Years ago, my friend John joined the military and was unexpectedly deployed overseas. He and his wife, Heather, had recently purchased a home; they had a newborn, and Heather suddenly had a lot to manage on her own.
One Sunday at church, I asked Heather if there was anything I could do to help. She mentioned that John usually took care of the lawn, and she had not been able to get to it.
Perfect! I could mow a lawn.
So, I loaded my vehicle with every yard tool I owned and headed to their neighborhood. As I drove down the street, I spotted an overgrown lawn from several houses away and thought, “There it is.”
Heather was not home, which made this even better. I was going to surprise her.
I mowed. I edged. I weed-whacked. I bagged the grass clippings and put them by the street. When I finished, the yard looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.
There was also an old, faded “Welcome” sign in the yard that I thought looked terrible. Since I was apparently in charge of landscaping and exterior design now, I threw that away too.
A couple of weeks later, I saw Heather at church and asked how the lawn looked. She told me it was getting pretty bad again.
Wow. This grass grew fast.
The next day, I went back. Sure enough, the lawn was tall again. Even more surprising, that ugly Welcome sign was back. Clearly, Heather had rescued it from the trash.
So I mowed the lawn again.
And I threw the sign away again.
This time, I called Heather afterward to tell her the good news. I mentioned that I had also taken care of that ugly sign for her.
She asked, “Where are you?”
“I’m standing in your front yard.”
She replied, “No, you’re not.”
That sentence carried with it a sudden realization: I had mowed the wrong lawn.
Twice.
I had also thrown away a complete stranger’s Welcome sign. Twice.
It turns out, Heather lived one block over.
I eventually found the correct house and mowed the lawn that actually needed my help. While I worked, I kept thinking about the people at the other house. Twice they had come home to a freshly manicured lawn and a missing Welcome sign. I imagine they spent several weeks trying to figure out whether they had been visited by an unusually judgmental yard fairy.
Here is the uncomfortable part. I had great intentions. I worked hard. I gave my time. I brought all the right equipment. I went above and beyond.
But I still mowed the wrong lawn.
Leaders do this more often than we realize.
Someone comes to us struggling, and we immediately start solving. We give advice. We change a process. We take something off their plate. We tell them exactly what we would do. Sometimes we put tremendous effort into helping before we fully understand what help they actually need.
Good leadership requires us to slow down long enough to understand before we act.
Ask a few questions and listen carefully to the answers before deciding what help should look like. Make sure you understand the problem well enough to know what would actually be useful, because the right kind of support can vary a lot from one situation to the next. Sometimes the person needs advice, a decision, coaching, resources, or permission to move forward. Other times, the most helpful thing you can do is stay present, listen well, and give them room to work through the problem themselves.
This month, we are talking about help that actually helps. Our intentions and effort both matter, but the truest measure of whether we helped is found in how useful that help was to the person receiving it.
So before you fire up the mower, make sure you have the right address.
Tom
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