2-3-4 Friday:
‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’
1 thought
Yesterday, I tried to be a Good Samaritan. In a crowded mall, I saw a
lady walking unsteadily, and asked her if she was okay. Around her neck, she had a transport card that said, “May I have a seat please?” It was issued to people with disabilities, the pregnant, and the elderly.
She told me she was going to the taxi stand to meet her aunt. But along the way, she started asking if she could buy a drink. Then she skipped into a shop to buy some puzzles and pens. And then she got some ice
cream.
After an hour, we were no closer to the taxi stand. But I was left holding 8 different shopping bags.
I know what it looked like from the outside.
Like I am a simpleton, with no other desire than to take advantage of a young lady.
Whilst she was queuing for ice cream, I asked if I could head to the toilet. I genuinely needed the toilet, but she said she didn’t want to take up more of my time and thanked me for my
help.
As I walked out of the mall that night, somehow that incident made a big impact on me. I was reminded of all the times I was a social worker, and held holding onto people’s baggage.
Even now in a completely different industry in design, I was still holding onto client’s baggage. Clients would spray us with their insecurities and want to edit multiple
times. I would choose to take on poor paying work that would leave us financially scrimping to make ends meet. I was choosing to remain poor, taking home $900 a month, just so that I could still hold onto my clients’ baggage.
I had not grown up from my social worker days.
Until this incident happened, I never knew how much I was self-sabotaging, by refusing to
draw a line between what was my responsibility, and what was that of others.
I was victimizing myself by complaining about my clients, without recognizing that I was choosing to pick up their trash, and carry it along with me. I could walk. I could drop their trash and refuse to bring it along with me.
Why wasn’t I?
Are you?
1 talk
When you choose to work with someone, an organisation, a client, they will bring their baggage to you. The wisdom lies in recognizing what you are accountable and paid for, and what is their work.
1
tip
In our classes with Tong Yee, we always ask a simple question,
Whose work is this?
When your clients bring baggage into the room, and ask you to help them to solve it, is it yours, or your client’s intrapersonal work that needs resolving?
Making that distinction is vital.
Because too many times, we take on clients’ work, without recognizing that we are artificially inserting ourselves into their work, when the work is theirs, not ours.
Tong Yee has a good analogy for this. As organizational consultants (or any kind of service professional) we are playing the
role of surrogate mothers.
Our role is to carry the baby, deliver the baby, and then pass it on.
The trouble is, we often end up holding the baby for far too long, and never fully disentangling ourselves from the work of our clients.
Here are some signs.
- We try to change our clients behaviors and ideas of the world.
- We try to tell clients what to do.
- We self-sabotage, complaining about our clients, but never realizing that we could always, always not take on any of their work. We can gently hand the work back to them.
The
next time you notice yourself getting frustrated with client work, ask yourself,
what’s the work you’re getting paid for?
Why are you putting up with this BS?
Why don’t you walk away?
John
Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love