Help comes to whoever is already pushing

Whoever waits for help standing still stays still. Help rarely arrives before the first move. It comes after, and it comes to whoever is already pushing.

The car out of gas

Picture a car that ran out of gas in the middle of the street. If the driver stays sitting inside, hazard lights on, people drive by. Nobody knows whether he needs help, whether he has already called someone, whether he is just waiting.

If he gets out of the car, someone stops and asks. If he starts pushing, others show up and push with him.

Same car. Same street. What changed was the driver.

The other day I saw a man outside his car, trying to push it alone. I stopped to help. I stopped only because I saw someone who needed help. Sitting inside, he would have been just another stopped car.

I've been on the other side. Once the pickup got stuck in the mud. We didn't stay sitting inside waiting. We got out and started trying. Soon other people showed up and helped. Alone, it would never have come out. That's why, in the photos, we're covered in mud.

Nobody pushes a car with the driver sitting inside.

What science measured

This isn't just intuition. In 2001, economists Urs Fischbacher, Simon Gächter and Ernst Fehr ran an experiment in which each person decided how much to put into a common fund, knowing how much the others would put in. A large share of participants behaved as "conditional cooperators": they contributed more the more the others contributed (Economics Letters). The result was later replicated in other countries.

In plain terms: many people are willing to help, but they wait for someone to start. Whoever gives the first push unlocks everyone else's cooperation.

There is a second point. A meta-analysis by Udo Rudolph, Bernard Weiner and colleagues, bringing together studies from several countries, showed that we tend to help when we see someone's difficulty as outside their control, and tend to withhold help when we think the person is responsible for their own situation (Cognition and Emotion). Whoever stays sitting in the car sends a message, even without meaning to: it looks like he gave up, or that he is waiting for someone to solve it for him.

The owner's lesson

In business, the car out of gas shows up all the time. The stalled project, the client who disappeared, the target nobody believes in anymore.

The leader who waits for the team to get excited before acting will wait sitting down. The team looks at the leader to know whether it's worth pushing. If the leader is inside the car, nobody gets out.

The same goes for investors, partners and clients. Nobody puts money into someone still waiting for ideal conditions. They put it into whoever is already moving, even slowly, even pushing by hand.

And it goes for asking for help. Asking for help isn't weakness. Asking for help while standing still is what doesn't work. Whoever asks for help showing what they have already done gets much more than whoever asks from inside the car.

In judo, nobody lifts you off the mat if you lie there waiting for the referee. You move, look for the grip, get out of the bad position. The coach helps whoever is already trying to get out.

Rise and walk

Jesus asked the paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda: "Do you want to be healed?". The man answered by explaining why he hadn't managed yet. Jesus said: "Get up, take up your bed, and walk" (John 5

). The miracle came from God. But the man had to get up.

Get out of the car. Start pushing. Help will come.