Step 5
Invite Support
Questions to get you started:
How do you ask people for help?
How do you create an effective support relationship?
For support to be effective, it must be delivered in a way that actually helps you. In order for that to happen, you and your supporter should be equal partners, both having a voice in how you can change and how to make the support relationship work. Early in my career I was on a team in which we failed to create this equality and subsequently failed each other as supporters.
All of the members of my team strived to provide exceptional support to one another. We all prided ourselves on our ability to give one another feedback. We talked about continuously improving our skills and supporting one another’s development, and it turned out it wasn’t just talk. We did it. We gave each other feedback all the time, after meetings and presentations, on our writing and speaking, one-on-one, and in group settings. There was no topic, no 82 time, and no place that was off limits, and it was all in the name of helping our team succeed.
I was on a business trip to Miami with three of my team members, two of whom were new to the team, when one of the flaws in our support system became glaringly obvious. We had just finished a long day of client meetings and were sitting down to dinner at an outdoor café. It was warm. There were palm trees swaying in the breeze. Our cocktails had just been served. I was exhausted. And then we did what we always did after a day of meetings: we reviewed the meetings and each of our actions, looking for what was done well and what could be improved. Unfortunately, on that day, at that moment, in that atmosphere, when the discussion came around to critiquing my actions, I wasn’t in the mood.
I just wanted to sip my drink, listen to the palm trees, and have a nice, relaxing dinner. But that’s not how our system was designed. Our feedback system was designed so that when someone wanted to give you feedback, your job was to listen. I wasn’t in the mood. I fought the feedback. I rejected anything that was critical. I tuned it out if I didn’t need to respond. I set a lousy example for the new team members, and I made all of them nervous about giving me feedback in the future.
How do you create effective support relationships?
The circumstances have to be right for support and feedback to have their intended results. We all are far more welcoming of some sorts of advice over others. We welcome some questions, but not all. There are times when we are receptive, and times when we are not. Finally, there are people whose feedback we welcome and others whose feedback is difficult for us to accept.
Step 5, Inviting Support, will show you how to:
- Position the request so that your supporters feel eager to help.
- Define the support so that it works for you and your supporter.
83 The problem with my team’s system was that feedback was the goal. We said that we were striving for individual and team development, but in the end we placed delivering the feedback ahead of helping the person. We didn’t care how ready or able the other person was to hear our message. What was important was the right we each had to deliver the message.
Your challenge in inviting supporters to help you with your change is to invite them in a way that makes your relationship productive for your goals. This is a tricky process. You have to invite people in a way that gives you enough control over the situation that you will want to receive their support, and gives them enough flexibility that they will want to provide the support. It isn’t enough simply to ask someone to help. You have to make the request in a way that it truly supports your needs. Here is what Darrell discovered.
The Critic
I was really committed to changing my ways and wanted to start right away. I told everyone I could about what I was trying to do and asked them to let me know if I came across as critical. At first this was helpful. I got called on a couple of comments where I was heavy-handed with people. That was great, but it didn’t take long for this to go overboard. Pretty soon all of these people who were supposed to be helping me were stifling every comment I made.
All of a sudden I couldn’t make even the slightest suggestion without being told that I was being critical. The truth was that I needed to be critical. I was a manager and a father. There were times when my responsibilities required that I criticize things, but there was no way to differentiate between good criticism and bad criticism. So then I started fighting back against the very people whom I had asked for help. Then I was told that I was being even more critical because of the way I defended myself.
I created a terrible cycle in which two things became very clear to me. The first was that people could definitely help me. The people I asked for help were all too happy to let me know when they thought 84 had messed up. The second was that I needed a better system for how to use this help. I needed a much better plan for how and when would seek input from the people around me.
