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Brick No6: Are you a 'Yes, but' person or a 'Yes, and' person?
By Matt Weston, Tuesday 7 October 2003 Keep a tally - how many times do you start a sentence with 'Yes, but'? Get into the habit of saying 'Yes, and' instead of 'Yes, but' in your business conversations. You will become a more constructive person overnight. Last week, I was invited to a consumer focus group for Egg. My new credit card had repeatedly failed to arrive (a problem that Egg blamed on their 3rd party courier company!), and I was invited to a group that would come up with ideas to improve the Egg 'Lost and Stolen' procedure. My curiosity dragged me along. 8 or 9 strangers gathered in a circle, upstairs at the local Samaritans Centre. I learnt straightaway that there is no typical Egg customer - you'd be hard pressed to imagine a more disparate bunch. This is how the compere broke the ice, to get us thinking constructively, not negatively (we were there to brainstorm ideas after all) - 'We're going to play a game.' 'We're going to play a game. Let's split off in pairs. One of you take the role of someone renting out an apartment, the other take the role of someone interested in renting it out.' He told the 'Landlord' to start with the line 'Hello, was your journey ok?' Thereafter we were forced to start every line of the conversation with the phrase 'Yes, but'. The gist of my conversation was - Landlord: Hello, was your journey ok? Tenant: YES, BUT I got caught up in the traffic near the school Landlord: YES, BUT you'll get used to that when you live here Tenant: YES, BUT it's still an inconvenience isn't it? Landlord: YES, BUT nobody else who's lived here has found it a major problem Tenant: YES, BUT I think it will make my life difficult Do you see how the conversation degenerates, honing in on a single minor issue? When you're doing the roleplay it's almost impossible to stop the conversation from becoming petty and disagreeable. So let's try the roleplay again, but this time, instead of 'Yes, but' start every line with 'Yes, and' Landlord: Hello, was your journey ok? Tenant: YES, AND I can see it getting quicker once I find the best route Landlord: YES, AND when you get to know people round here, you may be able to share lifts to work Tenant: YES, AND it looks like a nice neighbourhood Landlord: YES, AND the current tenants are sad to be moving on Tenant: YES, AND I think I'll enjoy living around here Without exception, every pairing managed to construct a useful, open and positive dialogue in the second, 'Yes, and' situation. As the focus group progressed we came up with dozens of useful suggestions - Egg certainly benefited from our new 'Yes, and' approach. How you can use 'Yes, and' in practice I believe that human instinct makes us all natural 'Yes, but' people. Our instinct is to question new ideas and sentiments before we try to build on them. It's an instinct I've personally worked hard to lose, ever since reading a chapter in Dale Carnegie's timeless 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. The chapter is entitled 'You can't win an argument', and Carnegie gives the following advice - 'Look for areas of agreement. When you have heard your opponents out, dwell first on the points and areas on which you agree'. Carnegie closes with 'The only way to get the best out of an argument is to avoid it'. For me, that is what the 'Yes, and' approach achieves. 'Yes, and' isn't just two words, it is an attitude. The more you use the words, the more you show a constructive rather than destructive attitude, the more meaningful and useful conversations you will have with customers, suppliers, bank managers, investors and employees. So next time you hear yourself saying 'Yes' in conversation, try to follow it with the word 'and', not that word 'but'. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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