So – just how easy do you find it to ask for help? For some people this isn’t a problem. BUT …. for the silent majority, this is a major issue. Are you a part of this silent majority that comes up against different and many issues, can’t figure out what to do, so just keeps pushing on expecting – hoping – that you’ll solve the problem. Good luck with that strategy. Hope never was a winning strategy for any business owner. And it never will be.
You will all know one of those men – jokingly, or not – who have never been lost. Geographically challenged, maybe – but never lost ! They drive around for ages refusing help. Why? Logically, there is no reason to do so, but I know from my own experiences – whether it be an actual driving experience or another problem that needed solving, that there is a huge personal self-satisfaction in being the person who solved the problem. Let’s look at a retail scenario. I’m not suggesting that the following is a total generalisation – but how often, when a husband and wife are out shopping for, say, a Christmas present for their child does the wife look for assistance, while the husband insists that he’ll find it without any help? Interestingly, a very good friend of mine, and his wife, were out shopping doing this very exact thing recently. Oh, and guess how it played out? Yes, he insisted on looking for it himself, whilst his wife just wanted to ask for direction to the relevant department. Skip forward fifteen minutes and his wife asked an assistant. The present that they were looking for? They didn’t even sell it !! If I’m being honest, I realised this is almost always what I do when I’m shopping – but it’s really not sensible!
The context of this? The similarities/parallels of everyday life with working life. As a Business Coach, my time is split half and half between helping existing clients with whatever aspects of their business needs attention, and the other half talking with business owners who have “no issues here thanks, everything is absolutely fine” and continue to try and figure it out themselves. Truth is, very few business owners look for help – worse still, don’t want to accept it when it’s available!
A much wiser colleague of mine ventures that our education system may well have a lot to do with this. Consider your own education – a good memory test if you are of my years. From Reception class through to completing our Degrees at University, we are routinely – year after year – told how ‘cheating’ is absolutely not allowed. In the latter years of education, plagiarism is thrown at us as the end of our life almost, before we’ve even had a chance to start it. “Better to do your own work and get it wrong, than to copy someone else”, we were told. It was made out to be morally and ethically wrong to ask someone else, and the punishment seemed to become more acute the older you got. It’s almost as if the PC Brigade were on red alert for the education system – “It’s not about the winning, it’s about the taking part” – what a load of PC rubbish. It may be a laudable-sounding undertaking, but in terms of setting people up for the ‘real’ work environment, where competition thrives at every level, it really is counter-productive. My colleague’s contention was that we’ve all been put off for many years to actually not ask for help – that it’s better to try forever until we work out the answer ourselves.
Let’s cut through the crap. Clearly, if you want to get somewhere faster – ask someone! Think logically for a moment – surely we believe we’ll get faster results by asking for help from someone who’s ‘been there and done that’. Hit that ‘fast forward’ button and get the shortcut you need. Oh no, I said ‘shortcut’. Rewind to the education system again– “there is no such thing as a shortcut” we are told, “it’s only your own hard work that will get you there”. Educational conditioning at its best (or worst). The more I muse over my wiser colleague’s thoughts, the more my thoughts converge with hers. The very word “shortcut” implies “cheating” so it’s avoided at all costs. Seriously, look at many SME’s. How infuriatingly often do you see business owners trying to solve problems that millions of business owners before them have already done so? It’s not even funny.
JUST ASK THE BLOODY QUESTION.
If you really are serious about wanting to take your business to the next level, but are not quite sure how to do so, how about asking people who might just know the answers? You’ll get there a whole lot quicker, and you’ll be following a recipe for success. So, who to ask? It could be your accountant, could be your bank’s Business Development Manager (as seem fashionable these days), a successful business owner or maybe your local Business Coach. Business is difficult enough without having to make everything about you solving all the problems, because you see it as your role as the owner. There is a reason Henry Ford surrounded himself with ‘people who are better than me’ – so that as he grew the Ford Motor Company, he already had the right people around him to ask the questions of.
When life is difficult, reach out and ask for some help – today! Hope really won’t take you there.
