How To Encourage Your People Not to Hesitate to Ask For Assistance
In a previous post, we explained different reasons why encouraging your people to ask for help is beneficial to your Optometry practice, their development, the development of the collaborative spirit within your team, and the improvement of your leadership skills as an Optometrist and private practice owner. Understanding the importance of encouraging your people to ask for assistance is one thing and knowing how to ask for help is completely another thing that needs to be taught sometimes.
there are two main things to know about asking for help the approach and the timing. The former consists of preparing and identifying what you need help with, what solutions you tried that did not work, the person who is most eligible and suitable to help you, the best way to collaboratively approach him, and the specific description of the problem. The latter consists of identifying the best time when the person supposed to help you are available, you are well prepared to present the problem, the mistake you made to solve the problem did or did not aggravate it, the required time to solve the problem, and the time it takes to learn and update or create a process for future use.
Gorick Ng, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right (Harvard Business Review Press) emphasizes that the first step to asking for help is to do your homework related to confirming if your problem you are trying to solve is worth asking. By considering this as a step on its own many would find the solution for their question or problem without resuming to look to someone to help them. Often times when you are on your own and you don’t have anyone to ask for help you can come up with hard-to-imagine solutions.
The second step according to Gorick Ng consists of identifying the right person who came assist you with the best outcomes and solutions for your problem. At this stage it is salient that you answer these three questions:
- Who is the best person to ask?
- When is the best time to ask?
- Where is the best place to ask?
Once you identify the right person to help you, provide clear, concise, and substantial questions that facilitate his way to provide you with the needed help. Always show respect and seriousness when presenting the problem and always be thankful and grateful for the solution and the help he provides you.
Four things to keep in mind that helpers need to help you:
1. The helper must realize that you need help.
2. The helper must believe that you want help.
3. The helper must take responsibility for helping.
4. The helper must be able to provide what you need.