Darrell’s system and my old team’s system were both flawed. They both made the receiver of the feedback powerless. These were not partnerships. Rather, they were one-way streets designed to satisfy the person delivering the feedback, not to provide maximum support to the person receiving the feedback. Darrell needed something in his system that would allow him to discuss his actions without being labeled as defensive. In my old team we needed a hold button. Our members needed the right, on occasion, to hold off on the feedback until the next day.
Position Your Request
Your supporters need to know that you really want their help, that their help is important because you respect them, and that you will be open to their input, or it will be all too easy for them to disregard your request for help. In order for you to convince someone to help you, you need to overcome some possible sources of resistance. Consider the following concerns about trusting your motives and commitment:
- No way am I going to tell him what he’s really doing. For what? So he can bite my head off and hold it against me that I criticized him?
- He doesn’t really want help. He just wants to feel better about himself. He’s just saying he wants to know to convince himself that he’s not as bad as he is.
- He doesn’t want to change. He’s just asking for my input because it will make him look like he’s trying to improve.
Or how about the concern your supporter may have about his ability to deliver a tough message:
- I hate doing this. It’s just going to make him feel bad. 85 I can’t stand to see someone beat themselves up over something like this.
When you ask for support, you are asking people to step out of their own comfort zones. To do this successfully you have to ask in such a way that they will be truly committed to the actions you request of them. Even those who agree to your request may very well be reluctant to carry out their commitments. You can improve your chances of success by positioning the request in a way that appeals to their pride and displays the strength of your commitment to the change.
Before you ask someone for support, it is important to prepare yourself for the conversation. You want to make your request in the best way possible to set yourself up for success. To do so you will prepare a script that will meet your supporters’ three basic needs. Your supporters need to know that:
- You really do want their help.
- You want their help because you truly value their opinions.
- You will be open to their input when it is offered.
Here is a sample script for how this request might be expressed:
Hi Gerald,
I wanted to ask you for some help on a personal project I’m working on right now. I’ve come to realize that I avoid even the slightest disagreements and confrontations. I don’t think this is good for me or the people around me, and I’d like to change my behavior. I’d like to do a better job of recognizing when I am uncomfortable discussing something and addressing the issue.
I was hoping you could help me in this effort. I’m asking you because I really value your opinion and have always appreciated the feedback you’ve given me in the past. I don’t think that I can change this on my own. I’m asking you for help, because I think it will give me a much better chance of achieving my goals. I do realize that it might be awkward for you to help me in this effort, but you should know that am committed to this and fully open to your suggestions and help.
What do you think? Would you be willing to help me do this? 86
Exercise 5.1 Script Your Request
Write down your own script for requesting support. Be sure that your script conveys the three key points: (1) you sincerely want their help, (2) you value their opinion, and (3) you will be open to their input.
The script from this exercise will be the first half of a discussion guide that you will develop in this chapter. The second half of the guide will be developed in the next exercise.
Define the Support
Once someone has expressed willingness to help you, it is important to discuss what kind of help you are asking of them. In the last chapter you identified different roles that you would like to ask people to play. Now is the time to discuss those roles with your supporters to determine how they will best be able to support your efforts. Your goal here is not to assign them their role. Rather, it is to offer one possible option and explore the best solutions. You may go in hoping for one type of support and identify a completely different way that the individual can help you. By making this a conversation instead of an assignment, you will increase your supporters’ commitment to the process. They may even come up with a better idea for how they can help you than the one you had coming into the conversation.
Your initial conversation also sets the tone and the ground rules for your work together. When you perform this step well, you set up effective collaborative relationships with your supporters. When Darrell, The Critic, had this conversation with his supporters, he created relationships that operated in only one direction. Everyone he spoke to had the right to question and challenge his behavior, but he didn’t have the right to discuss the situation. He didn’t have the right to work with his supporters to evaluate when he should and when he shouldn’t be critical. This was a flaw in the set up of his support. The way he set up these relationships, he wasn’t an active 87 partner in the change. His only right was to passively listen as his supporters critiqued him.
