The Leader Assistant Podcast with Jeremy Burrows

#358: Being Solutions Oriented vs Being the Solution (with Annie Croner)

• Jeremy Burrows • Episode 358

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Annie Croner is the founder and CEO of Whole Assistant, an online platform & community, formed to provide a positive place where assistants can go to transform their lives and level up their careers.

In this spotlight episode of Annie's show, The Whole Assistant Podcast, she talks about being solutions oriented vs being the solution.

Show Notes -> leaderassistant.com/358 

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Jeremy:

Hey friends, it's Jeremy Burrows, host of the Leader Assistant Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Today I'm excited to highlight an episode from my friend Annie Croner's podcast called Whole Assistant. And I really think you should check out her show at WholeAssistant.com or look it up on your favorite podcast platform. Again, Annie Croner's podcast called Whole Assistant. Today I am spotlighting one of Annie's episodes from the Whole Assistant podcast, and I'm excited to spotlight several episodes over the coming months. So I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you check out WholeAssistant.com to learn more about Annie and her great podcast.

Speaker 1:

The Leader Assistant podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Jeremy:

It's called the Leader Assistant Workbook. Now you can buy the Kindle ebook version of the Leader Assistant Workbook on Amazon, or you can go to LeaderAssistantbook.com and get a printable PDF version of the workbook. This version has all the space and margin in between the questions that you can write your own answers and take notes with. So it's a great way to print it out and keep track of your discussion and study guide notes. Again, go to leaderassistantbook.com and click on workbook to check out the Leader Assistant Workbook.

Annie:

