“No, Dad, not like that! Not like that! I don’t want it that way.”
I’m peeling the orange. But not the way my daughter wanted.
And of course there’s a part of me that wants to scream “It’s an orange, it’ll taste the same! it doesn’t matter!”
But it does matter. To her.
The problem is, my mind is on several things. I’m trying to get us ready for school, I’m thinking about my schedule for the day, and I’m trying to coordinate with my wife.
And so I’m not really there, not really paying attention. And I end up at odds with my daughter in the moment. We are disconnected. I’m not understanding her.
Sometimes I don’t make it out of that state. I get through the moment, yet we’re not really communicating.
But other times I catch myself. I ask, what do I really want from this moment?
I want to connect with my daughter. I want her to know that her opinion mattes to me. Her voice matters. It matters to me, even when I don’t agree, or can’t or won’t give her what she wants.
And in those moments, I lean in and I say “oh, how silly of me! Thanks so much for telling me…can you show me how you wanted it to be?” and her eyes light up, and she laughs and she says “here, you need to leave the sections stuck together…”
And now we’re connected again. Not because she’s happy, but because she knows that I care about what she cares about.
It’s a trivial example, maybe. But I think it reveals something about how we all connect with each other, even when the setting is much more formal.
Maybe your new hire wants to use their own templates instead of the company ones.
Maybe your assistant wants to use technology in ways you’re not comfortable.
Maybe your boss wants everyone to be in the office on certain days.
And it’s easy to think (or say) “no, that doesn’t make any sense! it won’t work. it’s not a good idea”.
Maybe it’s a good idea, maybe not. But your ability to work out a resolution you both like, will have a lot to do with how connected you feel during the discussion.
And that connection depends a lot on your desire to understand your counterpart.
Take a moment to get on their level. Get curious about why they want what they want. And watch what happens to your degree of connection.
