Easy to Help / Hard to Help

Are You Easy to Help?

As a coach, trainer, and speaker, I work with so many different groups of people, and over time, I’ve noticed something consistent. There are people who are easy to help, and there are people who are hard to help. If you ever bring in a coach, work with a group on new ideas, or step out of your comfort zone into something unfamiliar, you want to be easy to help.

What Makes Someone Hard to Help

Often, it’s the very idea of getting help that gets in the way. For some people, listening to someone else can feel like saying, “I don’t know.” It can feel like admitting a lack of experience or authority. But learning new things doesn’t cancel out your experience — it builds on it. The most experienced professionals understand that there’s always more to learn and that new ideas can enhance, not diminish, what they already know.

The Qualities of People Who Are Easy to Help

The teams I find easiest to help are the ones willing to listen, try something new, and stay open to collaboration. They aren’t threatened by an outside perspective. They understand that my insight doesn’t replace theirs — it complements it. Together, we can merge those perspectives to create something stronger and more effective.

Why Openness Gives You an Edge

That willingness to collaborate matters because your competitors also have experience. In every industry, including architecture, engineering, and construction, experience is common. Everyone brings a solid background to the table, so experience alone doesn’t differentiate you. What does make a difference is your openness to outside coaching and your ability to integrate new feedback into your approach.

The Coach’s Role in Collaboration

For coaches, consultants, and facilitators, there’s a responsibility too. We need to respect the experience of the people we’re helping and build on it, not replace it. Coaching should feel like a partnership — a melding of perspectives that produces something neither side could have created alone.

The Payoff of Being Easy to Help

If you want to be easy to help, recognize that outside input doesn’t undermine your expertise — it enhances it. Embracing feedback gives you an edge. It’s how experienced