mobcode

Your job is not to “help”

Some people define their role as inflicting help on people. Don’t do this. If you are a consultant, do not define your role as helping the team. If you are a manager of a team, do not define your role as helping. If you are in business as a smart technical person do not advertise yourself as offering help. If you find yourself doing this then translate the word “help” to “annoy” and you will see more clearly.

To define your role as “helping” is condescending and passive. The ego it takes to define your role in life as helping others reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the universe. Instead, redefine your role to define what you are individually doing, what you are accomplishing (and this cannot be helping). Then as a secondary role you can be open to providing assistance to people who request it.

Suppose you are a consultant who primarily trains teams in development processes. Do not define your job as helping teams to implement good processes. Instead define your job as providing training. If in the course of providing training someone asks for your assistance then by all means help them. By focusing on providing training rather than helping, you will focus on getting your job done rather than focusing on all the deficiencies of your client and your responsibility to fix them. You will turn your critical eye on yourself to learn how you can more effectively prepare and deliver training.

While defining your role as helping sounds quite generous and charitable it actually reveals an unhealthy, egocentric attitude.