How often do we ask this question?
How can you help me is typically what we ask.
All of us by nature are born with the innate desire to find out how we can be helped by associating with others. Call it selfishness, survival, whatever you want to call it. We are born with this desire to find out how we will benefit by the interaction with another.
Our employees want to know how they will get to a better place by working for us as well. Just like us, they want to know how their lives will improve. It’s up to us to answer that question each and every time we interact with them. If we chose not to, then we will find ourselves losing engagement from our employees. We want to have people coming to us with ideas on how to improve, with engagement, with excitement to work with us!
The question we should be asking ourselves is what do we have in our capabilities to make the lives better? How by working with us will their lives be better? This is a crucial change in our focus. Instead of focusing on how we can benefit, we need to shift that focus onto how we can help. What is it that we, and our organization can do to help the employees flourish?
What do we have in our capabilities to enrich those that work for us and with us to improve their lives. Do we know what major events are going on in their lives and what capabilities we have to come along side them to help? We don’t need to get into tons of details, but if we knew someone lost a loved one, could other people in the group rally around to pick up some of the slack that will likely get dropped for a shot period of time?
One thing that I have strived to do is add value in each interaction. It doesn’t have to be monetary all the time. It can be helping the employees learn a new skill or software, ideas and local hot spots for a vacation, life hacks, deals, or helping them find toilet paper when the country is freaking out during a pandemic. Finding out what they need help with and stepping in shows that we value others and they will pick up on that.
The key is to take the focus off of wondering how we can capitalize from the exchange and how we can add value. I love the quote from Zig Zigler that says, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough people get what they want.” It really works and the outcome is far greater than we would have expected. It is harder to accept something with a closed fist, but with an open hand more can be added.
Helping others when they need help will grow trust and influence to where they will run with us in the heat of battle for the cause. Engagement will increase and we will see more output with those that we help and value. Let’s focus on how we can help instead of what we can gain from an interaction. That will drive better results.
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”