Mike DomitrzPresident, Author, and Speaker on Respect, The Center for Respect, Inc. · Author & Speaker on Respect for Schools, Corporations, & the Military since 1990 (has reached

Give others a chance to learn before you offer to help!

14 Jul 2023 · 1 min

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In this short monologue, the speaker describes the "fixer" dynamic that often appears in workplaces: a person who interjects with unsolicited advice or solutions, positioning themselves as the knowledgeable authority. This behavior, characterized by offering answers without being asked, undermines the autonomy and confidence of others, leading them to defer to the fixer for validation. The speaker explains how such interventions can disempower team members, erode their voice, and create a dependency on the fixer’s input. To counteract this, the speaker urges listeners to recognize fixer tendencies in themselves and to shift toward empowering and trusting colleagues, allowing them to discover solutions independently.

Chapters

The fixer will do this. The fixer is the one who comes in the room and maybe doesn't tell you what to do, doesn't actually fix the problem, but they'll do this. Have you ever thought of this before? And they give you an answer, which it sounds like they're implying they got the answer. By the way, I've done this. People who like to have control over their office or their situation can do this a lot. They'll be like, have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? Unsolicited feedback and solutions. Keyword, unsolicited. Implies you need to hear from me even though you didn't ask. Now, what does that do? That disempowers the others to think, well, maybe we better go check in with Mike because we haven't heard from Mike yet on this one and Mike tends to always want to have a say. See how that would be? That'd be negative because they don't have any autonomy. They don't have their own voice. A lot of us can be fixers. What do you want to do to avoid being a fixer? You want to empower and trust those around you.