From Conflict to Cooperation: how understanding Matchers and Mismatchers transformed my business and my relationships. And will transform yours too.

My name is Carlo, I am a father of two, a husband, and a veteran of the luxury industry. I am a matcher, but not all the time; I can also be a (mild) mismatcher. How about you?

Every day, we meet people who display various degrees of matching and mismatching mind frames. Spotting it at the early stages of an interaction can make all the difference in the world, both in business and in private life. Difficult conversations can magically become easier, and cold relationships can warm up.

But who are matchers and mismatchers, you may ask?

Bear with me for a few paragraphs, enough to share a short story that has taught me the importance of knowing how to deal with matchers and, most importantly, mismatchers.

Many years ago, I had a boss I truly respected and slightly feared. She was and still is a lady with a strong personality, many years of experience, a fine business acumen, and a name everyone in the luxury industry knew. From the first day of work, I knew I would like her, and it didn't take long before she said she liked me too. To my surprise, the deeper the relationship grew, the more our conversations became conflictual. As I felt it was my duty to attend our meetings increasingly well-prepared and ready to offer clear opinions, advice, and solutions to existing problems, she appeared to always want to take an opposite side. To the point that, if my opener was "what a lovely sunny day today," she would answer, "I've already seen clouds on the horizon."

As a young Italian with an ego built upon thousands of years of the formation of what is known as the "Mediterranean male," I started struggling with our relationship, and as a result, I was making mistakes. I would attend our meetings even more prepared than before and ready to fight for what I thought was the ultimate good of the company. I would enter the room so focused and combative that no room for the usual pleasantries was left. With no improvements in sight, I felt lost. "How can I deal with someone who MUST always say the opposite of what I say?" I kept asking myself. And, as it always happens in life, the right question somehow triggers the right answer.

This is when I discovered NLP's metaprograms (which I explained in previous newsletters here and here and which can be summarized as the brain's operating system), and in particular the one called matchers and mismatchers. It came as a revelation to me and helped me restore an almost compromised relationship.

Matchers are people who tend to look for similarities in life. If you show them five eggs, of which one has a slightly lighter color, and ask them what they see, their answer is likely to be "five eggs."

In a conversation, they tend to agree rather than disagree. Most of the time, they follow mainstream trends, value agreement over disagreement, which they oftentimes label as argument, even when it's not.

As a rule of thumb, and because of the social nature of human beings, most people are matchers, at least most of the time. This is also a feature that enables humans to form communities and live peacefully together. Matchers are relatively easy to deal with and are often, on various degrees, resistant to change.

On the other end, Mismatchers, instead of looking for similarities, look for differences. When shown the five eggs above, they immediately spot the different one. In a conversation, they tend, and sometimes need, to disagree before they reach an agreement. They usually go against mainstream trends, and value disagreement over agreement, which they are suspicious about.

While some individuals were born with this trait, which has shaped their personal and professional lives, others have developed it with time.

Medical doctors, consultants, quality insurance managers, lawyers, and police officers, just to mention a few, all must develop an eye for differences, for any deviation from standards they need to fix.

Some of them show extremely high degrees of a mismatching mind frame (like my previous boss) and dealing with them is difficult if you don’t know how to do it.

Here are a few steps you can take to improve your conversations, and ultimately your relationships with mismatchers:

1. Spot it early in the conversation. Watch for any big or small disagreement. The most paradoxical the disagreement (typically when they disagree with you while, in reality, they just rephrase what you just said) the more extreme they are.?
2. Do not take it personal. ?This is probably the most difficult part, the one that hurts your ego, which in return doesn’t enable you to see things clearly. You must understand that (extreme) mismatchers need to disagree, they don’t do it to hurt you. It’s their way to form an opinion and make decisions, and it makes them feel in control.
3. Do not try to agree. Do not force them to agree with you when you prove them wrong, and do not verbalise your agreement, even when you come to terms with them, perhaps to close a deal, and decide to accept their conditions or view. Just implicitly take the following action. Never say “I agree with you”, at risk of triggering another round of disagreement.
4. Give them plenty of opportunities to say no. Let’s say you’d like them to buy a specific item, rather then say “I think you’d like to see….”, you may just turn it into: “There is another item available, but you may not like it”. Rest reassured they’ll want to see it.
5. Do not turn disagreement into an argument. You may get irritated by several disagreements in a row, but this is not how mismatchers see it. For them, is business as usual.
6. Assess yourself. If you realise you’re a mismatcher at extreme levels, you may want to mediate with it, understanding that most people need to agree with each other, before they can build a satisfactory relationship.

?Mismatchers are not difficult to spot, and once you learn how to deal with them, they can become your best customers, stakeholders, and friends, given how most people struggle with them.

?It is also important to understand that their mismatching mind frame materialises well beyond the verbal activity. They also commonly go against the flow. Do not be surprised if a mismatcher colleague choses to eat in the office while everybody else leads to the canteen, and the other way around.

?“The world is an interesting place, because we’re all different from each other”

my mother used to tell me as I grew up.

Perhaps she knew metaprograms?

?To your success.

Carlo Pignataro

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