OK, so where would you like to start?
It was a simple line that I happened to overhear. We were in the room with a coach who was speaking to one of their people on the phone. “OK, so where would you like to start?”
It’s a great opening line and invites the other person to be comfortable and divulge heaps so that the exchange may be as fruitful as possible.
It also highlights a certain selflessness. It’s not about the coach or the boss or whoever is the overseer. The focus is on ‘the other’ and how they may be best helped.
The place or the issue they start with is the most pertinent and burning issue to them and there is nothing worse than trying to quash this while there are trivialities that are being discussed. Do the big stuff, the hard stuff, the painful stuff first. Then everything else seems trivial.
It may be that the place you want to start and the issue you need to deal with first does not have easy or quick answers, but at the very least you feel as though you are being listened to and understood. This is important to me!
I wonder if this opening line would help all kinds of relationships and not just in the workforce or the sporting fields. What if the not-so-happy married couple began with “OK so where would you like to start?” Or what if our communities, our nation and inter nations might adopt this line, or at least, the good sense behind it?
The other line at the end of the meeting/chat is “OK, so what am I missing?” It might be painful, it might be contentious, but long-term fruit, fruit that will last, will have the best possible chance of flourishing.