Have you ever been speaking to someone and they say, “You know it’s like …”?

Inevitably you have, because we all use metaphors to describe our experience. And whatever they put in the “…”, will be a metaphor, and will have significant meaning for the speaker.

Some people disregard metaphors and consider them ‘throw-away’ comments. But people who listen very carefully to people’s metaphors and have learned to converse within the frame of the metaphor have exquisite rapport skills.

Special questions are needed to do this well – questions designed to respect the exact words and nature of the speaker’s experience. These questions, devised by David Grove, are called Clean Language, and you can learn to use them in order to build even better rapport.

Recently I was working with an Executive Coaching client who was trying to describe his problem in making decisions.

“And, making decisions is like what?” I enquired.

He thought for a moment and replied,

“You know, it’s like going to the dentist. And I’m in the waiting room and I’m dreading going in.”

To this very rich description of his experience I simply replied,

“And, is there anything else when you’re in the dentist’s waiting room and dreading going in?” (being careful to use his exact words).

I could tell he was deep inside his metaphor by the way he said,

“I really need courage.”

“And, what kind of courage is that courage?” was my next question.

I continued to ask Clean Language questions of his metaphor and to facilitate him to develop his resource of courage. At the end of the session he said,

“If you had told me when we started that a comment like “going to the dentist” could link so directly with my decision making, I wouldn’t have believed it. In fact, you couldn’t have told me, I had to experience it for myself.”

Three of the basic 9 Clean Language Questions used above are:

“And … is like what?”

“And is there anything else when …?”

“And what kind of … is that …?”

The other questions are available in the article Less is More: The art of Clean Language.

Conversing within another person’s metaphor is the symbolic equivalent of physical matching and mirroring – except it goes deeper. Rather than honouring how they move in the world, you are honouring how they give meaning to their experience.

Try it, and see for yourself!