Using All Your Strength

I recently heard a story that has stayed with me. It’s about a boy who valiantly, but unsuccessfully, attempts to move a heavy log to clear a path to his favourite hideout. His dad stands quietly nearby, watching his son straining against the load.

Finally the dad asks, “Son, why aren’t you using all of your strength?”

Confused and a little angry, the boy responds, “Dad, I’m using every last little bit of strength I have!”

“No, son, you’re not,” his dad quietly responds. “You haven’t asked me to help you.”

Perhaps it’s because I’m a dad and have helped my kids build forts, or maybe it’s just because I’m interested in feats of strength—how BIG was this log?—I really like this story. But it’s mostly because of what the story says about asking for help.

I have to admit that I’m not the best at asking for help. Which I find odd because even though I’m a guy who likes to solve problems, I’m really reluctant to ask for help. I affectionately refer to my father-in-law as MacGyver because he’s gifted at fixing just about anything—and has more tools than Home Hardware—but when tasks come up around the house, I usually only call him as a last resort.

Many of us don’t like to feel like a burden, or maybe we want to control everything. But when we don’t ask for help, we’re not doing our best.

This extends well beyond the honey-do list at home. In our workplaces, if we’re not asking others for assistance, then we’re not using all of our strength.

Yet many of us are afraid to ask. Why? Because, as Forbes points out, “asking for help can be difficult. It can chip away at our pride, make us question our own abilities, sometimes create paralyzing anxiety, and yes, sometimes, to some people, make us appear weak. But it doesn’t have to. Because asking for help can also do something else—it can help us create better results.”

If you conduct performance evaluations, include a question about whether your employees ask for help. If they don’t, their performance isn’t as good as it could be. They aren’t learning, they aren’t building a team, and their work may be substandard.

The proof is in the results. When I finally ask my MacGyver father-in-law to come and help, I’ve always come away with a completed task, new knowledge about how to do something—and a happy wife.