How To Escape the Tyranny of Choice

Pick a word. Any word. Then ask, “What kind of [word] is that [word]?”

Simples. Until you have to do it for real.

Now you're in a conversation and you're trying to listen and you're also trying to remember: was it 'what kind of' or 'is there anything else about'? And which word do I repeat? And wait, what did they just say?

I hear this a lot when I check in on people who are starting to use Clean Language in their work. It’s a real blocker!

And, there’s a way round it, as discovered by hospice nurse Siobhan Aris.

Choose your word before you start the conversation.

She chose the word “support”. Every time she heard the word “support” - which came up multiple times a day in her work - she resolved to ask, “What kind of support?”

The results were surprising - and delightful.

She discovered that "support" meant completely different things to different patients – one needed education for his caregivers, another wanted conversation without platitudes, a third simply wanted to be heard.

She’d stopped guessing what patients meant by “support” and started hearing what they actually needed. Patients told her things she would never have thought to ask about.

Photo by Dhairya Nadapara on Unsplash

By escaping the tyranny of trying to choose the ‘right’ word to ask about, on the fly, she freed up her attention. She reduced her cognitive load. She made space to truly hear what her patient was saying.

People working in palliative care often love Clean Language, but this pattern isn’t unique to the hospice context.

Adapt it for your situation by pre-choosing a word that you know is going to come up, and that can mean a lot of different things to different people. ‘Busy’, ‘help’, ‘success’, ‘delivery’, ‘ready’…

The choice really is yours. But make the choice now, not later.

Grab a sticky note and write down the question. “What kind of [word] is that [word]?” Stick it where you’ll see it.

When you hear that word, dive in, ask the question, and notice what happens next.

What emerges when you stop choosing?

Let me know in the comments!