Help me, help you
Self Improvement
Your team will surely know if you have the bad habit of doing their job for them. Ask them to help you stop, and tell them how.
If you know you struggle to stay out of the day-to-day work of your team, enlist your team to help you:
- Tell them why you end up getting involved, e.g. “when everyone’s really busy I want to do my best to help the team, but I have a bad habit of trying to do your work for you instead of finding other ways to get you the resources you need”
- Tell them why you want to change that habit, e.g. “I know this isn’t helpful in the long run, and I want to focus on making sure we have the right training/resources/plans”
- Ask if they would be willing to help you break your habit. Tell them how best to tell you: think about what would make you stop and listen in the moment. You’ll be thinking you’re helping your team, so you might not respond well to someone telling you to butt out. What would make you stop?
When to take this action
This action is from 'Do the right work, not the easy work' and should be used when you're worried you're doing the wrong work, when your team is under pressure
Need something else?
In your personal development time
Do your job, not your team's
Are you doing the easy work, instead of the right work?
In your personal development time
Keep yourself on the straight and narrow
Bad habit of doing the wrong work? Worried you might slip?
In your one-to-ones
Stop yourself being sucked in
Team needs your help? Resist the urge to get your hands dirty.
With your boss
Create accountability
Ask your boss to hold you accountable. What behaviours or bad habits should they be calling you out on?