Author: admin

Are you a helpful soul? Do you generously offer support, even if people don’t actually ask for it? When someone does ask for help do you show them how to do the work, or do the work for them?

Being helpful, kind and supportive are great attributes to have and be proud of, and yet there are times when we can over-step the mark. If we are ‘over helpful’ the other person can feel that their space has been intruded on, or that they were deprived of the chance to finish the task themselves.

Often when people ask for help, what they want is to be shown how to get out of a ‘stuck place’, or to have their thinking checked out. What they really want then is to be left alone to sort themselves out.

The terms ‘responsive’ and ‘rescuing’ can be found in Transactional Analysis and relate to psychological games. Someone who rescues other people in this context means well and yet overdoes the help and then perhaps resents the other party for wasting their time! Rescuers can smother people with their attention, which can leave the other person feeling put-upon and fussed over.

Someone who is responsive simply listens to what the other person wants, or needs, and then collaborates with them to meet that need. They are good enough in supporting the other person and maintain the power-balance between people. Everyone feels good and gets a positive feeling of regard.

A quick test to find out whether we are rescuing or being responsive is this:

“More than 50% is a rescue”

This means that if we are doing most of the work then we are rescuing the other person. We can only be responsible for our 50% of the work and the other party has to account for their side.

So, this week next time someone asks us for help we can agree with them what they really need and make sure we stick to our 50% limit.

Have fun being responsive!

Next week: Ok Heads & Ok Hearts

In business we talk all the time about ‘excellence’, in terms of providing customers with an excellent service, or promoting excellent leadership. 

However, how often do we stop and consider exactly what excellence really is?

A few days ago I was lucky enough to be in a Transactional Analysis workshop where we did just this and what I thought was an easy question to answer turned into a neat little paradox.

This is because the reality of excellence is this:

Excellence is being good enough.

Yes, it’s that simple. If we go beyond being good enough then we can over-invest for increasingly reduced returns and lose the essential goodness that we have already created.

For an example we can think about popping into our kitchen and making ourselves an excellent sandwich. We might add cheese to bread. Is that excellent? If we add lettuce and mayonnaise is it excellent now? If we add another layer of bread and cheese and more garnish and then serve it on an antique china plate do we now have an excellent sandwich?

No. Our sandwich was excellent when it was good enough.

If we aim for excellence and we don’t know what excellence is then we are committing ourselves to more and more and more. It’s never ending. It’s an illusion and we can avoid the trap by simply making sure we are good enough. 

This week we can think about the curious paradox of excellence and ask ourselves if our work is really good enough? If it is then we can know we have found excellence. 

Next week: Responsive Or Rescuing?