Three Small Changes That Will Transform Your Conversations

For Your Consultation/Consideration, here are three challenges you can try on in the new year to increase the intentionality of your words, and conversations.

• Be mindful of who you talk to...and who you don't.
• Ask more (better) questions.
• Keep your "but" out of people's faces.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Beyond the Training podcast. And this is called For Your Consideration. And for this episode of FYC, we actually have a challenge by choice for you. Challenging by choice means that the things I'm about to share with you for your consideration, you don't have to do them. And if you do, when you do, then it's gonna change the practice that you're using. It's going to help you through all of the things that you're using to work from great intent to even greater impact. So I've got three challenges for you. I'm gonna walk through each of them. First and foremost is the butt, second of them is the uh questions, and then the third is how you're speaking. Uh, and so we're gonna talk about that, all three of those. So, again, challenge by choice for your consideration. Number one, get your butt out of people's faces. Period. Full stop. Getting your butt out of people's faces is really connected to the English language. Actually, I think all three of these challenges are about the English language, but in different ways. When I was working at uh Kaiser Permanente and the Arts Integrated Resources team, we were actors, um, but we were also facilitators of the conversations that come from, you know, talking about really tough stuff, and we did it with schools, we were in uh healthcare campuses, we were in different communities, and we would make sure that when we're talking about really challenging topics like health equity, we would make sure to not use the word but. Now, it it it it it's a part of the English language, it has a uh purpose for sure in a sentence, and one of those purposes that none of us really understand is the negation of the thing that comes before the butt. So when you put your butt in someone's face, it doesn't always feel good. And when you say I love you, but or I understand you, but uh I want to help but then that all the things that you just said before the butt get negated. So here's a challenge for you. In a sentence where you would normally use the word but, either don't say that word, just continue your sentence, or use the word and take all of your butts and change them to and see what happens, see what comes of your conversations of your sentence first, but see what comes of your conversation when you take out the word but and add the word and. I love you and I need you to try this other thing. I understand you, and I have a different perspective on the world. I want to help, and I'm not sure how. It changes the whole sentence structure and changes the purpose, the the impact of what it is that you're trying to say. This is challenge by choice, and so I want you to know it. That's not gonna be easy if you're the kind of person that doesn't pay attention to the words that you use the the way that I do. I've been uh uh uh told that sometimes I pay more attention to the impact of the words, and I'm playing a semantics game more than other folks do or would even want me to. So I get that this is kind of hard, and I also get that it may not work for you in some sentences. There may be some things you need a butt for. So that's fine. It's not that you're a bad person if you have a challenge and you're not able to use a word like and or if you have to use the word like but. This is just something you can try. Try it for a week. Try it, just try it for a week. And and and it's gonna take a while because you gotta build that muscle to catch yourself and to rethink. And people might be thinking, wow, you're really pausing. And in fact, it's been a it's been a while since someone has noticed it. There was a time though when people would go, oh, I noticed you always say the word and. And the problem with it was is that I would go, I love you and, and I would put this emphasis on that word so that I can remember. I'm telling myself, I this, I need to use this because I want to use the word butt, and I didn't uh want to negate something. I didn't want to put my butt in your face, and so I would say the word and and it would be really emphasized, over-emphasized, and feel dramatic, and folks would hear it, and then they would notice it, and they'd say it to me, and then I'd tell them the same thing I'm telling you. I'm trying to keep my butt out of your face. I'm trying not to negate the thing that I said a moment ago, and so I'm thinking about that differently. And folks would go, oh man, I really like that. I'm gonna try it. And it's not easy. I would tell them it's not easy. So that's your first challenge. Take the butt out of your sentence, take your butt out of other people's faces, and see what happens. The second one, you might actually have heard this, you may have heard this before on our pod when we talk about curiosity over certainty. And so we're just gonna really hone in on this one. I'm gonna do it really quickly. I'll say, check into how many questions you ask in a day versus how many statements you make. Now, this kind of um, we'll call it investigation or interrogation of how you use the English language, again, can take a little bit of time. It may take some practice for you to really document that. And I would say if you have a notepad and paper or you know, put it on your uh your phone, if you got a notepad, uh note taker on your phone, just measure it. Do it for a day. This is not the kind of thing I want you to do for a week because it you it may interrupt all the things you got going on. Do it for a day. If you got kids, how many questions do you ask of your kids versus telling them what to do? And as a parent myself, I I know what the balance is, and I'm not even wanting you to value or judge the balance, I just want you to notice it. You get some of that data. The more curious we are, the more information we're able to gain. You already know if you ask a question, you get more