No One Wants to Be Rescued

It's December 1993 and I am hovering 50 feet above the frigid water off George's Bank in the North Atlantic. It's cold, dark, and blowing snow.

We've just picked up the sole survivor from the fishing vessel SHANNON III which started the day with 5 souls on board. We are preparing to depart, when the survivor tries to jump out of the aircraft. He wants us to continue the search for his mates, and has to be restrained.

He is having the worst day of his life.

Rescues were almost always this way. People dealing with intense shock and loss and embarrassment were nearly never happy to see us.

The hero business was not what I expected.

I found something similar in other scenarios.

Later, when I was leading modernization and organizational change in large government agencies, I continued to think in terms "rescue". In my mind, and in my language, I made me and my team the rescuing hero's coming to save the organizational users. I even used this dim-witted phrase when marketing our efforts:

"Your ship is sinking and we are building a new system to rescue you!"

I made them out to be helpless victims. Yet, I was surprised when these organizations and users did not take extreme ownership of “my” new system.

Hard Learned Lesson

This lesson was thirty years in the making, building up to the day I read "Building a StoryBrand" by @donaldmiller.

The dawning realization literally stopped me in my tracks.

• People do not want to be rescued.

• They're the hero's of their own stories, and do not want to be victim in yours!

• People may submit to being rescued if they have no alternative, but they will resent it and resent you.

Action/Change

• To truly reach people, you must meet them where they are.

• Empower people, show them how to save themselves.

• Coach, guide, advise, encourage, but never rescue.

Conclusion:

*** Be Yoda, make others Luke Skywalker ***