Art of Asking Help

Recently, I came across some folks who were anxious to know how to do a certain task but they were not willing to use the word HELP. “Can you please help me with this ?” or “Could you please guide me on how to go ahead with this?” - There are always a few bigger questions that you face on your way to achieve your goals.

Let’s start with a brief example. Last week, I ordered a trimmer but the quality was not up to the mark. I used it only once and it broke down. Rather than seeking help from someone else, I took it on my ego and started its dissection. With the natural instinct of an engineer that I can do it on my own (although I have pursued computer science stream :P ), I started opening the machine and found out the problem (Easiest task to do your entire life :) ). I felt that I understood its mechanism and decided that it could be repaired without help. It turned out to be the painful situation when you’re the only one at home with engineering background and you can't fix up even a small machine in your house. There was a small soldering defect where a wire was to be fixed. Then struck the devil ! I ended up with a permanent failure of the machine. Now, what went wrong here? Well that is a million dollar question. I had fixed the wire to the wrong socket which led to a short- circuit. But, was it the only mistake I made?

On a daily basis, I interact with lots of employee, who like me are not ready to use the word 'help'. Often new people joining an organisation think of themselves as self sufficient. They believe that they know everything because they were hired for the same reason. Some of them don't feel comfortable approaching people for direction. On the other hand, experienced people think that why should they share their experience until it is asked for. This creates a division between the two. One side keeps experimenting without guidelines from the experienced lot.

Let’s consider these two sides as X & Y. Further, let’s assume I am Mr. X and Mr. Y as someone who can help me in my task, the task being correcting the defect in my trimmer. Here, I could have two ways - either asking for help or not. Now let’s understand the case where I thought that with my prior experience I felt that I could handle it on my own.

The thought of how people would perceive my actions led me into a dilemma - What if I fail? vs "What if I succeed?"

The idea of repairing the trimmer on my own was tempting. If I would have asked for help I could have probably saved the trimmer from unfortunate demise. But I chose otherwise, which eventually led to the permanent damage to the dear machine. All this happened because this poor soul was fishing for some appreciation.

Reward and seeking recognition is very often the reason that deters people from asking help. Many such Mr. X fail because they are not ready to ask/accept the help from Y.

This brings to my mind a recent conversation with a friend, an ex-colleague. During our interaction I came to know that he was looking out for a new role. Being an HR, I asked him, “Why are you planning for the next move in such a short span?” and out came the reply “My superior have some issues with me, he never supports me but he keeps on helping others who are at the similar level”. Again, I asked, "Have you ever asked for help from him?” and he replied, "Never".

I ended up explaining the same logic as above. This eventually led him to understand the escalation that he had so far and the problem that existed between the two.

All of us are in a race - a race to achieve targets and fame which comes from achieving them. But, in an organisation we are all running together - as a team. An attitude of asking and giving help drives the team in the same direction. Simply, asking for help is one of the easiest way to connect and bring people on the same desk.They meet, they discuss, they find , they choose the best and then they execute.

Final results are never promising until the entire team works together to achieve the goals. In an organisation, teams which know how to ask for help are invariably the most productive teams -  they entertain new ideas, share them, find new ways of dealing with the problem and most importantly they are always on the same page !.

Let’s teach and learn to ask help!

Here i start asking for help - thanks to editor @SandeepKumar.