“I’ve got a relationship that I continue to struggle with,” my client told me as we sat down this morning. “And, I want to review a recent exchange we had and let you help me understand why we keep getting sideways,” he continued. He told me about their most recent blowup. He started somewhere in the middle to get to what he thought was the root. I quickly stopped him and told him that the only way for me to help was to go back to the start.
The story took about ten minutes to tell. I listened and asked a few questions. I wanted to make sure which part of their “talk” was electronic, which part was via the phone, and what transpired in person.
I asked him to do his best to “retrieve” this story from his memory, knowing that what he thinks is retrieval is really “reweaval.” We don’t store tough times, or tough relationships in some kinda binary file upstairs. We store our memories in story form but we don’t retrieve them exactly as they happened. We reweave them into what we recall happened and we’ve got a bias toward reweaving them to make us look right. We tend to focus our stories on how we’ve been wronged, not how we might have gone wrong.
My client was reweaving away when I stopped him and asked him if he had just heard what he said. I asked him to retrieve what he had just sent. He got it wrong and I told him. I told him that this wasn’t the first I had heard this phrase as he recounted his encounter. In fact, I told him, this was a habitual pattern to how he was answering his adversary. He kept saying, “BUT, see” as he responded. “But, see that’s not what I meant. But, see that’s what you always do when we meet. But, see that’s from 6 years ago. But, see you keep misunderstanding what I’m saying.”
But, see…
I told him to work on changing one word. Practice saying, to this tough and talented teammate, “I see.”
I see says, I hear you. I see says, I get it. I see says, you’ve made your point and I’ve got it. I see followed by a nice, calm, and lengthy pause stops the two of you from trying to win this air-time battle that can’t be won when you both “but” the other.
“I see,” he replied and his smile said we could move on to the next topic of today’s practice. Very cool.
This client just found a word change that could make a world of difference. Words can do that, you know. Try studying the words flying out of your mouth toward those toughies in your world. You just may find a word or two is all you need to see to tame the tongue and the toughie on your team.
And, I see you with 20/20 clarity, myself, not so much. God, help me find a few trusted souls that can help me see me and the word changes that could make a world of difference for me.
God, help me…
BUILT TO LEAD 