How to Avoid the ‘Help’ Trap: Part 2/2

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Proverb

Consider this: Someone asks you to help out – to give them advice or a solution to a challenge they are facing.

“What would YOU do if you were me?”
“What do YOU think I should do?”

So you ‘help’ them by giving that advice, by offering that solution, right?

It might sound something like:

“Well, if I were you, I would … “
“I think you should … ”
“You really have to … ”
“You just need to … ”

Case in Point – Johan

Johan is known – and rightly so – as a true expert in his area. After gaining a great deal of experience ‘on the ground’, he was promoted to manager of his business area. He relishes the expert role, including being able to answer just about any question that arises and generate solutions to the vast majority of challenges that arise. Now his job is to manage others to develop their own expertise, just as he did.

His team has noticed that when they have a challenge, the easiest and most efficient way of meeting it is to go to Johan for 'spot-on' advice.

This has led to the following frequent scenarios:

• Johan’s team members (and others) go to him regularly for solutions. This has resulted in a continual ‘assembly line’ of people lining up – taking a considerable amount of his time.
• During these meetings, Johan realizes that the other person hasn’t invested much, if any, time in exploring solutions/options/recommendations – even though they are capable of doing so. It is like they turn off their brain, knowing that they can get a quick fix from him in one go.
• Johan has noticed that he expends a lot of energy coming up with solutions and advice over and over again, leading to fatigue.
• Because of the significant time spent in ‘helping’ others by offering solutions, Johan struggles to find sufficient time to do his own work.

You can imagine what has evolved over time at the workplace as a result of the above:

• Because Johan is the first person many colleagues think of when they would like to get advice, he gets more requests for help than others do, and his plate is over-full. He struggles to carve out enough time for his private life.
• Because Johan’s direct reports are not making efforts to do research and reflect upon possible solution options, several have not developed their ability to research, innovate, and learn.
• Johan’s direct reports underperform on proactivity – noticing what needs to be done and offering (unsolicited) creative solutions. They seem to be waiting to be told what to do, in general.
• The situation has developed into a ‘co-dependency’, where Johan feels good about helping and about being the expert in his field, and his reports feel somewhat ‘successful’ when implementing Johan’s solutions.
• Johan is noticing that he is harboring a growing sense of anger and resentment toward others who take a lot of his time and don’t prepare and think for themselves – which is starting to impact negatively how he interacts at work.

Johan defines ‘helping others’ as giving advice and solving their challenges. Yet if you look at the above list of potential consequences, there are a number of negative side effects of overdoing this – for all parties!

What can Johan do instead?

• Send them back to the drawing board: When colleagues show up unprepared, discuss with them what they need to research and consider, and where (from whom) they can get more information. Ask them to return when they have several solution options, or at least a well-informed assessment of the situation.
• Encourage (unsolicited) proactivity: Be repeatedly explicit about what sort of behavior he is seeking from others, for example: (1) notice problems and flag them, (2) research issues and offer to be part of the solution, (3) generate solution ideas, (4) dare to recommend a solution from several options, (5) come up with and share new and creative ideas. All of these behaviors should be as unsolicited as possible.
• Reward proactivity: Notice when it happens and recognize and praise this publicly and/or privately.
• Reconsider the definition of helping through giving solutions: Realize that doing this: (1) suggests that you consider the receiver incapable and dependent, (2) can decrease the receiver’s self-confidence, (3) discourages the positive behaviors mentioned in the above bullet points.
• Rethink his feelings of resentment: Understand that his current situation could be in large part self-imposed. By giving solutions, others often fall into the negative behaviors described above.

In conclusion, if any of your coachees find themselves ‘helping’ others by giving solutions, get them to reconsider their definition of helping. Encouraging others to generate their own solutions through research and reflection shifts the coach from 'doing the fishing for others' to 'helping others catch their own fish'.