At 10.50am on  the 29th of November 2005 Matthew, my youngest son, was born.  He was seven weeks premature and weighed only four lbs.  Denise had to go into the operating theatre so I was alone at the side of Matthew’s incubator feeling scared and helpless.  He was crying, so in an effort to try to do something I put my hands on either side of his little plastic cot and prayed he would be ok. 

I was startled by a whisper in my ear. It was the nursery matron. She said “What are you doing?”  I replied “I’m trying to help my baby.  She laughed softly saying “Son, you won’t help him from behind the glass.” 

So she lifted Matthew gently and placed him inside my shirt.  He cuddled in and went back to sleep.  Though I sometimes reflect on my failings as a father and in business, at that moment with Matthew sleeping on my shoulder I felt like I could have changed the world. 

I believe that if we reflect on times on our life when we feel our best, it is when we are helping others.  And I also believe that the more you help others get what they want the more you get what you want. 

So, If you want to help people at work, first make sure they have strong sense of purpose. They need to know why and what they are trying to do, they get feedback in the form of measures and are also allowed to contribute to the improvement of the system.  But more than anything else, you must get involved.  As I was reminded through Matthew’s birth, you can’t help people from behind the glass. 

What about you? How much time did you spend solving problems with your team last week?

As ever let me know your thoughts

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Measures, Motivation, leadership, Creating Value . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.