How to know what help you need: Availability vs. Capability

TLDR: To understand what help you need, first understand if you lack time (availability) or lack knowledge (capability).

I’ve come to realize that one of the most important things for growth is to be aware of what help you need. It is also one of the hardest problems to solve, as it requires the self awareness to see the gap that exists and the humility to admit that you need help.

Being aware that there is a gap and that you need help is only the first step.

You will then need to understand whether or not the help that you need is because you lack the capability (knowledge) or lack the availability (time).

This is important to get right because it helps you understand the help that you need.

Here’s a simple diagram that has helped me think through this problem

Let’s explore a couple of scenarios

Scenario #1: You have the availability but lack the capability

• In this situation, you can either

  • Learn: Use the time that you have and teach yourself the knowledge area that you are lacking. Ask yourself

    • “Is this an area that I am interested in”

    • “Is this the best use of my time?”

    • “Can I learn to solve this problem before the deadline?”

  • Hire: If you think that your time is better spent elsewhere, then you can look into hiring help. This doesn’t always have to be an employee, they can be a freelancer or an agency. Ask yourself:

    • “Is this problem enough for a full time employee?”

    • “Do I know anyone who I can work with on a contract basis to start?”

  • Hire and Learn: You can hire a consultant to teach you and use the time that you have to do the work. Ask yourself

    • “Am I interested in learning to solve this problem"?”

    • “Do I know anyone who can teach me and help me solve this problem faster?”

Scenario #2: You lack both availability and capability

• If you are in this situation, talk to someone that you respect in this subject area so that she can advice you on the type of capability that you need. Once you understand the capability you need help on, you can

  • Hire: Bring someone in that can help you with the problem.

  • Find time to learn: If budget is a barrier, then you can consider freeing up your time to learn the subject area. Ask yourself:

    • “Is this the best use of my time?”

    • “What can I delegate or systemize to free up time to learn?”

  • Send an employee for training: Consider if you have someone who is interested in the problem and self motivated. Sometimes a little bit of training and coaching from an expert is what they need to help you with the problem

    • “Who in my team would be interested and motivated to solve this problem?”

Scenario #3: You lack availability but have capability

• First of all, don’t confuse capability with availability

  • Just because you are able to do it, doesn’t mean that you have the time to do it, or it’s the most valuable thing that you can do for your team.

  • I enjoy taking on responsibilities, but with that comes the risk of overcommitment, thus slowing down projects. As a leader, not delegating responsibilities is also a missed opportunity to develop leaders in your team.

• There also a couple of options in this situation

  • Delegate: You can consider someone in your team who has potential, and make an investment in coaching them to take over from you. You can also delegate other non responsibilities so that you have time for this important, urgent responsibility. Ask yourself

    • “Who in my organization can I coach to take on this responsibility?”

    • “What can I delegate so that I have time to tackle this problem?”

  • Hire: Similar to the previous hiring options, you can bring in external help to do the work for you.

    • “Is there enough work for a full time employee?”

    • “Is there a contractor or agency that I can hire to do the work for me?”

  • Systemize: Sometimes all you need is to work more efficiently in other areas of your life. Ask yourself:

    • “What systems can I put in place so that I can save enough time to work on this problem?”

Your goal is to move into the quadrant of having capability and availability to solve the problem! I hope this helps you understand the gap that you have and how you could go about solving it.

Talk soon 👋