Author: admin

One of the first things I learned, when training to be a coach, was the difference between saying to a client:

How can I help you?

And…

How can I support you?

When we offer help it does tend to assume that we can help the client, which may not be the case. This can sound great, but can mean us doing the work, instead of the client thinking for themselves.

When we offer support, there is less Parental content and the question is more general. Parents help their children, which is perfectly natural, but when the children grow up they often don’t want help. They can sort it for themselves. What they need is support.

Sometimes support can mean listening and allowing them space so they work out the issue. Maybe they ask for our help with a specific item, once they’ve thought about it, and that’s okay too.

If we are working in an organisation and always being helpful to others we tend to step into a Parental role and can accidentally infantilise people. We keep them down, without meaning too, but we still do it.

We solve their problems and in doing so remove the opportunity for the problem to be properly investigated and sorted. We do their work for them instead of doing our own, which creates a backlog at our desk.

When we are challenged on this we say…But I’m only being helpful!

This can be very hard to deal with because being helpful is socially acceptable, even though we are working against the best interests of the organisational process.

Criticising someone for being helpful seems harsh, so we don’t do it and instead grumble to ourselves.

Being helpful can be a trap for us. We are well motivated and yet cause a nuisance at the same time because we mask underlying issues and don’t get our own work done.

Therefore it’s good to spot when we are being too helpful. Instead of diving in, we can help by being not helpful.

We can say…I’m really busy right now and maybe I can help you later?

This is kindly and generally means the other person has space to solve the issue for themselves. They will learn how to resolve things.

If they can’t complete the task the organisation will have to do something about it, such as offer more training, change the process, or add in more capacity.

The organisation benefits for both today and tomorrow, we get our work done and everyone is happy.

This week we can do some thinking about being helpful. Are we masking the issue instead of fixing it? Are we being Parental instead of giving people the space to be an Adult and solve their own problems?

We don’t help them outside of work and they manage to sort their lives out when we’re not around!

We can avoid the trap of helping all the time and everyone wins.

Next week: Personal PR

We have our preferences. Our likes and our favourites. We are emotional creatures, who tend to follow our hearts. We think we are thinking, whereas we are often thinking with our heart and not with our brain.

There’s nothing wrong with this of course. Choosing a cake is much more fun when we let our heart have a chocolate eclair, even though our brain says we should have a wholemeal brown rice nut slice.

(If that’s a cake, and I sincerely hope it isn’t, it just proves there are times when our brain really let’s us down! Go with your heart when it comes to cake!)

In business, it’s better to use our head and to keep asking ourselves if we are being truly rational, because often we are not. We are merely convincing ourselves that we are. Here’s an excellent example of this:

The scene: A quiet corner of a comfortable hotel lobby.

Client: How can I grow my business?

Me: Maybe consider hiring a PA, so you have extra time to go selling, whilst they do some of the admin for you.

Client: (laughing in a faintly patronising way) Oh don’t be silly, I can’t afford a PA!

Me: You haven’t even asked how much they cost!

And relax. This is a facsimile of several conversations I’ve had and it’s always the same; the client laughs and says how they couldn’t afford a PA, before they’ve asked how much one costs, what are the options and what their budget might be.

The client thinks they’re thinking, when they’re actually reacting to an emotion, probably a scare about hiring a PA and having no money to buy food.

And for the avoidance of doubt, a PA is a Personal Assistant and no longer are they the preserve of Royalty, CEO’s or Rock Stars.

Although, in our way we are all Rock Stars and entitled to support, so that we can keep delivering our hit songs (products and services) to our fans (customers).

My PA started by working with me for two hours a month. That was all, two hours to come over and write up my expenses and raise my invoices. You may think that’s such a small amount that why bother? Well, firstly a date in the diary meant the work happened on time and secondly I used that space to catch up a bit on sales enquiries.

The fixed point meant important items were completed on time (instead of being postponed until ‘tomorrow’). The cost was minimal and the impact much larger, because cash flow improved and late payers were chased up.

I also feel that having an additional resource, even if part time, has pushed me to sell more, be more disciplined and not worry about some elements of business administration. I know I can park the issue and ask my PA for help when they next visit.

A PA can be part time. They can be virtual, as in home based and not in your office. They can be a brilliant asset, because they increase our capacity to do what we do well.

So, this week have a think about what you could do if you had an extra two hours a week? I believe that investing in business support is money well spent, because it is a sensible investment and not a pretentious luxury.

Next week: The Trap Of Helping