“You are never strong enough that you don’t need help.”
— Cesar Chavez
Asking for help has always been a rather difficult task for me on multiple fronts. Like most people I know, I was either too prideful or too fearful.
Too prideful to admit I did not have the skill set or knowledge to overcome a particular challenge was rather foolish on my end time and time again. I often ended up working longer hours, simply spinning my wheels, until eventually I had that light-bulb moment or caved and finally asked for help. Even worse, there were times where I quietly killed a project and moved on in defeat.
When my pride was not at stake then fear was the main barrier. Too fearful to come off as needy, weak, or even ignorant! Again, I would foolishly spin my wheels and waste hours of productivity. Often using fear as a driving force to push myself, which in itself is not a bad thing. Self-reliance is a very positive attribute to have. Unfortunately, far too often I would enter a situation where I was tackling a challenge all alone and was burning myself out.
Now I must admit it feels amazing to overcome a challenge on your own. The sense of accomplishment in doing whatever it takes to get the job done can even be addicting. #StartUpCulture
However, it does come at a cost. Just imagine how much more I could have gotten done or where projects that I killed could have taken me, the unrealized potential could have been huge had I simply made the ask for help.
Another two issues I faced when asking for help was who to ask and how. In a previous role, I often defaulted to approaching our company’s leader who often responded with “I trust you, you’ll figure it out.” It was a great ego booster but obviously not much help and only furthered my spinning wheels dilemma.
I repeatedly made the mistake of thinking my leadership would be able to provide the guidance, not the answer, but guidance towards overcoming the challenge at hand. I failed to recognize I was part of a team with a diverse background. You never know what others might know until you make the ask. Always ask as many people as possible, even people in completely different fields. And if you are still being held back by pride or fear, you could even open up an anonymous discussion on a site like Quora.
Lastly and most importantly is figuring out how to structure your ask. I recently came across a great Harvard Business Review piece written by Wayne Baker in which Wayne sets guidelines on how to ask “SMARTly.” Here is his take on how to structure your ask:
“Ask SMARTly. Many requests are so poorly worded that it’s difficult to respond. A well-formulated request is SMART: Specific, Meaningful (why you need it), Action-oriented (ask for something to be done),Real (authentic, not made up), and Time-bound (when you need it). A SMART request is easier to respond to than one that is misses one or more of the five criteria.”
It has been a bumpy, winding road but I have learned thus far that asking for help, when done SMARTly, will get the job done faster and better. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, in fact, it is quite the opposite and will only highlight your ability to lead projects with the best possible results.
