Listen, your heart’s in the right place. You want to be helpful, and not just because you read that being helpful will make you happy. You intend to be helpful because you want to do some good in the world, and you feel that there’s no better time than now.
The idea that you would start your quest to be helpful by aiding others at work was a good one. A helpful mindset should enhance any work environment, you reasoned, whether it be competitive, high-stress, or not. Plus, though not your primary concern, you knew that helping your co-workers would benefit your reputation in the workplace and improve the overall mood of your daily work routine.
You imagined that you would dive right in by asking your co-workers if there was anything that you could do for them. You weren’t sure how the timing of helping others at work would fit into your own task-list, but you put your uncertainty aside for the sake of your plan. But, what if your co-workers were not as interested in your help as you had imagined? What if your co-workers doubted your good intentions, or lacked confidence in your abilities?
Here’s a better question: before you embark on your worthy mission of helpfulness, why not pause to think about what makes someone a good helper?
How to Not Be Little Miss Helpful
If you think about it, I bet that you can identify a time when someone at work offered you a helping hand, and did not seek to understand your challenges before they told you how they would approach your issue the “right” way. In other words, the helper communicated to you how they would solve your problem if it was their problem. As a result, perhaps you felt drained and frustrated and like something important was missing from their offer to help, though you didn’t know what.
A great example of a well-intentioned but ineffective helper is in the children’s book Little Miss Helpful by Roger Hargreaves (from the Little Miss series published in the early 1980s). The first line reads, “Little Miss Helpful was one of those who loved to help, but ended up helping no one”. In the story, Little Miss Helpful helps Mr Tall re-tie his shoelaces, but ties his shoes together. Mr Tall then falls down and hurts his head, and Little Miss Helpful helps again by putting bandages all over his mouth. Little Miss Helpful removes the bandages by ripping them away, and based on Mr Tall’s “Owwwwwwwwch!”, she offers to get him some cream for his sore mouth.
“Let me help!” says Little Miss Helpful, again and again.
“No,” Mr Tall finally groans. “Go away!” The lesson could not be more simple and precise: we cannot be helpful without paying attention to the true needs of those who we intend to help. We may even do more harm than good.
How do we translate these lessons into our workplace? First, before you approach a co-worker with an offer to help, make a mental list of the specific skills and experiences you bring to the “helping” table. Though effective and significant help can consist of simple tasks, it is unlikely that your co-worker will ask you to tie their shoelaces. So, identify the strengths you have to offer. Then, get organized. You can’t be fully present for your co-workers if your own desk and task-list are a mess. Finally, prepare yourself to give your co-worker your full attention as a good listener and observer.
Three Rules of Effective Helping
If you only adopt one new rule for being helpful, make it this: Keep in mind that you are not a mind-reader. You have no idea what motivates your co-workers, or what they value — unless you ask, and then give your full attention to their answers.
The second rule directly relates to the first: Put yourself in your co-worker’s shoes. Expect that your first idea of how to help your co-worker is based on your assumptions, and is therefore misguided. Ask questions to gain their perspective, and then listen well. Also, observe their behavior as they give you their answers. Are they nervous, bored, or frustrated? The topic that elicits the most emotion from them is where their values lie.
Third rule: Once you discover what motivates your co-worker, and the factors involved in their specific challenges, tailor your offer of help. Are they up against a deadline with no time to grab lunch? Are they over their head in simple but tedious paperwork? Are they having interpersonal problems with another co-worker, and just need a sympathetic ear? Identify what you can do for them, depending on their specific needs.
To round out these three rules of effective helping, add one last item — feedback. As you help, and after you complete a helpful task, ask your co-worker what you could do differently or better next time. Don’t overthink this question. A simple “How’d I do?” or “Did I miss anything?” will suffice. You could explain to your co-worker that you’re trying to become a better helper, but that may be unnecessary. In any case, this feedback is integral to your effectiveness now and in the future.
Expand Your Helping Perspective
Once you get to know your co-workers’ specific needs and challenges, and you feel as though you are a more intuitive and compassionate helper, expand your perspective. Are there commonalities among your co-workers’ struggles? Would one co-worker’s skill set benefit another? What if you brought a small group of co-workers together, with the goal of sharing their skill sets with each other? For example, perhaps one co-worker knows a software program better than anyone else in the office. Perhaps another co-worker knows the best contacts for effective communication within a client’s company. The knowledge that your co-workers have (and take for granted) may be what your other co-workers need — but none of them know it. Why not be the one to fix that missing link?
When Little Miss Helpful was read to me when I was a child, I squirmed and cringed throughout the story. I could not understand why Little Miss Helpful was so bad at helping. She wanted to help and that should be enough, I thought. Weren’t my friends and I instructed by adults to be helpful, and congratulated for acting on that impulse? But in practice, Little Miss Helpful let her impulses and intentions blind her — a condition that I now know, as an adult, is common.
On a regular basis, I work with a delivery man, Mr Smith, who brings pallets of supplies to my office. At this point we know each other well, as co-workers. I know that he has a large family that includes several smart and striving kids. One day Mr Smith told me a story about another of his clients, a successful businessman. This businessman, on hearing of Mr Smith’s large family, offered to help put Mr Smith’s oldest son through college — an amazing offer. But Mr Smith did not need any help in that area.
The businessman had made several wrong assumptions — that Mr Smith wasn’t paid well enough, and that Mrs Smith wasn’t paid well enough either. What’s more, he assumed that Mr Smith’s son wasn’t capable of applying for, and achieving, a full academic scholarship (which he did). The businessman thought that he knew Mr Smith’s situation well enough to make that particular offer, and ended up putting Mr Smith in the awkward position of explaining why he didn’t need the businessman’s help.
You want to help, and that’s great. Just don’t get lost in your good intentions. If you find your inner monologue saying something like “I want to help. Why won’t you let me help!” it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate your approach. Above all, shift your definition of help from what you can do for others to include what you can learn from those you help.