information back than if you uh make a statement or a directive. Now, there are times when your kids need to hear you give a directive. There are times when, as a leader of people, um, you're responsible for others, and the work that gets done, you say, do this, do that, not how do you intend to make that goal happen? And that's the that's the trick. If I say the goal is 20 widgets, and you need to get them completed, team person team leader, uh, team individual person, then I need you to get things done. And then when you ask, Well, how do you intend to reach this goal of 20 widgets? We're gonna actually learn something about how they're working, what they understand about how they're doing their job, we're going to actually be able to give some corrective feedback if and when they say, I don't know if I can, or if they say, I'm gonna do it this way as fast as I can, I don't whatever they might say. I don't make widgets, but you get what I'm saying. So if you're able to focus in on how your interactions go, how many questions you ask in those interactions, how many statements you make, no matter what the relationship is, you're gonna find out how curious you really are. Maybe there's not enough information that you're getting in the relationships that you have, and you could use more. Who couldn't use more feedback from their team, from their leader, from their parents, and so, or from your kids for that matter? So asking the question is gonna give you that opportunity. You may end up getting some answers that you don't like, and still that's an important thing for you to have in your back pocket so that you can continue to create the kind of impact that you're looking for. Great intentions. We all, many of us, most of us as parents, we've got great intentions, most of us as team leaders got great intentions, and at the same time, we're working off of incomplete information. And so the more curious we get, the less certain we are, the more likely we are to have uh more information to put into the work that we're doing. So that's challenge by choice number two. Ask more questions and think about how many statements that you're actually telling. Third and final challenge by choice today is to investigate who you're speaking to. Most of us uh who are working out in the world, uh who are living out in the world outside of our homes, we interact with folks who are for uh for the purpose of this podcast invisible. And the challenge that I have for you is to speak to those who are otherwise invisible. These folks are invisible because of the job roles that they have. So think people who work in environmental services are custodians or janitors or uh food service workers, uh not not the the folks necessarily who are at your drive-thru window. You see those people, you and they're at thank you for the fries, you know, that that kind of thing. You speak to them. But the folks that pick up the dishes off the table, or the folks that are cleaning the restroom uh when you get in there. Those folks are invisible because of their roles, and we don't often speak to them. There are also folks that are invisible because of their situation. They are strangers, perhaps folks that you're just walking by on the street or on the escalator or in the elevator. The elevator is a really interesting one. You're in an elevator with another person and you make them invisible as if not to look at them. Maybe you're looking at your phone or looking at your feet or staring straight ahead at the mirrored window there. You make that person invisible because they're strangers. Not the kind of person that you're interested in talking to for whatever reason. Speak to them. That's the challenge. Speak to the folks who are made invisible either because of how your brain works or because of how the comfort that you have, or maybe because their role doesn't really have a connection point to what it is that you do. Do you know who the person is that is emptying the trash cans in the place that you work? Have you spoken to them about something other than how is your day? Do you know their name? Can you humanize them in a way that is beyond just passerby? What about the person in the elevator? They're there with you and trying to probably become invisible so that you don't talk to them because it's so awkward. Well, what happens if you don't lean into that invisibility? What might happen if you introduce yourself? What might happen if uh for the next three or four uh floors on this elevator ride we actually have a conversation? Well, pretty much anything is possible. So, the challenge is to speak up, engage, learn the names of those folks in your spaces who you and we as society have made invisible, and then see what happens. See what magic can be made when you're working from just great intentions to great impact, and then let us know what kind of impact that you're having. So you can send us an email at impact at seven-focus.com and tell us well what happened when you started talking to the person who was cleaning the table or cleaning the restroom as opposed to just walking by them. What happened when you interacted with a couple of strangers on the street as you were walking right next to them or standing in line at the grocery store? Send us an email at impact at seven-focus.com and let us know how many questions did you ask in one day versus how many statements did you maybe challenge yourself to ask more questions, or are you measuring it maybe over three or four days, or at home, or at work? What are you learning about yourself? And then certainly, if you can do it, let us know how that taking your butt out of people's faces has been working for you. It's really interested to see how that kind of has an impact on the work that you're doing, the conversations that you're having, and certainly the interactions that you've got going on. This has been a FYC episode of the Beyond the Training podcast where we move from great intent to great impact. And if you've got some feedback, we want to hear about it. Send a text to the pod or see us on our social media. Again, send us an email at impact at seven focus.com, and we will see you all next time.