282 Part IV: Using Words to Entrance
✓ Attributes: And is there anything else about...?
And what kind of...?
✓ Location: And where/whereabouts is...?
✓ Relationship: And is there a relationship between... and...?
And when what happens to...?
✓ Metaphor: And that’s... like what?
Trying out moving time questions
These clean questions are great when working with a person’s sense of time:
✓ Before: And what happens just before...?
✓ After: And then what happens/what happens next?
✓ Source: And where does/could... come from?
Working on intention questions
The following clean questions are useful to explore a person’s desired
outcome:
✓ Desired outcome: And what would you like to have happen?
✓ Necessary conditions: And what needs to happen for their desired
outcome?
And can...?
In order to work well with these questions, you can benefit from formal
training in Clean Language. However, you can begin to make small adjustments
to clean up your questions yourself, so that you act as an unbiased facilitator
instead of unwittingly influencing another person’s thinking.
Imagine that someone describes a problem to you, such as having too much
work, and requests your help. If you ask the person ‘And that workload is like
what?’, you’re inviting them to work with their own metaphor. The person
may come up with a metaphor such as, ‘It’s like a brick on the back of my
neck.’ You can then simply ask, ‘And what would you like to have happen
when there’s a brick on the back of your neck?’, so that you pace the person’s
experience and lead them towards coming up with their own solutions.
As with all the suggestions in this chapter, just try it and see how it works.
