Chameleon Effect

Call myself professional on one hand, and I teach my students to learn from waitresses on the other.

It does make sense.

After my recent lesson from the waitress, I went on to read more on the waitresses' strategic mimicry, and how mimicry increases the odds to build rapport and move others. To me, the answer that the waitress also doesn't want her customer to wait is trying to attune, to enhance liking, to get inside the head of the customer, to draw the map showing we're in the same boat. Unbeknownst to her customer, the two parties had been led to go in synch with each other at the drop of a hat, sharing common ground.

If you aren't convinced, you might not have heard the experiment of verbal mimicry. And if you'll let me, I'd like to tell you a little bit about how that experiment works. Just think: When was the last time you went to a restaurant and made order for your dinner? How did the waitress answer? In an experiment of customer behavioural patterns, sixty groups of customers like you, without their awareness, were randomly served by two types of waitresses. In the mimicry condition, waitresses repeated all orders from the drinks to the cheque. Word for word. In the non-mimicry condition, the orders were not repeated, but the waitress made clear that she understood the order by words like "okay" or "coming up!"

At the end of the day, the mimicking waitresses earned a whopping 70 percent more tips. I repeat: 70 percent more.

What is the lesson for doctors? Well, I'll let you decide.