I Need Your Help.Hello, Subscriber First Name, I need your help. That simple sentence can change everything. Yet it’s hard for most of us to say these words. Why? For each of us, there is a constellation of reasons, including how we were raised and how our gender or background informs the way we show up at work. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we have a persona to we want to project and protect. We want to show up as confident, smart, expert, and independent. Each of these qualities is at odds with asking for help. I stumbled upon this four-word sentence, by accident many years ago, long before I was a coach. I was a mid-level manager at a Fortune 500 company. I was responsible for managing a team of designers, the budget for our projects, and keeping our projects on track. In my role as keeper of the schedules for my projects, I was often in the office of our production (project) manager, let’s call her Sam, negotiating for more time. Sam and I had a very rocky relationship. She would cut me off in meetings and was very difficult to work with. This contentious relationship continued for months, until I finally stopped by her office to ask for a truce. The moment I asked for this, Sam proceeded to tell me how much she dreaded working with me! She told me that every time I opened my mouth in meetings, she felt I was trying to throw her under the bus! I was shocked, but luckily—because I was stunned—I didn’t interrupt. I was also curious to hear more about how she experienced me, so that we could break our pattern of miscommunication. After a few minutes of her revealing her frustrations and assumptions about me, she took a long pause and thanked me for opening the door to this conversation. She admitted that she felt terrible about how she behaved with me. I was stunned and grateful. I now had a clue about what was driving her harsh behavior towards me. It also taught me that it takes two to tango. Until that moment, I hadn’t considered MY role in our tussles—I was too focused on feeling attacked, to consider what I might have been doing to trigger her responses. What became clear in Sam’s release of pent up feelings, was that she believed I didn’t respect her! I had no idea, until that moment, how my questions in our weekly status meetings put her on the spot, and made her feel disrespected. In my family, asking questions was encouraged and not considered disrespectful. Yet, in this context at work, her persona of being competent and in charge was being challenged by my questions. Wow. Ok, now what? That conversation with Sam changed my life. It showed me how vital it is to look at any antagonistic interaction from both sides, and to wonder how things look through the other person’s eyes. With my new perspective of how Sam viewed me, I tried an experiment. The next time I needed to ask Sam for more time for my team’s project, I went to her office and said: I need your help. This changed everything! She smiled, sat back in her chair, and replied Hi Etta, pull up a chair. How can I help you? It took my breath away! I explained that my project was running behind, and I needed more time in the schedule. She looked at the schedule and quickly came up with an excellent solution that worked for the project and gave me the time I requested. I practiced this approach whenever I needed something from Sam. It worked every time. I always got what I asked for and it repaired our relationship. It also taught me these lessons: 1. Ask for what you need. The door to repairing our relationship was opened when I asked her for a truce. 2. Listen first, don’t interrupt. Listen to understand what is driving the other person and what they care about. Don’t try to defend your position. In the heat of the moment, they won’t hear you. Wait until things cool down. 3. Explore YOUR role in the tussle. Unless you accept your role in the conflict, you will never resolve it, or find a way to repair the relationship and move forward. 4. It’s ok to ask for help. I was raised to be independent and to solve my problems before asking for help. I brought this belief to work, by always coming with a solution. That approach worked beautifully when I was raising an issue with my boss. But, as Sam taught me, if you lead with a solution with your peers, it can backfire. When you ask them for help, it shows you respect their opinion and their expertise. It also allows them to relax when you show up at the door—that you are not there to attack or criticize them. Stay tuned for a story about the way a client used these simple four words to repair a relationship at work.
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