This afternoon, as I was loading the dishwasher, I found myself deliberately putting the forks in the first two compartments, knives in the second two, spoons in the next two, and miscellaneous straws and other small items in the last two. This level of organization is a pretty recent development after loading dishes for decades, but it’s for a good reason.
My daughter asked me to do it.
One of her chores is to help with the dishes – specifically, she has to help unload the dishwasher. No kid loves doing chores, but this specific chore was a source of tension for us every time I asked her to do it. She would spend way longer than necessary to methodically lay all the utensils out on the counter to group them up before putting them in the drawer, huffing and puffing the entire time. One night, I finally asked her why – and her response gave me some serious pause.
“Because you won’t take the time to organize them on the way in.”
At first, my momma defenses kicked in, and I wanted to tell her that she just needed to suck it up and do the dang task without dragging it out/blaming it on me. I don’t remember anyone ever asking me if I wanted the utensils sorted in a different way when I was a kid – I really just wanted to tell her to do my way because I said so.
Then, I thought about it a little differently. How hard would it be for me to put the utensils into the dishwasher in a different way? If it would make her feel like she had some sort of input into the way that we run the house, why wouldn’t I meet her halfway? No, it doesn’t make sense to me to be so organized about this one thing – but it made sense to her and was important enough to her to take the time every time she had to do that chore.
So, I asked her, “If you were in charge of organizing them, how would you do it?” She lit up and showed me how she thought it would make sense. I asked her if I did it her way if that would help her have a better attitude about it and complete it more quickly. She said it would – and that was enough for me to at least try it.
Sure enough, for the next load, I organized the utensils as she requested, and when it came time to unload the clean dishes, she did her part with no complaints. As an experiment, I tried it again the next time, and again, she did her part quickly, with no complaints. I don’t want to get cocky, but we might be on to something here.
It reminds me of a principle I teach in my leadership development classes: make it easy for someone to say yes.
When we ask someone to do something for us, we should make it as easy as we can to say yes. If you want someone to write a recommendation for you, help them by providing as much detail about the requirements and some reminders of the contributions you have made to the company If you want someone to assist you on a project, give them the information and time commitment up front. If you would like someone to conduct an informational interview with you, be specific about the time, location and purpose. If you want someone to go on a date with you, ask them for a specific time, date and activity.
I could just put my foot down and try the “because I said so” approach, but isn’t it better if I make it easy for her to say yes? A small shift on my end and a small shift on her end – and we both win.
Now, if we could just decide if the utensils should face up or down, we would REALLY be making progress – but that’s a problem to solve another day.
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