Too busy to get help?  In my second post in this Blog series, I talked about a situation that I think most of us find too familiar: being stuck in the “I don’t know but I don’t have time to learn!” dilemma. This week I want to start sharing some of my tips & tricks to breaking that vicious circle.

First, take time to learn.

I know it is a lot easier said than done but in my own experience, there really is only one thing that you should be doing in this situation: Take time to learn! Give yourself some time to think and learn “how” instead of getting a quick fix for a problem, so that next time you might not even get into that cycle.

It's on the Intranet – Go Fish!

Many years ago when I worked for Ericsson Corp HQ, it was a standing joke between employees that everything one could possibly be looking for was “available on the Intranet”. To most of us, getting that response to any question about where to find stuff, was like being told to “Go Fish!”. As this was in the teenage years of the Intranet, as “the” information and collaboration portal, most companies (including my previous employer) have come light-years from where we were back then by now. But “search” and information/knowledge discoverability is still, to many companies, a real challenge. Not necessarily because our "Intranets" are still deep, black holes but because most of us "don't have time to look".

How often have you found yourself too stressed to even do a search, or look for something methodically? And how often do you do a couple of random, ill-defined searches and when you don't instantly find what you are looking for, you give up and send an e-mail asking for a quick fix? When instead you could be asking for “how to find the answer”? I do that myself all the time. But I try to teach myself to do otherwise.

My simple “Learning How to Fish” method

I think that it is becoming even more relevant these days, to take time to learn (how to fish), before we go deal with whatever it is we are facing in that moment. With some method applied to all the madness around us (e.g. speed of Transformation/Change) we can make a greater impact while saving ourselves some effort. That to me is “Working Smart”.

I can’t teach you how to make time to learn, it’s just something you need to teach yourself but for me personally that means constant “work”. I have to pinch myself in the arm a few times a day and remind myself of my own advice… ☺

• The first thing I do is search for the information (methodically).  
• If I cannot find it myself, I will reach out to my Community (we have ~100 Communities of Practice) and ask for “how to…?”
• As a last resort I will ping an expert

I try to always follow this order when applying my “Get Help”- method to learn for next time, as a way of “teaching myself to fish”, instead of finding a quick answer. In the short term for sure it is almost always faster to jump straight to #3 but that means that next time I have to do the same again, and one day the expert is out and I have no other option than to deal with it myself.

​Rebecka Isaksson is a thought leader and influencer with 15+ years experience of successfully driving Change Management and Operational Excellence multi-year programs, internally and as Management Consultant for many multi-national and global Enterprise Customers. 

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.