Off the top, I realize that my title this week is a little less clear about my topic than it normally is, so thanks for getting past it and reading anyway.
We’re going back to some grammar school stuff, and then we’ll move pretty quickly into more advanced topics. It should be an interesting ride.
La Conjugaison des Verbes
My elementary schooling was in French, unlike my older sisters who attended English school. (They weren’t expected to take over Dad’s business, I was; but that’s another topic for another day).
During class, and for homework, we spent a LOT of time conjugating every verb we encountered, always following the same sequence:
Je, tu, il; Nous, vous, ils.
We started with singular, first person, second person, third person; and we continue through them again in plural, first, second, third person.
So for “le verbe avoir” it was: J’ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez, ils ont.
For « aimer » it was J’aime, tu aimes, il aime, nous aimons, vous aimez, ils aiment.
Comparing Homework Among Siblings
My sisters were sometimes curious about my homework, as their English school did not seem to obsess over conjugating verbs nearly as much as my French school did.
But of course you never know when this might come in handy, say 45 years later when writing a blog about business families.
Somehow I never imagined any of this in my future.
What this repetitive work did give me, was an appreciation for the whole concept of “First person”, i.e. me, “second person”, i.e. you, and “third person”, i.e. he/she, along with the corresponding plural versions of “we”, “you” and “they”.
Cultivating Better Interpersonal Relations
Much more recently, having done more than my share of training in coaching, facilitation, mediation, and family systems, some common themes have emerged within my mind.
One of those themes is the importance we should place on how we direct comments to others, in ways that are more conducive to harmonious relationships, compared to other, less skilled ways that may produce sub-optimal results.
You guessed it, thinking about all this in terms of “first person”, “second person”, and “third person” can be helpful.
Feeling “Accused” Prompts Reactivity
I’ll start with a basic principle that most of us can vouch for from personal experience.
When you feel like you are being accused of something, you will typically react in some way, and in many cases, that reaction will be less than friendly or positive.
We don’t necessarily do this in a thoughtful, conscious way, it just happens, as our emotions get triggered. I touched on some of this a couple of years ago in Your Response Is Your Responsibility.
And when do we typically feel like we’re being accused?
I think that when someone starts with the word “You”, that’s often a huge part of it.
Dropping “You”, Using “I” and “He” or “She”
So how hard would it be to drop the habit of using “You”?
My take is that it’s something you can learn to do, with time and practice, like other speech habits.
I know lots of people who’ve learned to substitute “and” in place of “but” in many instances, with positive results.
I’ve seen suggestions to talk about one’s own reaction to things as a way to lessen the blow of the “you” accusation, for example, “When I hear the word _____, I feel _____”, as opposed to “When you say ____, you _____”.
My favourite example of the plural version was use of “you people” and its negative effect on Ross Perot during his Presidential bid in 1992, when he continually said “You people should….” during a speech to a room full of African Americans. It did not go over well.
What About He or She?
As for using the third person, this naturally fits with situations when more people are in the room, and is something a good facilitator or mediator would commonly do.
Having the people tell the story to the third party, while the person in question is present, can really allow that person to “hear” the story in a way that they can respond, instead of reacting.
In any case, just learning to drop the second person mode will be a huge improvement.
Learning to state things from an “I position” can also help, as can using a trained neutral third party.
