We all say ‘yes, but…’, some of us say it more, others less. If we went to school classes before, we learned that it is recommended to use ‘yes, and…’. Obviously we tried for a while, obviously we still remember and yet it doesn’t work out. The French say ‘Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop’; or, if we adapt a little, ‘The embedded habit has no cure’.
Recently I had a day when I received a lot of this ‘Yes, but…’. At the end of the day, I had the feeling that I was parallel to the world, that nothing went well for me (in fact, the world of that day was very small). I smiled after a few hours, I knew the mechanism. But I was struck by how much we can be on autopilot, how we can silence someone by repeatedly cutting off any initiative. I’m not saying we can’t go wrong sometimes. I’m not saying we can’t make mistakes. But if we interrupt the other’s sentences repeatedly, it may not take long for them to step back and we will not hear too many opinions, ideas, they will not contribute.
An alternative to our autopilot that goes on ‘yes, but…’ is to think:
What do I appreciate about what the other person said? Even if it’s something small, 10% of what we heard, then let’s reply with:
‘I like…’ or ‘the good part here is…’ But how do we continue? Maybe with: ‘and what you say makes me think of…’
‘What I liked is…, and maybe we can also debate…’
It is a difficult exercise to think about what we appreciate from what the other has said. This approach involves entering the conversation from a position of appreciation, support, collaboration with the other and not hostility or the desire to stand out.