When Was The Last Time You Asked...

When was the last time you asked your team THIS?

When was the last time you asked your team - “What can I do to help you?”,

I just wrapped up coaching for the day, and one thing really stood out from a session today with a construction business owner. His business has grown significantly over the last few years - to a point where he doesn't need to be involved in much of the day-to-day.

But he’s frustrated. He can see bottlenecks in their processes and their ability to get work through the system – and his instinct is to jump back in.

So I asked him, “When was the last time you asked someone on the team what you could do to help them?”

He paused for quite some time, before eventually admitting: "It's been a while".

One of the things that stops us from asking this question is that we're afraid we're going to be asked to take on even more than we already have on our plate as business owners.

But more often than not, the answer isn’t a huge ask - but something practical, specific and fixable.

A simple thing - like a new rubbish bin, or a piece of software that they don't have. Or it may be a bigger thing or process change, or simply a way that you're dealing with them, a communication challenge.

But if you don’t ask, you don’t know.
And you miss the chance to lift productivity and morale in one hit.

So I’ll ask you the same question I asked him.

When was the last time you asked someone on your team,

“What can I do to help you?”