One of my frequent exhortations of business leaders is that they should ask for help. Not necessarily in the style of, “Please help me, I’m falling!!” More in the shape of, “What do you think of this idea?” or “What else should we consider, as we search for a solution to this situation?” Asking for help opens up a whole wellspring of opportunities for a leader to create a charge that releases the creative and intellectual power that resides in a business.
When leaders ask for help, the business is acculturated around behaviours that reflect how a humanized environment should look and feel. A huge payoff is that the climate is so oxygen-rich, that people can breathe. Individuals no longer feel that they need to walk on eggshells around each other.
It’s no secret that emotional currency is not always the strong suit of business leaders. When asking for help is accepted as a sign of strength, it’s an indicator that the community is becoming emotionally mature. A business that is transitioning to a state in which this level of emotional currency is being normalized, will begin to liberate itself from the emotional distress that handicaps so many of its counterparts.
Asking for help opens up a whole wellspring of opportunities for a leader to create a charge that releases the creative and intellectual power that resides in a business.
Collaboration becomes fashionable, because leaders have given the environment permission to allow people to create value and become valuable to each other. When the business says that its customers are valued…….it is meant, because it’s a lived experience on the inside.
Let me sit with this concept of people creating value for each other through voluntary collaboration for a minute and share a personal experience.
A young man and his team were completing a job at my home recently and it was a heart-warming experience to see these young men working diligently, as a team, creating value for each other. They were such a well-oiled team, that in many instances, they didn’t even need to ask each other for help. What was needed, was done. No words.
The point that I want to highlight is that whilst there was an element of teamworking at play, the intentionality of creating value for each other, was the first principle driving their interactions.
Collaboration becomes fashionable, because leaders have given the environment permission to allow people to create value and become valuable to each other.
Team cultures like this one aren’t created through happenstance. They are created when team leaders permit the team environment to be focussed on value chain creation that is mastered within the internal customer chain, first. Needless to say, the team did an excellent job and included the bonus of allowing me to marvel at the result of the team leader’s effort at creating an environment that celebrates voluntary collaboration.
Asking for help is not an easy feat for many leaders. Nor is mastering the art of framing a culture that boasts an organic approach to normalizing actions that are colleague-centric. That is, when individuals “want” to create value for their colleagues, in an authentic way.
Leaders who understand that the ability to affect the quality of another individual’s day, is one of the highest callings of leadership.
So, how does a leader get started on the journey of creating a team where voluntary collaboration is the norm?
One of the first actions is for the leader to become a person of value to his or her team members. A person of value is one who can be trusted in thought, word and deed. He or she can be trusted to honour small contracts. For example, making and keeping a promise. In the grand scheme of the busyness of the day, when a leader can remember to respond to a request, regardless of how “insignificant it may appear to be,” people remember that the leader remembered.
Another thing, when a leader acts in a way that communicates the importance of treating each individual with respect, the entire community begins to value dignity. Everyone believes that he or she is a person of value within the community.
Voluntary collaboration emerges when individuals place value creation above risk aversion.
Leaders who understand that the ability to affect the quality of another individual’s day, is one of the highest callings of leadership, bring a different level of stewardship to their teams.
Voluntary collaboration emerges when individuals place value creation above risk aversion. They are propelled by freedom from fear of retaliation, because their leaders have made it clear, that asking for help by welcoming a range of perspectives, is a sign of strength.
Voluntary collaboration emerges when individuals realize that they are valued and that the currency being used to calculate their value, is the fact that they are human.