I’ve been having some interesting challenges with my home phone line. To cut a long story short, one particular company took over my phone line and I’ve been trying to return to BT. The last contact I had with BT, the lady on the phone asked me, “Are you happy with the way in which I’ve handled your enquiry?” I was really surprised by this question and it’s got me thinking about situations in life where such a question could be profoundly useful.

Part of my Coaching training has been around designing the alliance - a way of interacting with a client to maximise the use of the time, create direction and purpose for the coaching sessions and establish a successful working partnership. I’ve employed the same principle in some of my personal interactions, with friends and family to great success.

This question though, “are you happy with…” has, for me, some wonderful implications. What a beautiful way of checking how a personal relationship is going! Imagine asking your wife, husband, partner, child, friend, boss, co-worker, etc.,  “are you happy with the way I’m handling our relationship?” To ask such a thing and truly intend to have a positive, co-creative conversation that will enhance an existing relationship is an extraordinary thing to do.

It seems a shame that most people get to the stage where things are really bad in communication with each other before they step in and try and patch things up. Most of the time, of course, this takes the form of blame: “you did this”, “I’m not happy with you”, “you’re always like this” etc. In order that we can create wonderful, positive and enriching relationships, I suggest that we consider what Collette from BT took the courage to ask me… “How am I doing here? Is this working for you? How can we improve this thing we have?”

I hope that you are blessed with wonderful relationships and these ideas may serve you to see how far you can go with them!

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