Asking for what you need.
When we have a deadline, we go all in.
Often, we forget to ask for what we need, feeling it’s easier if we just do it.
There is another way.
“I need you to be the big spoon sometimes”, I told my spouse Sadie.
“Yep, I can do that”, said Sadie. “But what if we both were medium spoons?”
Er, what?
It’d never occurred to me there was another option.
Big spoon, little spoon.
When you want someone to be the ‘big spoon’, you want them to take over for a bit. You want someone else to be the boss of making decisions and running things.
You want them to be the big spoon, so you can be the little spoon. A little spoon can take a moment to chill while someone else does the heavy lifting.
I am used to big spoon energy, running things.
Equally, I am accustomed to the inevitable come down after the adrenaline rush of doing exciting things, and needing someone to take over for a bit.
Like many other people who have an experience with burnout, I didn’t know there was another way. Until I heard of medium spoon.
The medium spoon option.
A medium spoon dynamic is where both people ask for what they want and need, as they need it.
In this context, the idea was, if I asked for help when I needed it, and Sadie did too, we wouldn’t be praying the other one could take over come the end of the week.
Instead, we could try this radical idea, where we asked for what we needed.
As a result, we’d both have energy at the end of the week.
Direct, clear and timely communication. None of this hoping the person you’re with can read your mind business. Who'da thunk?
A ‘medium spoon’ is a third way of managing energy during big times.
Instead of going into turbo mode, taking over, taking control, and waiting to pass out after a deadline, we can ask for what you need during the madness of it all.
To ask for what we need, before, or as, we need it.
You’re sharing responsibility instead of defaulting to talking over or needing time out.
It’s not a radical concept but I must admit, it took me by surprise to have my ‘teammate’ (in this instance, Sadie) make it so explicit.
The result? You don’t feel totally wiped after an epic deadline, or big week. Because the other person had your back.
‘This is perfect for work’, I thought to myself, nodding along to Sadie.
Every functional relationship needs clear expectations, especially during times of stress.
If you’re anything like me, when I’m busy, my helpful communication goes out the window. I’m tired, I’m stressed, I’m to the point. I can’t be bothered having a conversation about anything outside of the one thing that’s on my mind.
In our emotional regulation training we refer to this as the ‘red zone’. An inability to see anything outside of the thing you’re working on. In the ‘tunnel zone’, other people are a little harder to notice, let alone collaborate with to help get it done.
Medium spoon activity is simply asking for what you need.
Before you can ask for what you need, you have to know what you need. Asking yourself, ‘what do I want and what do I need’ is really useful framing here.
For example, when you’re feeling stretched, you might write down, or think to yourself:
‘In this moment I might need …’
‘And what I want to happen is …’
I love how simple this is.
Applying medium spoon activities to work.
Being a good teammate or leader, I’m learning, is about sharing your non-negotiables and by doing so, mentally freeing yourself, and others, from the fluffy stuff that isn’t as important.
By doing so you’re also asking people for what you need. And this is what this medium spoon idea is all about: clear priorities, clear communication and equitable relationships.
At work, channelling medium spoon energy can be as simple as remembering to communicate what we’re experiencing and sharing our expectations of our own output with our teammates.
Examples might be:
Writing your ‘must do’ list and sharing it with your team. Before you do, be ruthless and cull the ‘nice to do’s’!
Outline what you need from the people around you for this to be a reality.
Table it with your team and make an agreement.
This simple exercise (we can use any time of year) makes the implicit, explicit. You’re also showing your teammates how they can ask for what they need, too.
As a personal example, I’ve put myself on a decision ban. I’m all out of quality decision making material for this year. By communicating that to my team, they’re clear on what I’m focussing on and how that informs their to do list.
It’s nice to know that the pros remind themselves to ask for what they need.
Beyoncé, currently the most Grammy nominated artist in history, shared in an interview,
“... I have felt the pressure of being the backbone of my family and my company and didn’t realise how much that takes a toll on my mental and physical well-being. I have not always made myself a priority.”
Imagining Beyoncé has the financial resources to run a household and business with support, and also feels the pressure to be the backbone, feels quite reassuring.
If we want an equitable dynamic at work, and in life, we have to find a way to communicate what we need, especially when we’re tired.
Creating your own medium spoon practice might be a neat way of advocating for what you need, by having a gentle check in with yourself to remind yourself what you need.
By channelling ‘medium spoon energy’ we can move away from any martyrdom of being a big spoon by default, or potential exhaustion craving to be a small spoon.
This medium spoon concept helps us and those we work with appreciate the shared responsibility of taking ownership of what you commit to.
A good way to see what you default to during times of stress is to ask yourself this.
Imagine your right hand person in work or life needed to immediately take a year off, starting today. What is your first response?
Do you instinctively go into save the day mode, ala big spoon?
Do you feel a little overwhelmed, ala small spoon?
Is there a third option available here, where others in your team become a medium spoon?
There’s no right answer, of course.
It’s just about noticing our default and then asking ourselves, ‘is there another way to get what I want by owning what’s mine to own and being explicit about what I need from others?
As a medium spoon in training myself, I am personally finding this idea quite transformative.
Over the break, you might like to think about your relationships at work.
Notice how you and your teammates behave in the run up to the end of the year.
For example:
Does one person take over, ala big spoon, and forget to use their resources and delegate?
Do people go into overdrive and do it themselves as their teammates don’t have the skills to do what they so uniquely do?
Do some fade into the background when overwhelmed, secretly hoping you wont ask them a question?
All of these are natural behaviours and you might just bring your awareness to it.
In 2023, once people have had a time to refresh themselves and come back to baseline, that’d be the perfect time to get your team talking about how they respond to stress.
For example, like many of our clients, you might like to schedule a workshop next year to give your team the language to clarify what zone they’re in at work and then: how to create moments where they can ask for what they want and need.
It’s easier to learn these things when we’re in our green zone (happy, relaxed, comfort zone). When we know the basics, it means we’re more prepared for those busy periods.
We run workshops to help make this happen.
Before we do, we meet with you privately, to talk about what sort of culture you want to reverse engineer.
This gives us a clear scope to help the team focus on the right things in the workshop.