Nearly Two

Hi Reader

I lost count of how many times we heard it that evening. A friend was holidaying here with his family and we’d met for dinner at a hotel restaurant nearby. He;’s got two kids now: a nine-month-old boy, and his sister, almost two; and being nearly two she’s fully mobile and fiercely independent!

After dinner she wanted to explore the pool area. Being a responsible adult, I said I’d take her. It was fun being around an almost two year old again.

As we got closer to the water, she reached out her hand to me. Without a word, she was asking for help. I saw it and took it. A few steps nearer the edge she signalled again. She wanted ‘up’. So I lifted her, and we moved along the waterside together deep in conversation about the blow-up shark and dragon who were ‘asleep’ in the water.

So on the face of it, nothing remarkable. It’s taken the guts of two weeks for the penny to drop with me.

Thanks to this week's sponsor, Purpose.

The most independent person at our table asked for help at exactly the moment it mattered to her. No embarrassment, no hesitation and no sense that asking cancelled out all the “I’ll do it myself” utterances. And she was seen instantly, because every adult knows where the water is when you’re almost two.

Somewhere between two and forty, most of us swap the hand for phrases like “I’m fine” or “All good”. Or the classic “not bad”, which in Ireland (and Spain as I’ve discovered) covers everything from a lottery win to a funeral.

Volunteer leaders are the “I’ll do it myself” people. It’s why they said yes. They put their hand up once, at an AGM or in a dressing room, and in my experience it rarely reaches out again.

It works both ways. They stop signalling, and the people around them stop looking, because capable people look just fine. We watch the toddler by the pool but nobody watches the strong swimmer.

I’ve missed it myself. One of the coaches I interviewed for my MSc research shared more with me than I’d any right to expect. I was so wrapped up in my own work, and in what I needed from the conversation, that I filed it as good material. Going back over it recently, I think he was asking for a hand. Possibly for the first time. I never reached back.

At the pool I wanted nothing from that little girl except that she stayed dry & safe, so all my attention was on her. In that interview, most, if not all, of it was on my dissertation. With their volunteer leaders, most chairs and chief executives are in the interview, not at the pool. Every conversation has a purpose: the budget, the fixtures, the AGM, the thing that’s late etc. The hand goes out in the middle of a conversation about something else, and the person opposite is busy with the something else.

Every organisation knows where its water is: the first season in the role - a bad run, a falling-out with the committee. The stretch nobody watches is the winning one, when everyone’s too pleased to question anything. Knowing where the water is means knowing where to stand, see and hear.

What my little friend needed was pretty insignificant to me; someone near enough to see the hand, and a lift for the few steps along the edge. Then she went back to doing the rest of the evening by herself.

When you lead something as a volunteer, you have to do it alone. But you absolutely shouldn’t ever have to feel like you’re on your own.

The hand still goes out, by the way. But with highly capable volunteer-leaders it just sounds a lot like “not bad”.

My line of work is helping volunteer-led or dependent organisations keep the people who hold them together. It starts with confidential conversations that show where the pressure is landing, early enough to act on it. If recruiting or keeping volunteer leaders is a live issue for you, just reply to this newsletter and drop an email to paul@theleaders.coach

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