Many Hands Make Light Work
A lovely case study of community and connection
In my long, long tenure as an aspiring Substacker (two whole months, tysm!), I’ve found that some weeks my musings just pour out of me, usually based on an observation in my real life or a very cool article or book I’ve read recently. And some weeks, it takes a little longer for that spark of inspiration to strike. This was one of those weeks where I was waiting for the spark, and low and behold, it availed itself in a tab that I had opened a week ago and not yet read (please don’t ask me how many tabs I have open at any given time… it’s not good).
As a background, for about the past year or so, I’ve toyed with the idea of becoming an independent consultant, with sights set on working with teams and helping groups work better together, via things like courageous transparency, fun and effective teambuilding through vulnerability, inclusion and belonging, etc. As I sat with this idea (and by sat, I mean thought a lot about and then also engaged with an amazing career coach to delve more into it), I assessed myself as “not quite ready” and was looking to get some more experience on the ground before hanging out my shingle. This was due to what I would consider a healthy dose of humility and desire to learn more mixed well with an unhealthy dose of imposter syndrome (WORKING ON IT), but regardless, I wanted some more tangible experience. Luckily, I find myself surrounded by former colleagues and friends who have successfully traversed out into the independent consultant world and so I reached out to one of these talented people and asked if I could work with her, in a sort of apprenticeship relationship where I could tag along on some of her gigs and provide admin or logistical support in exchange for getting some exposure to what it’s really like to be a consultant in this arena. She graciously agreed and I’ve been able to work with her on a few super interesting endeavors that have been great learning opportunities.
This, in and of itself, is a lovely example of communal connection and the ways that you can show up for your community - I had an interest in deepening my learning and experience in consulting and I had a friend who had just that. She could benefit from an extra set of hands to support her work and I had just that. Community! But it doesn’t stop there. This friend of mine had a really exciting opportunity to co-present some of her learnings to a large group and she and her co-lead wanted to try out some different presentation styles that would better fit a group of that size. Enter the village - colleagues and friends alike showed up at various points to support the effort, including providing insights on the learnings, being test subjects for some higher-tech interactive tools (of which I happily participated), etc. As she highlights in her own blog (said tab that embarrassingly stayed open and unread for a week on my desktop), it was not necessarily the amount of work that they put in that was surprising, rather the number of people who supported it along the way. Unsurprisingly, the presentation went off without a hitch and was a big success.
What a lovely, tangible reminder of all of the different ways that we can support each other in the day-to-day. It felt like barely any effort to take an hour out of my day to test drive some tech with a group of very cool peers which in turn not only helped out a good friend, but also supported this much broader effort of presenting some really impactful learning to a large group of people who could really use it. Extra bonus - I made new friends from that peer group who are doing very cool things in the world and was able to connect with them further about that. Community! This was such a great reminder that it doesn’t always have to be a big showing or huge effort when you have a community of people to offer up their support, and the effects of said communal support can echo on far beyond the initial offering. Many hands not only make lighter work, but also more impactful work.
How have you offered your hands recently to make lighter work for someone else? How have you received someone else’s offer of help to lighten your work?