Continuing, for regular readers, with last week’s tree clearing saga today I loaded all of the (large and heavy) segments of tree trunk into my car on a protective tarpaulin and took them down to the nearest tip (now recycling plant). I staggered from my car to the garden skip with 5 substantial bits of the tree trunk and various smaller branches. Just as I was finishing one of the tip workers came up, took the now empty tarpaulin out of the car and shook out the leftover leaves and twigs. This was a nice gesture and I thanked him – but it did occur to me that he could have been more helpful with the earlier heavy lifting!
Helping people is a great thing to do, when they want help and you can genuinely provide it. A former partner of mine at a law firm told me how when he had been a junior lawyer working at 1am in the morning in a city law firm a partner on his way home asked why he was there so late. He then sat down, removed his coat and helped his junior colleague to complete his task and at least get some sleep that night.
It’s not actually that easy a topic. This Harvard Business Review article “How to Get the Help You Need”commences with the observation Few of us enjoy asking for help. As research in neuroscience and psychology shows, the social threats involved—the uncertainty, risk of rejection, potential for diminished status, and inherent relinquishing of autonomy—activate the same brain regions that physical pain does.
It goes on to explain how we all need help in the workplace these days where Cross-functional teams, agile project management techniques, matrixed or hierarchy-minimizing structures, and increasingly collaborative office cultures require you to constantly push for the cooperation and support of your managers, peers, and employees – and suggests ways of effectively seeking assistance.
Maybe on reflection I should have saved my back and asked for help earlier at the tip! It also seems to be important for organisations and for ourselves to provide help.
This Forbes article “10 Ways To Help Others That Will Lead You To Success” proposes that Helping others should be a natural extension of every business leader’s responsibilities and provides some ideas on how to do this.
While a CBS commentary “Doing small acts of kindness may lower your stress” cites a Yale and UCLA study where "The take-home message is that when we are stressed and we help others, we can also end up helping ourselves.”
Abraham Lincoln once said “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help” while a later president of the United States Ronald Reagan commented “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”
Helping people is a great thing to do, when they want help and you can genuinely provide it. A former partner of mine at a law firm told me how when he had been a junior lawyer working at 1am in the morning in a city law firm a partner on his way home asked why he was there so late. He then sat down, removed his coat and helped his junior colleague to complete his task and at least get some sleep that night.
It’s not actually that easy a topic. This Harvard Business Review article “How to Get the Help You Need”commences with the observation Few of us enjoy asking for help. As research in neuroscience and psychology shows, the social threats involved—the uncertainty, risk of rejection, potential for diminished status, and inherent relinquishing of autonomy—activate the same brain regions that physical pain does.
It goes on to explain how we all need help in the workplace these days where Cross-functional teams, agile project management techniques, matrixed or hierarchy-minimizing structures, and increasingly collaborative office cultures require you to constantly push for the cooperation and support of your managers, peers, and employees – and suggests ways of effectively seeking assistance.
Maybe on reflection I should have saved my back and asked for help earlier at the tip! It also seems to be important for organisations and for ourselves to provide help.
This Forbes article “10 Ways To Help Others That Will Lead You To Success” proposes that Helping others should be a natural extension of every business leader’s responsibilities and provides some ideas on how to do this.
While a CBS commentary “Doing small acts of kindness may lower your stress” cites a Yale and UCLA study where "The take-home message is that when we are stressed and we help others, we can also end up helping ourselves.”
Abraham Lincoln once said “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help” while a later president of the United States Ronald Reagan commented “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”
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