Of course, it is essential for you to listen to your supporters when they try to help you. Otherwise, you will do what I did when I was in Miami. You will frighten people off and convince them they shouldn’t try to help you in the future. If you do not effectively listen, you will show people that you really aren’t interested in what they have to say. This will sabotage your whole process, which is why the setup of your relationship is so important. If you set up your supporters to act in ways that will truly help you, then you will be much better able to hear and accept their support. Here is what happened with Susan and her husband.
The Worker
The obvious person to support me was my husband. He lives with me and sees my workaholic behaviors and is affected as much as anyone. So I asked him to work with me throughout the process. He had already helped me understand the importance of making this change for my family and also for me, personally. Then I asked him to help me develop strategies to reduce the time I spent at my office and increase the time I spent with my family. The first strategy that I proposed was for him to tell me when I drifted back to my old habits.
However, it wasn’t as simple as that. I knew from past experience that I couldn’t tolerate someone “waiting up for me.” If he sat by the door and reprimanded me every time I was late getting home from work, it would drive me insane. That just felt too much like my parents waiting for me to come home from a date. If I didn’t get home by our agreed time then I got in trouble. It didn’t matter if I was five minutes late or two hours late, and it didn’t matter if I had been home on time the last 20 times I went out.
So I asked my husband not to point these lapses out to me in the moment when they occurred. I knew there would be times when I would work late. There would be times when I would make business calls when we were at family or social functions. I knew these things would happen, and I knew that I wouldn’t respond well to him telling 88 me about it in the moment. This may be unfair to him, but I knew that would feel like he was pouncing on me and trying to punish me.
Instead, we both agreed to create time once per week to talk about my work. In these discussions we both got to talk about the times that I spent at work and at home. This gave us an opportunity to discuss my record for the past week as well as strategies for the upcoming week. This really helped me feel like we were partners, instead of feeling like he was the judge and jury evaluating me and my crimes.
In the system that Susan and her husband created they made talking about Susan’s efforts a lot easier on both of them and also more effective for the change she was trying to make. She recognized how immediate feedback would be counterproductive and created a process that worked for her needs and her husband’s needs. Their weekly sessions provided a chance for them to discuss Susan’s progress in a way that made both of them comfortable, while still being effective in supporting the change.
When you define your support relationship, you are working with your supporter to clarify her role and the rules for your work together. Your support agreement can be as formal or informal as you wish to make it. You can write it down and sign it, or you can simply discuss it. The important thing for you and your supporter is that the agreement is designed to effectively support your change, and that it is accepted by both of you.
The conversation in which you ask for support and define that support can have a great impact on the effectiveness of that relationship. Following are discussion points that you may wish to consider as you have these discussions with your supporters:
- What ideas do you have for how your supporter can help you make the change?
- How frequently, when, and for how long will you meet/ speak with your supporter? For example, you might say, “We’ll talk weekly, on Monday mornings, for the next three months.”
- 89 What expectations of confidentiality do you have regarding your change efforts and the conversations you will have with your supporter?
- What other expectations do you have of one another? You might expect your supporter to be honest and fair. Your supporter might expect you to be open and not to judge her for the support she provides.
After asking these questions, it is important to show your appreciation regardless of your supporter’s responses to your questions. Saying “thank you” and showing sincere appreciation will go a long way toward making your support relationship more effective.
Exercise 5.2 Define and Seek Support
For each of the supporters you wish to approach, write down the questions you would like to ask and the points you would like to make in the discussion.This is the second half of the discussion guide that you began in the last exercise. Once you have completed both halves of your discussion guide, approach each of your supporters to request their help and define what you are asking of them. Use your discussion guide to ensure that you cover what you intend.
Once you and your supporters have agreed to work together, you will face the next challenge of making that relationship work. Just because someone says they will play a role, doesn’t mean that you won’t still have to nudge them along to get them to make good on their commitments. Maintaining an effective support relationship simply takes a little attention and appreciation, and that will be the topic of the next chapter.