C. Now there’s a
letter with a lot of possibility.
Customer.
Client.
Challenge.
Compromise.
Communication.
Celebration.
Where
to start?My current reading material is World CafĂ©: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter by Juanita Brown. So let’s go with CONVERSATION. Check out the origin of the word. At its base it means “living together, having dealings with others” and also “a manner of conducting oneself in the world.”
Just how cool is that?
And so counter cultural. Most of
what we have and hear is discussion or debate or diatribe.
Conversation is different.
It’s about sharing our thoughts, our hopes, our beliefs, in an ongoing
dialogue as we create meaning together.
Change the conversation, change your world.
On Trip Advisor, I was reading a reviewer’s comments. They went something like this:
“This is truly a lovely place. Since everyone else has covered all the
positives, I’ll point out a few negatives.”
Darn, now there’s changing the conversation for the worst.
Yesterday in the post office, I saw the opposite. A little girl, restless because of the long
queue and getting bored, refused to listen to her mother who was asking her to
return to the counter. As she ran around
the counter and began to protest with “nos” that were threatening to get really
loud, the mother stooped down, held out her arms, and said “Could I have a
kiss?” The little girl stopped mid-step,
cocked her head, and then walked into her mother’s waiting arms. From there the mother re-directed her
attention to a toy and asked if she could take the pieces apart. From there, the little girl became absorbed
in her activities, pulling the stacked stars apart and counting them.
What a lovely moment to observe! The mother met the little girl on her level,
reached out in love to create a bond, starting the dialogue with the end in
mind, then waited for her daughter to cement the bond, and then moved their
interaction to a totally different level. Well done, Mum!!
Brown writes that “conversation is the core process by which
we humans think and coordinate our actions together.” She quotes Lynne Twist, a
social entrepreneur, as saying “I believe…that we don’t really live in the
world. We live in the conversation we
have about the world…And over that we have absolute, omnipotent power.”
It’s barely noon and I’ve already had two conversations that
could have gone better. I have the
power to change that. Do I have the courage?
Conversation.
Change.
Courage.
All good C words.
