June 21, 2012

Stop Giving Them Fish, Start Teaching Them How To Fish

published this at 7:40 am

by
Rosemary O’Neill

Amazing advice, freely given, is a powerful thing. It activates the “reciprocity rule,” it cements a relationship, and establishes trust. Even better than amazing advice? Lessons in how to do it yourself.

The Copy Machine Conundrum

Fresh out of college, I was last in the pecking order. Therefore, I was usually tasked with using the copy machine, and unjamming it when someone else tried to use it.

Copy machines aren’t particularly complex, but there were legions of my colleagues who actively avoided learning how to use them. Why? Because they didn’t want to be stuck doing the copying.

Those people? They’re the same ones right now who say “I have no idea what the Tweeter is for, and I don’t want to know.”

Make Your Communications Action-Oriented

Whether you’re providing customer support, answering a sales inquiry, or providing consulting services, start to think as a teacher, not just a broadcaster. The essence of great communication is providing a practical application for your message.

What’s the practical application of this blog post?

If you give fishing lessons, you become someone who empowers the people around you. Much more valuable than someone who just delivers fish.

Are there aspects of your job that you can start teaching?

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee


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Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed under leadership / management, Successful Blog | 3 Comments »


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3 Comments to “Stop Giving Them Fish, Start Teaching Them How To Fish”

  1. June 21st, 2012 at 9:43 am
    Andy @ FirstFound said

    Great post. I’ll start training my colleagues to take up some of the slack on the ol’ Tweeter. ;)

  2. June 21st, 2012 at 11:56 am
    Alana Price said

    This is a great mindset to have! I realize that people who do social media marketing rely in part on other people’s ineptitude at social media, but it just doesn’t make sense to me to not teach your clients how to actually manage their own social media campaigns!

  3. June 22nd, 2012 at 9:22 am
    Rosemary ONeill said

    Thanks! Good luck with your fishing lessons :)

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