244 Part IV: Using Words to Entrance
Romilla and Kate were driving from a meeting on the motorway one afternoon
when Romilla ably demonstrated her natural ability to generalise and said:
‘Have you noticed how everyone’s driving my car?’ Surprised, Kate asked how
that was possible. Romilla pointed out that she’d seen 15 new Minis in the last
ten minutes. She’d fallen in love with this car and was deciding whether to buy
one. All she was able to see were the possible colour combinations of this new
car. Kate hadn’t noticed a single one of them – she wasn’t interested in a new
car at all – just concentrating on getting through the traffic and out of London.
You can hear all sorts of generalisations about particular cultures or groups:
✓ ‘Americans talk loudly.’
✓ ‘British drink tea.’
✓ ‘Italians are wild drivers.’
✓ ‘Politicians can’t be trusted.’
✓ ‘Scots are prudent with money.’
✓ ‘Unmarried mothers are a drain on society.’
Such rigid, black-and-white thinking, which allows for no grey scale in
between, creates unhelpful generalisations about other people and situa-
tions: and it’s the breeding ground for discontent and prejudice. Stop and
listen to what you say. When you hear the verbal clues about generalisations
in words like ‘all’, ‘never’, ‘every’, ‘always’ (Figure 15-3 shows several exam-
ples of everyday generalisations), challenge yourself. Is everyone like that? Do
all clients do that? Must we always do it this way?
Figure 15-3:
The lan-
guage
of generali-
sation.
‘I can’t do it.’
‘You ought to
call him!’ ‘I mustn’t
say no.’
‘We never, ever
go out.’
‘We always eat
at 6 o’clock.’
When you hear someone (or yourself!) generalising, ask the following useful
questions. They make you stop and think about whether you’re limiting your
options unnecessarily and encourage you to take a broader perspective:
