If only you could read the other person's mind! Well, you can't, literally; but you can come a lot closer to understanding what they're up to than you normally do. All it takes is a little time, a little patience, a systematic approach...

...and the other person's cooperation. This isn't magic, and I'm not peddling snake- oil! What is on offer, though, is an astonishingly powerful way of understanding the other person, and feeding it back to them as you negotiate a common-sense way of continuing to work together, relaxing together, and collaborating in each other's company.

The basic technique is illustrated in section 2.2 of the book, and described in Chapter 3.1.2. If you feel you'd like more practice in eliciting a grid using the basic grid technique, you'll find some relevant material here. (In the examples you'll be looking at, ER stands for the InterviewER- that's you!- and EE stands for interviewee, the person whose grid you're eliciting) ELICITING A GRID

You can tell an expert in grid technique by the precision and detail of the constructs they elicit from their interviewees. Are you happy with vague and woolly descriptions or would you rather refine them so that you really understand what the other person is thinking? If you want more on this than appears in section 4.4.1 of the book, then find out, right here, HOW NOT TO WAFFLE.

Then there's some other resources under our Practical Mindreading heading, which provide you with additional practice in analysis (ch. 5 to 7 of the book).

Reading back the results of a grid interview is a matter of systematically seeing what's in the grid: so how about USING THE MARK 1 HUMAN EYEBALL? You start to get to grips with what your interviewee is saying, and how they are saying it, when you ask yourself what's behind the elements, the constructs and the ratings in the grid: WHAT'S THE MESSAGE?. More detailed statistical analyses will illuminate the relationships between elements, and constructs, with great precision. This is real MENTAL MAPPING.

People make sense of their experience in a great variety of ways. The reason for each person's particular stance relates to their personal values: what do they believe, and what do they want to get out of their work, their job, their relationships with other people? WHAT DO YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT?.

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