The topic we are talking about today is being solutions-oriented versus being the solution for people. Being solutions-oriented or always looking for a solution, always being oriented around a solution for others versus actually being the boots on the ground person that's going to take action on the solution that's actually going to provide a service, that's actually going to do the thing that is needed or requested, right? And I really want us to view this idea of being solutions-oriented versus being the solution as a strategic move in our careers, as a strategic move as assistance. So what often happens when we are being the solution for everyone is that we feel obligated to do all the things for everyone who ever asks us. Instead of strategically showing up for our executive, instead of strategically showing up for our role, we mistakenly believe that we must be all things to all people. And there's a lot of reason why we do this. We do this because we often feel flattered that someone would trust us with the task. We often just feel this sense of obligation that if I'm not going to do it, then who is? Or, you know, we just think that we should be helpful in our roles. So then we just take the task on without even thinking about whether or not the task is the best use of your time, whether or not you're showing up strategically for your role in that moment. Um, or perhaps we're just kind of giving equal weight to all the requests that come in. We aren't actually assessing and parsing out how to how we're prioritizing our time so that we can show up effectively in our role. So then what ends up happening is that we end up training people that we're their go-to whenever we are the solution. Instead of being solutions-oriented, when we are the solution, we end up training everyone that we are the solution. Now, I will say that in certain situations, that's okay. Like with your executive, for example, totally okay to train your executive that you want him to come to you with things that he needs done, especially for the business, especially if you're just a straight up EA, business EA, right? The problem comes when your executive comes to you with a task that is outside of your purview, like perhaps asking you to do some research for his family vacation if you're just if you're just a straight up E business EA, that's inappropriate. Now, in my former role, like I was personal assistant and executive assistant, so that would fit nicely into the purview of my role, right? But for a lot of us, that's not the case. So I think we could still be solutions-oriented for our executive in that moment, and we can point him towards a really excellent travel agency or a really excellent service for him to be able to like empower him to be able to do his research for his family vacation. Um, instead of actually taking the task on ourselves when we don't want to do the task and we we genuinely have a problem with doing the task, and it's outside of the purview of our role. Like there are gonna be those things that are in our role that we don't enjoy doing, but it's part of our job, right? I think for a lot of us, like note-taking is one. Also, expense reports, not my favorite thing. But that's just a part of the job that just comes with the position. That's not what I'm talking about here, though. I'm talking about those things that other people ask us to do that are technically outside the purview of our role, and we just feel obligated to take it on for them, either out of a place of just a true desire to be helpful to people, or out of a place of not really thinking strategically about what that's communicating to that person, as well as whether or not you have the bandwidth to take on the task, or if it's even a part of your job, or if you want it to be a part of your job moving forward, right? So I like the idea of being solutions-oriented for people because being solutions-oriented, in order to do that, we're gonna have to detach from the need to do, like this feeling like obligated and this need and this desire to do the thing while still offering value. And I love good questions and I love this as a question. How can you show up in a way that allows for you to still offer value while not doing the thing, being totally solutions-oriented for anybody who approaches you and totally coming to them from a place of service and with a heart of service or reacting or responding to them from that place of service without actually having to take on the task yourself. And this is this is also going to require you to show up with strategies. You're gonna show up with strategies for the person who's asking for help, and you're going to empower that person to be able to implement those strategies themselves or find somebody who's better suited to help them with the strategy themselves, and then strategizing and showing up with discernment with how you decide and choose to spend your time. Right? You're gonna have to prioritize. Like you're going to have to really get clear on what the priorities are for your role, really get clear on what your executives' priorities are, or maybe you support multiple executives, getting clear on what the pecking order is for those executives, getting clear on the tasks that you will handle for them, getting clear on how you're gonna show up strategically for the people that you support. And so I love strategic thinking. I love strategizing. I love coming up with new and innovative ways about of thinking about something. And that is gonna require prioritization. That is going to require you to show up at a higher level, being solutions-oriented for people. So, a few examples I have here also, I just gave a couple about like the um about the vacation, uh, but I'm just gonna give a couple more. So a colleague approaches you with a project outside of your normal purview, and you offer resources to that person without actually taking on the role of actually doing the thing that is needed or requested. Like you can offer him resources, you can offer them um like guidelines or parameters or how you've done things in the past and be totally solutions-oriented for that person without actually taking on the task yourself. Or this, I see this a lot. This is another kind of situation where this comes up a lot. You're transitioning out of your current role into another role in your current organization, and you have offboarded your current or your task from the former role to the new person taking over your position, and you've moved on to support somebody else or to support another department or or whatever the case may be. And so the tendency there, instead of empowering that person in their role and showing them or explaining to them where the resources are after you have fully trained them, is to just go in and do the thing because it's faster for us, because we know how to do it by this point. Because the person who's learning is going to take longer to show them than it is to actually do yourself. But here's the deal: by showing them how to do it, you're empowering them to be able to do it again in the future. And if you've already shown them how to do it, then you can just explain how to do it. You don't actually have to show them how to do it again unless you're totally confused and actually make the request or get lost along the way. But so often we just, we just really have this servant heart, and then we just get caught up in that and we lose sight of the strategies of how we're showing up for our current executive in order to go and take care of a former role or a former thing that we were doing in the office. I even see this sometimes with people who've passed off tasks to other individuals in their office, and then people keep circling back to them because they they've lost sight of how to do the task or because they it's just easier to ask the question than it is to try and figure out on their own, right? So you don't actually have to be the solution in any of the examples I gave. You can point them in the right direction. Let them struggle with it a little bit, let them figure it out for themselves. Like just because you know how to do it faster and better, because you've been doing it a million times, doesn't mean you should be the person doing the thing all the time. So here are a few tips that I have for being solutions-oriented versus being the solution. First tip is to question the belief that you must be all things to all people. Is that actually true? And even if it is, like even if you support multiple people, what strategically can you empower people to do as opposed to handling yourself if you have a lot on your plate? I see a lot of assistants like running around like chickens with their heads cut off because they feel obligated to do all the things all the time instead of showing up strategically and really like implementing the strategies that will serve them. And this is a big strategy. This is a good one. This is one I want us all to think about and consider am I using my time in the most effective manner? Is there a way that I can be totally solutions-oriented for somebody without actually having to provide the solution myself? And the second tip I have is to get clear on your boundaries. They look different for everyone. Boundaries just look different for us all. So get clear on your boundaries, like your reasons for setting your boundaries. Um, also communicate your boundaries with those that you need to communicate them with. Communicate those parameters around your time and energy that you need to communicate with, have the conversations you need to have, and then stick to your guns. Stick to your guns. Because here's the deal: we train people with how we want to be treated with every interaction. So if you train people over time that you're the go-to, it's gonna take a little bit of retraining. It's gonna take a little bit of like empowering people to make decisions for themselves, empowering them to do things for themselves, empowering them to stand on their own two feet and to be resourceful. Right? And the last and final tip is to give up the instant dopamine hit or the flattery of someone coming up to you and asking you to handle something. I think often we do get a dopamine hit when whenever we're asked to do something by somebody, especially if we respect them, especially if we look up to them, and we don't actually stop and pause and think for a minute, is does it make sense for me to actually handle this task? Or is there somebody who would be better off handling this task? Or can this person schedule their own meeting or do their own thing if they aren't someone who you directly report to or directly support? So for the long-term reward of showing up strategically, we're going to have to get past the short-term gratification of the flattery, the instant dopamine hit, the desire to feel comfortable all the time and to not want to experience discomfort when we direct people in a different direction, when we guide people in a different way, or support people in a different way, or are being solutions-oriented for them. That can be uncomfortable if you're so used to doing everything. But in order to actually create bandwidth for yourself, in order to actually show up strategically, this is a great kind of strategy in order to be able to show up at such a higher level in your in your role and in your position. So that's just some food for thought. It's come up quite a bit with my clients lately, um, being solutions-oriented versus being the solution, because we have this all or nothing thinking. We're like, well, if I can't help them, then that's nothing. Then I'm not gonna offer anything, I'm not gonna offer any guidance at all. No, no, you can totally believe be solutions-oriented for people without having to actually be the boots on the ground for them, without actually having to do the thing. So that is what I have for you guys today. Be intentional, be whole. That is all for now.

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You're listening to the Leader Assistant Podcast.

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Jeremy Burrows

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