Connect instantly with these Two Words

‘What does a pear taste like?’

Sounds like a crazy question, right?

Well, this is what Seth (Nicolas Cage) asks Maggie (Meg Ryan) in the 1998 movie, City of Angels.

She of course looks at him like he’s a bit crazy. He’s not crazy. He’s just an angel who wants to be human and he’s trying to find out about the human experience.

So, he follows up the question with this powerful, clarifying question:

‘I don’t know what it tastes like for you‘

WOW!

Two words.

That make all the difference.

For you.

What is it like for you?

Have you ever had a conversation and found yourself in a state of miscommunication. When you debrief what was going on, you find yourself saying something like: ‘Oh, I thought you meant…’?

So, what if, before diving into something, you took a deep dive into the other persons experience and asked – what is it like for you?

On the work front, we see so many examples of this. In one of my recent coaching sessions with a senior leader we were talking about the engagement scores on the Gallup survey. He was proud of the result he got on the ‘My manager cares about me as a person’. And he should have been proud of the result.

I then asked him – what does that mean? How do your team members experience ‘care’ from you? And what is it that they appreciate?

He was stumped.

As we talked about it further, it was also obvious that not only was each person completely different in what they needed from him – but he also wasn’t completely sure of what made them feel cared about. He didn’t know what care was like – for them. And that’s a problem. Because how does he know what to keep doing? How does he know what matters to his people?

So, we talked about the debrief session he will have with them. Rather than just tick the boxes, and say ‘yay, we did that well – let’s move onto the things we didn’t do well in’ – take a look at what they did well – and find out why!

What is it like… for you?

This questions opens your mind, curiously finding out about the other persons experience.

This creates connection immediately! The person feels seen and valued.

When we were writing our Unpacked, CCS Guide for Users, we worked with Dr Sue Curtis. Through our work together we saw the power of using ‘for you’ in our topics using the CCS Cards. For example ‘Go through your pack and find 5 cards, that for you, describe your experience of work’

‘For you’ was critical in the ethos we have when using the cards. Any card can mean anything to anyone at any time. There are no right or wrong answers.

What is it like for you, creates the space for the person to share, free of judgement. You should have no expectations of what it is like. You genuinely want to know what it is like for them.

Think of all the occasions you could use this question. It is useful at work, at home, in new relationships, in long term relationships. It’s a great question all round!

So, there it is.

And now I have to ask – what was this like for you?