Help people learn and grow

I bet anyone of you had been in a situation where they had no clue of how things are working or how to tackel a specific problem. I have been in a lot of such situation and I’m in such situations from time to time again. There is nothing wrong with not knowing how something works or asking for support in such situations.

How I started with struggling in a new role

When I started my career in IT, I was always interested in how things work and what I can achieve with the technology in my hands. At first it was all easy, I knew a lot from my first websites that I programmed and designed, I knew a lot of process related topics and I thought there is nothing I can’t learn or understand. And then I came across a new technology with three letters “SAP”. This was my first start into a new position and I had not much knowledge about SAP and SAP Administration. I joined a small team of very knowledgble people and I felt lost. I had so many questions and probably asked so much simple things in the team but I got help. I got help from a team member who was not just showing me things, she helped me find the solutions on my own with some support.

This is where I started to have a different perspective on learning, supporting and help people grow. To me learning new things and trying things becomes more and more important every year. I’m humble to try out new things, figure out how stuff works and also support others with their struggles, especially with processes and technology. I learned this early in my career and try to give this back to any of my team members or others people I get in touch with. Not how to solve the stuff or how it works in a specific tool, it is more about giving back the insight into figuring it out on your own with a little helping hand.

What am I doing for this mindset shift

Basically this is not much what I’m doing. Most of the time when I get a question how this works, how we could do xyz or what is your opinion on the best solution, etc. I react with silence for some seconds. This is causing most people who ask these questions to think, they try to get an answer from me so they start talking. They start explaining their thoughts that brought them to the question or explaining their opinion on the solution options they presented. And you know what in a lot of cases this is already enought that they find the answer to their question on their own.

But what about those who still have the question and can’t figure it out?

There are situations where this tactic doesn’t work. In such cases I use different options.

1. Educate by showing how it works or how I would do it.
2. Explaining how it can work and guide them.
3. Ask clarifying questions that they have to answer that points them to a potential solution or idea.
4. Give time to figure something out on their own via trial and error.

All of these options work to some degree, but it all depends on the person sitting next to you. You have to find out what works best for whom but I can ensure you the more you get to #4 the more the person will grow. There is one sentence that got stuck to me since I experienced it on my own and several times on various team members I pushed into the was of learning and growing.

Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, let me do it and I keep it

Konfuzius

You can see that this is very similar to what i described above. And it really is a game changer for yourself as well as for your team. The more your team learns and explores on their own the more you can go into deeper discussions of solutions. And this is not only about technology or coding, this method is helpful in all life situations.

When I had my first leadership role, I was very nervous because there was no formal course, there was no mentor, I was on my own to figure out how this new role needs to be fulfilled and also what my role would be. I’m in middle management so still in the “Sandwich” position. In this role you have to handle a lot of expecations - goals from the top, keep pressure away from the team, deal with emotions and lifes of your team that influences performance, etc. What really helped me was figuring out how leadership can work. And you know what, there is no right or wrong, it all depends on the team and what experience they made. Same happened to me.

• I read books on leadership, what helped me already at the start and I still use some ideas and lessons I read.
• I received some trainings with role playes, etc. That also helped but was never the real situation and when it happened it was difficult to remember.
• I tried various things and luckily my team was open to this because I explained them that it is all about them and not me what I try to do to improve team morale, performance and support heir career.

And you know what, the last point stuck the most with what I learned and how fast I was able to grow into my role. It teached me again how important it is to figure it out on your own or at least experience the path. This leads to sustainable growth and a mindset that helps trying things and learning from failures and successes instead of copying theory or do what others were telling you to do.

Don’t be a lemming

I’m not sure how many of you know the lemmings video game. This was mostly where a lot of lemmings were running behind each other and followed the action of the previous lemming. It was a funny game but it reminded me in my job how it often works. You get a new team member or student, you show them how xyz goes and what they have to do for this, they copy and follow your advice step by step. Then there comes a similar use case but a little different and they get lost, reach out to you and ask you for advise. Now you have the options from above. Show them again this use case and they now know what they do in both cases. Explain them the diffference and what they could do, and they might get the cure for future similar use cases. Guide them to figure out the solution on their own and they will do this the next time as well before they reach out for help.

So don’t play the lemming game! Help people learn and grow because from this you learn and grow as well.