Deference is lazy, not service

I grew up in a world of service — it’s in my DNA. As a family, we existed to make others’ world’s better. I’m grateful for that training and the cloth from which I was cut. Then I went to work for a management consulting company. At consulting school, I was indoctrinated in the ways of client service. I was literally paid to make my client’s life easier, whatever that meant to them. I’d meet clients at odd hours, walk with them to their cars as they went from meeting to meeting, drive across town to handover a document that could easily be emailed. Regularly, I’d be up before dawn and not open my computer until the kids went to bed because of all of the ‘serving’ I’d done all day.

A buddy called me one day to ask a question about my work. He wanted to make an email connection to a friend of his in need of some pro bono help.

‘Which email to you want me to pass on?,’ he asked, noting I had a work email and a personal email.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I deferred.
‘It does matter. It matters to him and it should matter to you. Which one.” This time his question was statement.

By deferring to my friend, I abdicated my responsibility to truly serve and put the onus on him. I forced him to the make the decision. I forced him to address the implications of one email over another.

It sounds like a great deal of drama over an email address and perhaps that’s the case. But that’s not the point. The point is that in my attempt to make my friend’s life easier, I actually made it harder. I shifted the responsibility to him and that’s unfair to him.

I now see why my bride gets so frustrated with the now routine discussion on the way home from church:

"Where do you want to eat?,” she prompted
"I don’t care”
“How about there?”, she offered.
“I don’t like that place”
“So you do care”, she noticed.
“No I don’t. But I don’t want to eat there. Or that other place. Or your favorite place. Or that place the kids like. Or that place by your sister’s. Other than that, I don’t care.”

God bless my wife.

Now, when we decide where to go for lunch, I offer options. I do the homework of knowing where she is, where I am, considering what she likes and what I can eat, noting the time available and the money to spend. I ‘gift’ her the work of the homework and engage her in the option. I can still include her without making her do the work.

Service is doing the work, taking the responsibility, making the decision, providing the options. Deference is lazy. That’s not the same thing.