Nana Knows Some Stuff

Is it just me or does everyone find asking for help a hard things to do?

Whether it is help with something big or small, something personal or something work-related, something easy or hard, I sense that it’s not just me who struggles.

As kids, we are encouraged to do things ourselves and rewarded for it. I think that sets the stage for our independence in both good and bad ways.

For this post I’m going to focus on the importance of learning when (and how) to ask for help in your work environment specifically. If you are like me, you are a doer and a pleaser and you tend to say ‘Sure’ whenever someone asks you for help. Sometimes that can backfire – when you have too much on your plate already, when your deadlines are overlapping, when you aren’t sure where to start.

When this happens, we do our best to get things done, but often the squeaky wheel gets the oil so we prioritize things based on who is asking for it the loudest and not necessarily based on what really needs to be focused on first. We juggle what we can but let’s just be honest and say if I were in the circus it wouldn’t be as a juggler!

We don’t want to stop helping people. Or start saying ‘No’ all the time. But we have to know when to help ourselves by raising a hand.

I had a boss 20 years ago (wow it kinda hurt saying that) who was my first boss/mentor in a business setting. He taught me all about Excel, showed me how to read/write formulas, saw that I was eager to learn and gave me the support and opportunity to grow (including tapping my shoulder when the company decided to implement Salesforce which changed the trajectory of my career forever)!

I’ll never forget one of the sayings he used to have when giving me something to work on – he used to say:

You have to know when to holler calf-rope!

I didn’t actually know what that meant and had to ask. According to the Dictionary for American Regional English, calling calf-rope means to give in, surrender, to capitulate and was a phrase used in children’s games.

Basically, that it’s ok to work on something on my own for a while but I can’t be too proud to say I need help. And to do it before things become too painful. I didn’t take it as admitting defeat, but instead acknowledging that I could use a hand or a nudge in the right direction.

And now, 20 years down the line, I encounter co-workers and team members who are trying as hard as they can to stay afloat. Some folks who need some lessons in hollering calf-rope! So here are a few things I’ve learned:

• Get used to asking ‘When do you need this?‘ when someone asks if you can do something for them. It will help you to determine whether you do, indeed, have the bandwidth to take it on. If you don’t ask but just say sure, then you already have mis-aligned objectives. The person asking likely doesn’t know what else you are working on or when those things are due so it is up to you to ask the right questions.
• If it’s not clear up front (in the request) always find out ‘How do you need this?‘ Do they just need an informal summary of your findings in a teams message? Do they need a document with screenshots? If you are configuring something, what do they need you to show them when completed? This will save you a lot of heartache when you think they just want you to tell them what you found out and they are expecting a slide deck with formal recommendations.
• Be wary of vague requests and try to gather as much information as possible. Do you have all the information you need to be successful? If not, who can provide that information? I hate it when someone just asks, ‘Would you have time this week to help so-and-so with <insert process here>’ – help how? Answer questions? Do it for them? Set it up? Tear it down? Translate it into pig latin? Without the proper context you could be signing up for something that you really don’t have the time for.

Even when we do the above, we can still easily become overloaded. In the consulting space, we are often on multiple projects at various stages, we work with different teams that have different priorities and deadlines. So you are truly the only one who knows everything on your own plate. When one project manager asks you to work on something, she doesn’t necessarily know you planned to work on your other project today unless you speak up.

Task Management tools can be a big helper in this area – so others know what tasks you are working on and when, but even the best ones have limitations. Some are limited to client/project tasks only and don’t include non-project related items, sometime projects are managed in different ways or systems, and any tool is only as good as the data that is being entered into it and the people looking at it to make decisions. This isn’t a post about task management tools themselves (although hit me up to talk about the project management capabilities of Certinia for services organizations), but instead think of ways we can keep track of our own to-do list and deadlines in a way that we can raise our hand for help when it gets a bit…ahem…unruly!

I get overwhelmed when I have too much to do and it feels chaotic. So I’ve developed my own system where each week on Friday I do the following:

• I look at our Resource Planner to see what hours my PM’s have allocated to me for the upcoming week and I pop open a spreadsheet and I start a little table showing each project and the Scheduled hours.
• Then I look at the upcoming week on my calendar. What meetings do I have? Is everything up to date on there? In the spreadsheet I list out the number of hours I have booked for meetings (grouped by Project) – so it’ll show Project A – 4 hrs, Project B – 2 hrs, Internal Meetings – 2 hrs and so on.
• For each of the meetings, do I need to prep for anything? If so – I block out time on my calendar so I can prepare. (could be research needed or a slide deck or just 30 minutes of mental prep before the call!) In the same spreadsheet I’ll add a column by each Project and indicate meeting Prep time required.
• Next column in the spreadsheet is the number of hours (outside of meetings) that I need for actual action items/to-dos for each Project.
  • Typically this involves creating a list under the table with the action items listed, which project, due dates (if any), priority and estimated hours.
• Now that I have the hours needed between Meetings and Prep and Action Items, I look at my work calendar (how many hours I have in each day available to work) and look to see how many of the action items I can take on.

Now this is where I’ve learned to holler calf-rope! When I’m looking at my list and between the meetings and prep and action items, if the hours are well over my work calendar hours, I know I need to take a hard look at things. Are there deadlines I can push? Is there work I can delegate?

Sometimes I simply raise my hand and ask my peeps to help prioritize – I can quickly send a group message to my multiple project managers and manager and say: ‘here are all the things I have on my list and deadlines – can y’all help me determine what to work on!’

As I said before – often these folks don’t know the extent of the things I’m working on because they are only responsible for their Project. When I’m working on multiple projects I need them to communicate together and sometimes compromise together to ensure we can get the work done so everyone is happy and I’m not burnt out!

And for those who may be worried that it will make you look weak or like you can’t handle things or whatever – that is simply head trash. I can guarantee that any PM or Manager worth their salt would rather you be open and honest with them about how much time it will take you to do things and what other competing items are on your plate than for you to stay silent and get buried under unachievable deadlines and throw multiple projects in turmoil.

Learn how and when to holler. CALF-ROPE!

Typically I use the spreadsheet I created and just adjust it week over week. Also – I block my calendar for the times when I need to be heads down working on something. It helps me plan the work down to the day I’m going to do it, but also to protect the time from others who may think an open slot on my calendar means I have time to do extra stuff!

Staying organized, being deliberate when saying ‘Sure’ to additional work, and knowing when to ask for help are just a few of the ways I stay sane in a busy busy work environment. (psst – this also applies to things at home as well!)

Any tips you’ve learned over the years to help manage?