The Mistake Everyone Makes When Entering The Workplace…
We all have phrases that immediately initiate our worst nightmares.
“Zane, we are all out of pop-tarts.”
“Zane, how did you think that was a good idea?”
“Zane, they canceled the Mandalorian.”
Okay, I admit, these are not my worst nightmares (except the one about pop-tarts). Let me give you a real example from two years ago that came across the desk of my boss. After calling me into his office, he asked me to sit down, and began with the words, “Zane, why haven’t we made progress on this at all?”
Nightmare initiated.
Additional responsibilities had been added to my plate after we had someone transition off of our staff and I completely fell into the trap that is common for young people in the workplace. At the time, I remember wanting to do what every twenty something wants to do when they onboard into a new project or job. I wanted to prove myself.
I wanted to show up.
I wanted to show I was capable.
I wanted to show I could go above and beyond the initiative assigned to me.
The reality of the situation though is that I did show up and I didn’t make any lead way on the project as a whole. I hit dead end after dead end and didn’t say anything. I spent weeks walking away every night frustrated, resentful, and discouraged. After failing several times, I slowly began to freeze on the project as a whole. I spent less time on it. I shoved it in the corner and pretended like it wasn’t a thing.
And on that day in the office, I had to come face to face with the nightmare that had been growing day after day. The conversation was painful. The process to get back on track was painful. And the experience could have been way less painful if I had just stuck to doing one of the simplest principles any person should do on a team when they find themselves stuck.
I should have simply asked for help.
Help Will Help…
Now, even though this is simple in theory, this is difficult in reality when you find yourself in the position I found myself in two years ago.
When you’re first starting out, there is a desire to prove yourself in an organization. The hard lesson I had to learn though in the midst of this desire is that proving yourself does not always improve your situation. As a matter of fact, it can be detrimental to your situation.
Asking for help will do quite the opposite for your situation. Many work coaches have cited how one of the biggest factors in a young person having the potential to thrive in a career is simply if the young person has the ability to ask for help.1
It seems counterintuitive, but one of the best skills you can develop early on is the ability to sense when you are in over your head, when you don’t have a clear sense of the task at hand, or that you can recognize you are currently not thriving on your own directive.
Research shows the ability to quickly and accurately speak up when something isn’t working is what makes the difference in an employee who will thrive and one who will pass themselves from one thing to the next never feeling like they get into a groove.2
The principle is clear and it is not groundbreaking. Every person in the workplace needs to sharpen the skill of asking for help. The question that lies behind all this though is that if the solution to moving forward is so simple, why is it not our first instinct?
And this is where I want to help us prevent the nightmare in the first place.
Five Reasons We Don’t Ask For Help
Letting the words, “Can you help me?” roll off your tongue is a vulnerable thing for all of us but especially those of us who struggle with pride or have an Enneagram number that starts with a two (shoutout to my brothers and sisters out there who aren’t listening right now because they are saving a baby sea lion).
There is a researcher by the name of Heidi Grant who helped me get unstuck when it came to asking people for help through one of her recent works called, Reinforcements. Within her work she talks about the literal brain pain that is experienced in asking for help.
In her explanation, there are five sources of pain that can be initiated in your noggin when you consider asking for help: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness.3
All of these can contribute to your brain responding, “rather not” when considering asking your teammates or boss for help. The even worse news (in my opinion) is because your brain is so incredible, you can actually feel multiple or all five of these sources at the same time.
The helpful guidance of Grant’s research has helped me develop the muscle to overcome this pain through identifying the “why.” Find the “why,” identify the fear or the lie, and combat it by vocalizing it.
The reality I’ve come to learn is that if I don’t spend time identifying the source of the pain, I will block up the river, and all of my streams of consciousness become poisoned. I will start to blame. I will start to be cynical. I will start to think there is nothing I can do to change a situation.
This means every time I hit a roadblock, and consider the reasons I haven’t asked for help, I walk through one of the five pain points and ask what’s causing this resistance. I encourage you to think of a road block, a difficulty, or a task you haven’t completed that you need help with and walk through the five pain points asking:
Is it because of…
Status: If you ask, will you feel like your worth in the organization is at stake?
Certainty: If you ask, will you be submitting yourself to an unpredictable outcome?
Autonomy: If you ask, will you feel like you will be given less power in the future?
Relatedness: If you ask, will you feel like you will no longer be seen the same way?
Fairness: If you ask, will you feel like you will be treated unfairly or differently than others?
The reality is the Jedi mind tricks inside your brain will not help the meaningful work in front of you. When we find the source of why we resist asking, it opens up the possibility for truth, dialogue, or growth to happen for us.
In my case, I didn’t ask for help because of autonomy. I thought if I asked for help when it came to this initiative, I would be seen as irresponsible and not trusted in the future. If you don’t sit on things though, the opposite is usually true. Brene Brown shared the secret sauce at one point when it came to bosses and asking for help.
We think if we ask for help, people will not trust us in the future. The opposite is true though because in her research she said asking for help is one of the biggest trust builders you can engage between teammates and bosses. Transparency breeds trust. It reassures those you collaborate with that you have a grasp on reality and care more about the work at hand than your reputation in the end.
What’s the bottom line for helping you figure out whatever the “thing” is you’re doing right now? Ask for help when you get stuck. Do the hard work of figuring out what creates the resistance inside you and address it by vocalizing it outside of you.
Your boss will thank you. Your teammates will help you. And according to the research, your brain will ultimately thank you as well.
References:
1Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2016), 173.
2Crouch, Strong and Weak, 174.
3Heidi Grant, Reinforcements ( Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2018), 14-17.
4Brene Brown, Dare To Lead ( New York: Random House, 2018), 228.