You cannot transmit wisdom and insight to another person. The seed is already there. A good teacher touches the seed, allowing it to wake up, to sprout, and to grow.
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 – ), Vietnamese monk and peace activist
Please Join Us!
What: #MTtalk
Where: Twitter
When: September 10, 1 p.m. ET (5 p.m. GMT / 10:30 p.m. IST)
Topic: Doing Things “For” Others vs. Doing Things “With” Others
Host: @Mind_Tools
About This Week’s Chat
Some of us may have grown up in households that were steeped in tradition. Others in less traditional set-ups, or in families where tradition simply didn’t play an important role.
In the Afrikaner culture that I grew up in, we had a delightful and delicious tradition — baking many and varied types of cookies at Christmas. We baked for days on end to fill every cookie tin on our kitchen shelf, and to fill baskets and boxes with cookies to gift to friends and neighbours.
As an adult, I chose not to continue many of the Christmas traditions. However, filling brightly colored gift boxes with beautifully decorated home-baked cookies is still one of my favorite Christmas activities.
Planning a Baking Day!
I have a friend who comes from a different cultural background. She also loves cooking and baking. When she heard that I was planning a baking day (or three!), she was delighted. She cajoled me into promising to teach her how to bake my Christmas cookies.
A week before Christmas, it was finally baking day. My friend arrived in a jubilant mood, and I was excited too. I already envisioned the beautiful and tasty treats that we would proudly deliver to our families, friends and neighbors!
In South Africa, December is in the middle of summer and it’s usually very hot. Add hard work and long hours in a hot kitchen to the mix, and you have a good recipe for frustration and irritation!
In my mother’s kitchen, I knew that tensions were rising as well as cookie dough when my mother started saying, “Let me do that, you’re taking too long.” Or, “Give that to me, it will take you longer to start than it will take me to finish.” Sometimes, she simply shooed us out of the kitchen by giving us menial tasks like sweeping the porch or watering the garden.
Determined Start
Baking with my friend got off to a slow but determined start. I showed her how to measure ingredients, which tins and trays to use for what, and what some baking terms mean, such as “creaming” butter and sugar.
I’d calculated what needed to be done by the end of the first day if we wanted to finish all the baking in two days. However, techniques and skills that I had used countless times since I was child, were new to my friend. And some of them would be challenging to a seasoned baker, let alone a first-timer.
On my own, I’d have done quickly and correctly. But by midday, I could feel my frustration rising. Guiding and supervising my friend had put us well behind schedule.
There was, of course, any easy solution: I could take over and just let her watch. But I had made a promise that I would teach her, and reducing her to an onlooker would not teach her much.
Mouth-Watering Baking
After taking a break, we reviewed our situation and came up with a plan: we’d reduce the variety of cookies, bake more of the simpler versions and get creative with the icing.
At the end of the second day, we had 20 gift boxes, lined with colorful tissue paper and wrapped in cellophane, each displaying a mouth-watering selection of cookies.
My friend couldn’t wait to get home and share the beautiful fruits of her labors with her family. She had already video-called her sister and was excitedly chattering away, describing what she had learned. She was thankful, proud and confident. Two days of learning from an “old hand,” had taught her more than a lifetime of reading recipes and looking at pictures.
When I saw how she beamed, I was doubly glad that I didn’t act on my thought to do everything myself just because it would be faster. I would have done everything for her instead of doing everything with her, and the “doing with” is what made all the difference!
Opportunity to Learn
Not only would I have robbed her of an opportunity to learn, but I would have robbed her of that new-found confidence and the pride she felt at having accomplished something new.
From my side, it took patience, and I had to keep a lid on the frustration I felt. Once I had shown her how to do something, I had to give her the time to practice without micromanaging her every move, whilst also correcting what needed to be corrected. Talk about a fine balance!
Doing Things “For” Others vs. Doing Things “With” Others
During our #MTtalk Twitter chat this week, we’ll be talking about the difference between doing something for another person vs. doing it with them.
Using our Mind Tools Twitter poll, we asked how it would make you feel if someone took a task that you were struggling with out of your hands, and did it for you. Almost half of respondents said it would make them feel incompetent, while 13 percent said that it would make them feel relieved. To see all the options and results, please click here.
We’d love you to participate in our chat, and the following questions may spark some thoughts in preparation for it:
- Does it feel easier to do tasks yourself or delegate them to a competent team member? If so, why?
- Do you think people do things for others rather than with them because it gives them a sense of power/authority? Why do you think that is?
- How would you invite someone to be part of a project that you would typically do on your own?
- What are the benefits of inviting someone else to be part of a project that you would typically do on your own?
- Looking inward, what would lead you to reclaim a delegated project to finish it yourself?
- In what ways can you better enable/empower others to act in the workplace?
Useful Resources
To help you prepare for the chat, we’ve compiled a list of resources for you to browse. Please note, that some of these may only be available in full to members of the Mind Tools Club and to Mind Tools for Business licensees.)
How to Avoid the Pitfalls of the Peter Principle
Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing Video
How to Join
Follow us on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the action this Friday! We’ll be tweeting out 10 questions during our hour-long chat. To participate in the chat, type #MTtalk in the Twitter search function. Then, click on “Latest” and you’ll be able to follow the live chat feed. You can join the chat by using the hashtag #MTtalk in your responses.
The post Do It With Me, Not For Me! — Join Our #MTtalk! appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
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