1️⃣👂Latent Semantic Synchrony
What is Synchrony?
Synchrony is the degree to which you are synchronized with the person you are supporting.
It’s being able to mirror what they say, feel, and mean. We’ll explore all three layers throughout our training.
As an overview:
Linguistic-Style Synchrony is mirroring the actual words they say.
Emotional-Content Synchrony is mirroring the emotional tone they use.
Latent Semantic Synchrony is mirroring the meaning of what they’re communicating.
Imagine going to the eye doctor…
You step into the office with blurry vision, and it’s been causing serious issues at work and in life. You work from home, and overnight, your vision changed, and you can’t see your computer screen. You tried to push through it by squinting, but it caused instant headaches. You had to call in sick from work - you can’t continue living life this way.
You tell the optometrist your issues, and you’re hopeful they can solve it. But in the middle of describing your issues, they hand you a pair of glasses from off the shelf and say, “Here you go! You can pay billing on the way out.”
That would be preposterous! The doctor didn’t even evaluate you! They don’t know if you are near- or far-sighted, if your eyes have varying prescription strengths, if you have astigmatism or some kind of macular degeneration!
How could they possibly know what you need if they haven’t taken time to understand what the issue is?
When we support others, if we offer advice before we listen, we are that eye doctor.
Synchrony is learning how to deeply understand someone’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. This is the first and foundational step we must take when supporting anyone. That’s why Synchrony is our first and most important lesson.
Research of Effectiveness
Over the next three lessons, we’ll show you what the research says about three levels of synchrony. The graphs will show how effective each type of synchrony is at offering support, receiving positive feedback, and having lasting impact. The “Y” axis (how high or low the line goes) displays its effectiveness. The higher the better. The “X” axis (how left or right you go on the graph) displays how much synchrony is used. Left means no synchrony, right means complete synchrony.
In the graph below, you’ll see that Linguistic-Style Synchrony demonstrates optimal effectiveness when used, but not over-used.
