One of the biggest struggles I have in my job is balancing my desire to always help people with the fact that sometimes I have to stay in my lane and let other people sort through problems themselves.
Because I genuinely see value in both options. On the one hand, getting involved and always trying to be helpful when issues arise is a really great tone-setter for a company. Everything feels healthier and more collaborative when issues are seen as "we" problems, not "your team's" problems or "my team's" problems. On the other hand, if a process is clearly not working, sometimes it's best to let it break so the issue can be clearly identified by everyone and solved at the source rather than constantly putting empty buckets under the drip of a leaky roof. And I surely never know as much as I think I do when I butt into other teams' work to try and solve their problems.
When these instances arise, I've settled into the idea of being a spare tire. Spare tires have one specific function: get you off the side of the highway and to the nearest repair shop. When your tire goes flat, you need to have a spare tire. You could end up in a pretty dicey situation if you don't have one. But you really shouldn't drive on that tire any longer than you have to. Once you get to the mechanic, you need to replace that spare tire with a regular road tire as soon as possible since donuts aren't built to be driven on forever. Regular tires will last you much longer and do the job much more effectively.
I see jumping in to help other teams at work in a similar way. A company could get flushed down the drain pretty quickly if no one is willing to help when another team is in need. If a team blows a tire, you need to be able to get them off the highway. But there also needs to be an exit mechanism to make sure you aren't driving on that spare tire forever. Whatever process broke that caused the issue in the first place needs to be replaced with a better, more robust process that won't run into the same shortcomings. Regular tires will last you much longer and do the job much more effectively.
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