Playing A Support Class

In any organisational culture where individual performance is important, you must be able to show that you can create meaningful impact.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to personally drive something from start to finish. To be the one who identifies the problem, proposes the solution and then delivers the expected benefit.

Of course, if everyone does that, the system kind of falls apart...

I Wonder If Your Heart Can Withstand This...

It is impossible for every person to drive something of their own at the same time.

Any business that encourages this sort of madness is just going to get itself a bunch of half-completed things that aren't delivering anywhere near the value that they could be and a whole lot of confusion from having way too many things happening at once.

That's not to say that some people should just relegate themselves to never driving something though, that would be silly. Everyone should get a chance to show that they are capable of shepherding something through from beginning to end. There just needs to be a bit of give and take.

The easiest way to provide this balance is to actively take the role of the helper, the person who collaborates with a driver in order to help them make their dream a reality.

The best part about being a helper is that at the end of the day it's a perfectly valid way to create impact anyway. Having an idea and pushing to make it a reality is all well and good, but it's highly unlikely that anything meaningful, anything that would create actual impact, can be accomplished by the driver alone.

They will need all the help that they can get.

Now That's The Sound Of Progress!

The first way that you can be a helper is to show your support.

This doesn't have to be particularly complicated or time consuming, but just acknowledging the thing they are trying to do can make all the difference. Even the lightest reinforcement that someone else cares about the thing and is willing to give it a little bit of attention can be enough to motivate the driver to push harder on making it happen.

Mechanically this can be as simple as reacting to published documents or Slack messages showing interest or as involved as signal boosting their thing on their behalf. It doesn't really matter how you do it, the important thing is that the driver sees that someone else is interested and paying attention.

The second way to provide help is to actively engage.

I know that whenever I'm trying to make something happen the hardest part is often just sorting through the mess that is my own mind. Having someone else around, someone with some context and who you can bounce ideas off can make all the difference.

In terms of specific things, actively engaging usually means giving some of your time on a regular basis, participating in brainstorming and reviewing plans or other similar documents. It's still a relatively casual way to provide help, but sometimes that's all that's needed.

The third and last way to help out is to actually do things.

Any meaningful change is going to require some actual work to make happen and sometimes that just means warm bodies doing things because the driver literally can't do it all themselves. Maybe they don't have all the skills they need to achieve their goal or maybe they just can't get it all done in the timeframe they need to target, it doesn't matter, what matters is that you can help.

I don't really have an example here because it's likely to be very specific to what the driver is trying to accomplish, but it's a more involved way to help than any of the other options and will likely require some actual time and effort.

Speaking of which, the last point I'll make here is that as a helper you need to be aware of how much capacity you have to help. Just showing your support takes very little capacity, so you can probably do it for tens or even hundreds of things at the same time, but you're unlikely to be able to meaningfully contribute to more than a handful of things at the same time.

Unless you want to just half-ass everything I suppose.

Don't Worry, Ribs Grow Back

Being a helper isn't without it's risks though.

For example, it's entirely possible to be overlooked, even when you're providing a significant amount of help. At best, a lack of recognition just makes you feel bad, but at worst, it means that you've exerted a bunch of effort that isn't going to help you with your own career progression or performance evaluation.

This could be malicious or accidental, but neither is fun.

You can avoid the malicious version by vetting the person who you are deciding to help and making sure that they aren't the sort to take credit for someone else's work. If you find yourself in a situation where you are helping someone like that, you should consciously re-evaluate whether or not staying around is worth it. It can be, depending on the situation, but you should definitely think about it.

The accidental version of being overlooked is easier to deal with, assuming you don't mind a bit of confrontation caused by standing up for yourself or speaking up about your own accomplishments.

The second risk kind of ties in with the first in that you have to be willing to suppress your own ego.

Being a helper is very different to being a driver because the driver should be the ultimate decision maker about what is going to happen and when.

You have to be okay with that, because if you aren't, you're going to generate friction for everyone involved, which isn't going to help at all.

That's not to say that you shouldn't have ideas or opinions as a helper; you definitely should. That's part of the value proposition after all. You just need to be able to let those things go if the situation calls for it and get on with what needs to be done.

Let's Go Practice Medicine!

Not everyone can drive something all the time.

The more people accept and recognise the role of being a helper, the better the outcomes for the business as a whole, and the easier it becomes for each individual to deliver on their ideas.

Speaking of which, you shouldn't default to always being a helper.

You should aim to strike a balance, helping sometimes and driving other times. I don't really have any guidance about what this balance should be, because it varies from person to person, but it's important to note all the same.

The good news is that the more you help to establish a culture of helping, the more likely it is that you're going to get the help you need when you need it.

Which is kind of why humans tend to band together in the first place.