Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day
Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Edit: the premise of this article is that help is needed because of a missing skill. When you’re asking for help because you’re overwhelmed, overworked, or any other kind of over, asking someone to relieve the burden is a very solid strategy which I more than recommend and support.
This old English proverb is very well-known and the original version of it has been credited to Anne Isabelle Thackeray Ritchie.
The original version is actually a bit more appropriate to the point I want to make.
If you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn. — Anne Isabelle Thackeray Ritchie
In teams giving and getting help is the core of working together.
But there are good ways and quick ways to give help, and good and lazy ways to ask for help.
In this article, I will highlight several ways of getting help and asking for help.
Asking for help
When you can’t do something, asking someone to do it for you is lazy. You’re not taking charge of your own learning process, but instead asking someone to fix your problems.
I make it a point to ask wherever I can: Can you help me so that I can do it myself next time? Can you show me where I can find this? Can you point me in the right direction?
That way the next time I will know where to look or how to do something, and I’m not dependent on someone else to fix my issues anymore. It’s good for me, and good for them.
So in order of highest learning effect to lowest learning effect, how to ask for help:
- Can you help me with how to do x myself?
- Can you show me how I can do x?
- Can you do x for me?
Think about it, do you want to be the guy or girl that always has to ask for help? Or do you want to be self-sufficient and skilled?
Giving help
What happens on the side of asking for help, can also happen on the side of giving help. Odds are you regularly get questions from people asking you for help with something. Odds are also that they’re not aware of the different ways one can ask for help.
But regardless of how the question is phrased, you can respond in helpful and less helpful ways.
So in order of highest learning effect to lowest learning effect, how to give help:
- I’ll take a look with you and guide you while you do it
- I’ll show you how to do it
- I’ll do it for you
The Upsides
I’ve already mentioned a few of the benefits. But it’s worth it to dive a little deeper into the benefits of asking and answering questions in this way.
Compounding learning
There’s a compounding effect in giving help and asking for help in a teach-me-how-to-do-it kind of way.
When someone does something for you, next time you will have to ask the same question again. There is no learning effect.
When someone teaches you to do something, you can pass that knowledge on to the next person, and so on, and so forth.
In the fishing example, the man can now teach fishing to his family, his children, and his village. They might explore creative ways of fishing more effectively together, bringing a compounding effect to the benefit of all generations to come.
Increased motivation
In his book Drive, Daniel Pink highlights three important factors for motivation.
They are Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. The proposal is that when these three factors are present, people will feel intrinsically motivated.
Autonomy is the need and ability to direct your own life and work.
Mastery is the desire to improve, the feeling that you are getting better at things that matter.
Purpose is understanding why the thing you are doing matters.
It’s easy to see that learning to do something yourself impacts two of these, Autonomy and Mastery.
If you’re getting help, you’re becoming more autonomous because you can do more things yourself, in your own way, and on your own time. Your Mastery is increasing because you’re learning a new skill.
If you’re giving help, you’re basically helping someone feel better about themselves because of the higher Autonomy and Mastery. This benefit to them is not there if you just do it for them.
Take back your time by reducing dependencies
When you do something for someone , the next time they need that same thing they will come knocking at your door. They’re hungry again.
And they will probably not come at a time that suits you, thereby disturbing your flow and eating away your valuable time.
Worst case scenario, you’re helping people all day with things that they could do themselves.
So take back your time by teaching people how to do something.
The downside
There is one big downside that I want to highlight: teaching people how to do something takes more time than doing it yourself.
Especially if you’re guiding them while they are doing it, we’ve all experienced the frustration about how on earth someone can be that incompetent at something so simple. At least I’m no stranger to it.
You will have to make a decision and weigh the time investment of teaching someone against the future benefits it will bring. You might come to the conclusion that it’s not worth it and that you’re better off quickly doing it for them.
Also, remember that you were that person at some point, and retroactively thank the person that patiently helped you out when you were struggling.
Exceptions
Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule. Some people have a job that revolves around relieving the burden on someone. Maybe you’re an advisor preparing presentations for an executive, or you’re a secretary, a business manager, or anything else. Maybe you have certain admin rights on a system that others don’t.
In those cases providing service to others is your job.
But even then you can maybe serve them better by teaching them some easy things they can look up more quickly themselves, saving both you and them time.
Think of opportunities where self-service can be implemented for a common benefit. Supermarkets using self-scanners are a good example.
And of course some things are so complicated that you can’t just throw someone in the deep end and guide them while they’re learning. Working with powertools or heavy machinery comes to mind. You might need an approach of Show — Do It Together — Do It Yourself (I especially like the Dutch version Voordoen — Samen doen — Zelf doen. But the end game should still be teaching to Do It Yourself.
In conclusion
Asking for help whenever you need it is very important. It’s why we organize ourselves in things like companies, villages, or communities. Helping each other is what drives us forward.
But be mindful of the way you ask for help and how you give it.
Giving a man a fish will benefit the man in the short term, but teaching him how to fish will benefit all the generations that come after.
