Motivational Interviewing Core Skills

Motivational Interviewing (MI), developed by William Miller and Stephen Rollnick, is a collaborative conversation style for strengthening a person's own motivation for change. Its core skills are summarized as OARS: Open questions (questions that can't be answered yes/no, inviting exploration), Affirmations (recognizing the person's strengths, efforts, and values), Reflective listening (mirroring back what the person said with slightly deeper interpretation, showing understanding), and Summaries (collecting what the person has said and presenting it back, often highlighting discrepancies between their values and current behavior). The practitioner's key technique is 'developing discrepancy' — helping the person notice the gap between where they are and where they want to be, without telling them what to do.

When to use it

When someone is ambivalent about a change you believe would benefit them, when direct persuasion is creating resistance rather than compliance, when coaching or managing someone who 'knows' they should change but hasn't, or when you need to build motivation without creating defensiveness.

How it can help

MI skills transfer directly to any situation where you need to influence someone who is ambivalent about change — which includes most management conversations, sales interactions, coaching sessions, and parenting moments. The traditional approach (give reasons, argue your case, present evidence) triggers psychological reactance in ambivalent people. MI's approach (ask questions that help the person articulate their OWN reasons for change) is consistently more effective. The specific technique of 'rolling with resistance' — agreeing with the person's reluctance rather than fighting it — is counterintuitive but powerful: 'You're right, this would be a big change and you're not sure it's worth.