The 3 kinds of helpers

-
Image result for helping othersSome months ago I had a pull a presentation and some analysis together quickly and needed information from a few different folks to make it happen.

Each of them just had to (more or less) tell me things they already knew or point me to folks on their teams who had exactly what I needed. All of them were ~peers.

These three people showcased the three kinds of helpers I've generally found in big companies.


  • The "Here you go": This is my favorite kind of colleague. This person (let's call him/her Person A) gave me what I needed a minute after I'd asked them, asked me if it was useful and if they could do anything else. They sent me two other related links a minute later.

    A couple of minutes after that Person A asked me what I needed this information for, and I was happy to tell them. Person A then told me of one other thing that they thought might have been relevant.

    I'm definitely going to ping Person A the next time I have a question, and I hope I get to work with them more.
  • The "Gatekeeper" or the "Hmm.. first tell me what you want it for":
    Person B also gave me the information I needed, but only after asking me what I needed the information for and requested that I share the materials I would be using this in. I would have given Person B some leeway since I've been bitten by people misinterpreting/misusing information I've given them before but Person B did the same thing to me a few weeks earlier. This seemed to be a habit.

    Person B eventually gave me what I needed and was helpful, but only after they could meet with me to understand what I would be using this for which meant I got it later in the day and needed to stay later than I would have.

    Person B subtly suggested I keep them updated on my initiative and tried to think of ways - admittedly very smoothly - that they get some credit for it.

    I think Person B will do well in their career, and is a good person to have on your team because they're good at what they do - but I will always think twice before asking them for help. 
  • The "Ignorers":
    Person C never got back to me.... ever;  even to apologize for not getting back to me.

    I had to work around them, and even though I know Person C is good at what they do and likely just decided this wasn't worth their time to think about, it has meant that my instinct will always to be to hesitate to pull Person C into anything I'm working on going forward. 
Part of being a team is helping each other. Creating a culture where more people are like Person A is the way the workplace is better for everyone in it and collectively we get more things done. 

So the next time, someone asks you for help decide what kind of helper you are. :-) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "Rescue Me" minisodes

-
I'm a fan of the FX show " Rescue Me " I was lukewarm when Dennis Leary mentioned the mini-sodes on his Daily Show visit. But, for the Rescue Me's particular situation it works really well. First the mini-sodes are actually good! they use characters from the story and tell a little anecdote they were clearly pretty cheap to produce through what seems like a little bit of complicated mess, they're distributing like crazy: YouTube , Crackle (Sony's site), the FX site (powered by Brightcove), Hulu These do exactly what they're supposed to do new episodes aren't coming till Spring 2009 , the fans need something to tide them over and keep the show in their memory: done potentially rope in new fans (short episodes, lower commitment to start watching the show) without freaking out old school media which is loathe to risk potential DVD sales by putting older episodes/clips online: done Its not completely clear to me how much this is by their own design, and
Read more

A short love letter to ~8 years on Google Search - 8 things I’m grateful for.

-
  After a few weeks off, I started a new gig within Google yesterday and it hit me that for the first time in almost eight years I won’t be working on some part of Google Search. Eight years ago, I told the team when I was interviewing that I was “looking for a place to call home for a while and grow there”. My experiences here more than met that need.  I used to write a regular “10 things about…” listy column for a while at a college newspaper. So in that style here’s 8 things (one for each year) I feel grateful to have experienced/learned in this time. Also, like that column which I banged out the night before it was due, this post is something that I don’t need to do, yet I feel somehow compelled to do (and so it’ll likely be longer and less crisp than it should be :-))    It actually is awesome to work on something so many people use and love, and that positively touches people’s lives. There’s a talk I give externally about Search and a line I often end up using is how the mission
Read more

Avengers Endgame: how trivial passions can nudge a career

-
Image
The Internets reminded me that today was exactly 2 years since Avenger's Endgame was released. I remember that day vividly for a few reasons I woke up before sunrise (way before the alarm went off).   I wore this (now that I think about it) borderline appropriate T-shir t and then..  .. showed up before 7:00am to watch that movie at Century Shoreline before going to work.  This is still the only movie that has a scene that can make me tear up consistently every single time (I know, I know - it's ridiculous).  That day was interesting from a work perspective for another reason. Along with a few other people at work (and with some crazy last-minute negotiating), we'd pulled together the Thanos Easter Egg on Search. It was typical of a lot of Easter Eggs on Search at the time, in that it wasn't really anybody's job, but we pushed it through because we loved the idea enough to do it. My day job on Media experience on Search helped me justify it a little bit I guess.
Read more