Manager: Your colleague's got too much on their plate; do you have bandwidth to help?
Me: I've got a little bit, what do they need help with?
My manager asked me to take a fairly routine task that involved coordinating with staff in the lab. I got a download from my colleague and set about doing some initial research. Once I had a solid set of baseline information, I checked in with the folks in the lab to make sure I was on the right track and to get clarification on some questions. I returned to my desk to find my colleague loitering. It turns out they wanted an update on the work I was doing...it had been less than an hour. I told them everything was under control, which apparently was not the answer they'd expected/wanted. They proceeded to ask a bunch of detailed questions about how far I'd progressed and details of what I'd done up to that point. I reiterated that things were under control and refused to engage in a lengthy discussion about the steps I'd taken to help them with their routine task, after all, my colleague was overloaded and didn't have the bandwidth to do this work.
A little while later I'd pulled everything together and gone back to the lab for a final double check before I hit "send" to complete the task. Next thing I know, my colleague is hanging out in the lab trying to look busy and failing miserably. The lab manager rolled looked at me, rolled their eyes and said, "What's your colleague doing out here checking up on you? I thought they were so busy they didn't have time to work on this with us." I just shrugged.
Once the task was completed, I went to update my manager, with whom I had a good working relationship. Then I said, "You know I'm always happy to help, but next time you ask me to help [colleague's name], please make sure [they are] too busy to have time to follow me around watching me do their work for them."
Several hours later, my colleague came by and incredulously reported that they'd heard I was done with the task.
I've lost count of the times I've witnessed people asking for help only to be unprepared when help arrived. Some Examples: A team lead plead desperately to hire more resources for their team only to see them all quit in succession shortly after being hired because their the lead struggled to loosen the reins enough to delegate. I was asked to help on a three week push to the finish but the person requesting help struggled to verbalize what was needed, finally admitting defeat after two and a half weeks. A team member reaching out to me for new work because they were under tasked after I'd deployed them to project that desperately needed their specialized skillset.
Every leader I know has more work to be done than available resources. Many struggle to take advantage of available help when it arrives. If you or one of your leads are struggling, these tips will set you up for success the next time around:
- Make a List - I keep a (mental) list of important but not urgent and nice-to-have tasks. Any time someone comes to me with bandwidth, I'm ready to assess their skillset against my list and set them to work.
- Be Adaptable - The person best suited for a particular task is often unavailable. I find that being adaptable enough to help stretch into the task not only leads to the task getting finished sooner, it also allows for employee growth, provides an opportunity to cross-train and often yields creative solutions.
- Make time for the handoff - Making time for a handoff is crucial to the successful completion of the task. You often have key information or context that the other person will need. Results will be better and faster if you take time on the front end to clearly communicate needs, expectations and details.
- Be available for questions - Unless it's low hanging fruit, your surge resource is going to have questions once they start digging in. Making yourself or an appropriate delegate available for follow-up questions is crucial to successful completion yet is often overlooked.
- Let go of having it done your way - You've asked for help because you don't have the bandwidth to do everything (a frustrating side-effect of being human!). There is plenty of flexibility in how most tasks can be accomplished. If there are specific elements that need to be done a certain way or a particular procedure that needs to be followed, make that clear and explain why it needs to be done that way, then leave the rest of the elements up to the helper.
Being ready to make the most of extra bandwidth or surge support is a skill that will uplevel you as a leader. The resource helping you will appreciate being brought up to speed quickly, the folks being offloaded will feel less burdened and the team will accomplish their objectives in a timely fashion.
Are you truly ready for help when it arrives? Have you created or reviewed your list lately? What can you do to be better prepared for help when it arrives?
I'd love to hear from you. Please comment below or send me a note via the Connect section of the home page.
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