this technique with.
Robleh Kirce: Let me give you an example. So, let's talk about one of my friends. We often get into conversations, and she's a colleague. Let's just say, hypothetically, her name is Robin.
Vanessa Tanicien: Yeah. Not at all her real name.
Robleh Kirce: No, no, this is a hypothetical. We've been friends for many years. We were friends even before we joined LifeLabs, and I've noticed in our conversations, there's different types of listening that she'll do in conversations with me. A researcher named Verderber identified five different levels of listening that people often engage in. We're not going to get into all of them, but the primary point here is two of them. Hers, often is discerning, so she's trying to identify what's the real truth in the situation. Mine, more or less, I would say, of course, I would say this, tends to be more empathetic, trying to really compassionately understand people.
Vanessa Tanicien: You're painting yourself as quite the saint here, Roble.
Robleh Kirce: All right, Vanessa, so you just kind of heard actually, I would say, a story from me about my experience with Robin, so imagine that I'm going to ask you just to kind of engage with me on this and actually playback the three different levels there. The content, the feelings and the needs. What did you hear from me in my story about Robin, besides me being the saint?
Vanessa Tanicien: Okay. Got it. Feel a little bit on the spot, which is all good because honestly what I've come to realize is that as a person who can passively listen, practicing active listening is very important, so I'm going to do my best. So, as far as the content is concerned, you have a friend who demonstrates a different style of listening than you're desirous of. As far as feelings are concerned, perhaps you're feeling a little frustrated or perhaps misunderstood by the interactions, and then, the need is for somebody who's empathetic to your needs. How'd I do?
Robleh Kirce: Yeah, absolutely right.
Vanessa Tanicien: When might someone choose to use something like this?
Robleh Kirce: Absolutely. You know, honestly, I'm going to use this technique pretty frequently in my interactions with folks, because again, it's so powerful, but I'm most likely to use it if someone's coming to me and they're feeling some level of frustration, they're feeling some anxiety or some uncertainty about the future. I want to make sure that they first feel deeply understood about their experience in life. Once they feel understood, they're less likely to continue repeating themselves about the issues that they're experiencing, and they're also going to be more likely to move into a solutions conversation. They're ready for that after they feel heard, but you probably know from experience, until you feel that, you're not ready for someone to give you advice. You're not ready for someone to coach you through something. You just want to feel heard. So, we start there anytime we notice that kind of frustration.
Vanessa Tanicien: All right, there you have it, the three-level playback, and what's really exciting at The LeaderLab is each week we give you an experiment to check on in your laboratory of life. So, Roble, what should they experiment with this week?
Robleh Kirce: All right, so here's my recommendation. The next time you're in a one-on-one setting, just start a conversation out with the question, how are you doing today? And then, sit back and get ready to do the three-level playback. So, you're going to transition to active listening, and pay attention to what's the content of what they're sharing? What's the feeling and emotions they're going through as they're talking to you? And then what's that underlying need that's present? Summarize those back to them in a conversation and watch how they react. Let's see what the outcome is for you.
Vanessa Tanicien: Awesome, so that's a wrap on The LeaderLab this week. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Leave us a review and spread the word so we can all benefit from having more great leaders in the world. Share your questions and insights with us on Twitter or Instagram @LifeLabsLearning, and if you're interested in getting some training for your team, go ahead and navigate over to LifeLabsLearning.com, and we'll see you next time.
