Does “Mind Reading” Improve Communication?

A colleague and I were talking about metaphor and my new video series, working title “The Mind Readers’ Guide To Metaphor”.

And she had an interesting question.

“OK,” she said. “I get that I can learn to hear people’s hidden metaphors, and use that to see into the inner workings of their minds. And I keep on wondering, how is that useful? How does it actually help my communication with them? Is that the big cliffhanger for the next video?”

I suspect she has helpfully hit on one of my blind spots.

To me, it seems self-evident that if I can understand the inner workings of someone’s mind, and grasp what motivates them, I will communicate more effectively with them.

For example, if I’m selling to them, I’ll be able to tailor what I offer to what I know they want. I’ll match their language, using their metaphors, their exact words, in both my questions and my comments.

And if my products and services aren’t really suitable for them, I’ll know about it well before I make an offer which might be rejected.

But as I reflect on it now, this is not universal knowledge. Not everyone knows that it’s useful to match someone’s language: if they do know that it’s useful, they may not have developed the skills to do it easily.

Not only that, but “mind reading” in NLP means “guessing what someone means, rather than asking and checking”. It’s a bad thing.

So, what do you think? Are you interested in seeing the inner workings of someone’s mind? And what would that give you that you wouldn’t otherwise have? Please comment below.