The other week, we put up a thick rope to use as a liana, al á Tarzan, for our kids. Extremely simple; just a rope, and I made a big tangled knot at the end. You can see my kids using it in the picture to the left. They loved it.
Then one day, one of our neighbors, who often helps us and stops by - nice people, came by. He looked at the rope, saw my kids struggling to climb it, and said:
“You know… it should really have a plank or something at the end so it’s easier for them to stand on.”
I said, “Nah… this is good enough for them. They are enjoying themselves plenty.”
Two days later…
This is a post on coaching, asking before helping, and not improving things that work fine.
Okay, two days later, the man came back with two nice handlebars and started to untangle my messy knot, tying the handlebars in a great position for the kids. It was clearly better, and the kids loved it.
However… I felt bad. I had not asked for that help. He forced it on me. Even though I said no. It was Forced Generosity.
Note - it was better. Clearly an improvement. But I now feel a bit dismissive towards that swing.
Coaching
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post on “Only Helping Those Who Want Help”. In that post, I was reasoning from the perspective of myself as a helper, improver, consultant.
But this episode reminded me of the inverse: “Don’t Help Those Who Don’t Want Help.” This is about respect and trust. As a consultant, as someone who wants to give you advice, I have to respect your space and state of mind.
If anything, helping/coaching is about trust (and respect). If I offer an idea and there’s reluctance or aversion towards the change, the best thing to do is to try something else. Or maybe talk about why the idea was met with those feelings. And finally, find a better way to solve the problem, or solve another problem.
¤# If It Ain’t Broken
This brings me to a sickness that I’m suffering from, and that I think is very common in our industry; we want to fix things.
Just before I wrote this, I thought about a model improvement for a site we built. It would be a much more generic and storage-effective strategy. A cleaner solution.
But the one we have works just fine. There are no indicators to show us that we will need more flexibility in our model in the future. But… but… it’s a cleaner solution.
Summary
Sometimes, or often even, my ideas about improvement are based on my own experiences and opinions. Often I fail to listen and thoroughly understand the situation. The context. The need.
This has led me to put up forced swings in teams I’ve coached. From now on, I will remember the swing in my garden in Bandung.