AMANDA KERSEY: Welcome to HBR On Management. These episodes are case research and conversations with the world’s high enterprise and administration consultants, hand-selected that can assist you unlock one of the best in these round you. I’m HBR senior editor and producer Amanda Kersey.
Firms are inclined to reward leaders for being succesful, decisive, and self-sufficient. However these expectations can flip right into a lure, one which makes it tougher so that you can ask for what you have to do your job effectively.
This 2019 HBR IdeaCast episode challenges the concept that self-sufficiency makes higher leaders—and explains why asking for assist is usually the smarter transfer.
ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Enterprise Evaluate. I’m Alison Beard.
How usually do you ask for assist? In my private life, I do it on a regular basis. I’d ask one other mother to select up my children, or my husband to cook dinner dinner. Earlier than Waze, I requested for instructions. One time, after I confirmed up at a elaborate occasion in my commuting footwear – with my heels again on the workplace – I walked right into a gown store and requested to borrow those they let prospects use to gauge hem size.
In my skilled life, I’m not so needy. If I’m fighting a activity, I often simply maintain at it. I do request later, shorter, and fewer conferences. I’ve been recognized to name the IT Assist Desk. But when I’m fighting a activity, I often simply maintain at it.
Whether or not it’s the next pay or a promotion, assist on a difficult task or extra assets on your workforce, it may be arduous to ask bosses and colleagues for assist at work. However, until your workplace is a magical place crammed with genies and fairy godmothers, you hardly ever get what you want or need with out asking for it.
At this time we’re joined by Wayne Baker, a sociologist and professor on the Ross Faculty of Enterprise on the College of Michigan. He’s spent a lot of his profession centered on the difficulty of methods to successfully solicit assist. His conclusion? It entails not solely understanding your targets and tailoring your message but in addition embracing the reciprocity of each giving and receiving and spreading that ethos throughout your group.
Baker is the writer of the e-book All You Must Do Is Ask: How you can Grasp the Most Essential Ability for Success. And he joins me now. Wayne, welcome.
WAYNE BAKER: Thanks, Alison. Glad to be right here.
ALISON BEARD: So why do a few of us shrink back from asking for assist at work?
WAYNE BAKER: Nicely, it is extremely widespread, and it happens for a few causes. One is that we’re afraid that we’ll look like incompetent or weak or ignorant or that we are able to’t do our jobs. However you already know, right here we have to replace our perception. There’s some new analysis that has been carried out by a workforce from Wharton and Harvard, the place they discovered so long as you make a considerate, clever request, folks will suppose you might be extra competent, not much less.
Another excuse is that we frequently underestimate different folks’s willingness and talent to assist. And right here too, the analysis exhibits very clearly that most individuals are prepared to assist even strangers if they’re requested. The issue is that most individuals don’t ask for what they want.
ALISON BEARD: There may be this nice stability to stroll although as a result of all of us wish to be seen as self-starters – you already know, capable of work very arduous independently, not bringing our boss issues, not overburdening our colleagues. So how will we navigate that? Preserving our fame however nonetheless getting the assistance we’d like?
WAYNE BAKER: Nicely self-reliance is an effective factor. It’s a robust worth. But it surely’s potential to over depend on self-reliance. And plenty of instances, we are able to simply do the duty extra successfully, extra effectively and faster if we attain out and ask for assist or enter if we ask for assist or enter or assets of some type.
Now, what we have now discovered within the office and infrequently in in varied features of life as effectively, is that folks will likely be very beneficiant, however they’re afraid to ask for what they want. We name that the overly beneficiant giver. And the remedy for that’s to ask extra for what you want, but it surely additionally signifies that a method that you simply preserve your fame, in actual fact enhance your fame is to be beneficiant.
So, I at all times advocate that folks ought to do two issues. Try to be beneficiant; you need to assist folks. Don’t maintain monitor of who helps you. It’s not a few tit for tat change and to freely ask for what you want if you want it. In order that’s one of the best place to be for a person, for a workforce or for a corporation.
ALISON BEARD: You additionally in your e-book make a distinction between asking somebody to do one thing for you and asking somebody to show you to do one thing, so the following time you could be self-reliant and do it your self.
WAYNE BAKER: Sure. There’s two forms of assist searching for. There may be autonomous and dependent. So autonomous help-seeking signifies that you wish to study and also you ask somebody for enter or assist so that you could study to do it the following time your self.
Dependent assist searching for is that you simply simply need the issue solved, you need the issue to go away, and also you don’t actually study something within the course of. An ideal instance of that’s, um, each time I requested my teenage son for assist with my iPhone. Now I’m from the analog technology. He’s from the digital, uh, technology. He’s a digital native, so he is aware of methods to do every little thing.
And so, I’ll get caught on one thing. I’ll say, “Hey, might you assist me with this?” And he simply takes my cellphone, and his fingers is a blur. I imply he simply does it actually, actually quick. And I say, no, no, we decelerate. I wish to, you already know, I wish to know methods to do it, so I’m going to need to ask you once more. However he simply needs to get it carried out. Palms it again to me. I’ve the reply after I personal my iPhone now works however I don’t know methods to do it myself.
ALISON BEARD: Each workplace does have individuals who do advocate for themselves, you already know, they get extra assets once they’re engaged on tasks, get extra folks placed on their groups, get extra time to complete their duties. They’ve this type of ask and also you shall obtain angle, which is you’re saying is nice, however that does create resentment, proper? Is that the precise mannequin?
WAYNE BAKER: Nicely, I discussed the overly beneficiant giver, which is the most typical kind that we see. We now have an evaluation that we use and that’s the consequence time and time once more, that most individuals are overly beneficiant givers at work. The alternative is what you simply described. It’s the egocentric taker. The one that was at all times making requests and probably not serving to different folks in return. I’ve a pal of mine who works at IBM consulting and he says, oh, that they had, these are, these are sponges. We name them sponges. These are the individuals who form of suck in every little thing and don’t give something again. So over time what we discover is that the egocentric taker is productiveness and efficiency decline. The reason being, is that folks cease serving to them as a result of they see that they’re not collaborating, they’re not giving any assist again.
ALISON BEARD: In your analysis, did you discover any variations between folks’s willingness to ask for assist relying on their profession stage? You realize, you could possibly see a teen being too shy to ask for assist, however you may as well see a really senior individual not eager to as a result of then folks would possibly suppose they don’t know what they’re doing and shouldn’t be within the place that they’re.
WAYNE BAKER: Yeah, we name that the sage syndrome as that leaders really feel that they need to be the font of all knowledge to know every little thing and by no means have any wants or by no means ask for assist. However what we’ve actually discovered over time is that that’s actually self-limiting; leaders have to ask as effectively. The truth is, I’ve proposed a brand new function for the chief, which is the chief assist seeker – that they need to ask for assist. And by doing so, they’re a job mannequin for the form of habits that they need in different folks. The truth is, if a, if a frontrunner just isn’t prepared to ask, it’s arduous to get anybody else to do it as effectively.
ALISON BEARD: So, have you ever discovered that these sages are much less prone to ask for assist?
WAYNE BAKER. Oh, completely. And virtually the upper up you go in a corporation, the much less, you already know, the extra folks really feel that they need to have all of the solutions. However that’s simply actually, I imply, that’s completely unrealistic as that, you already know, they’ve nice wants. The truth is, you already know, the CEO or somebody within the C-suite, you already know, they encounter loads of issues that they should speak to different executives about, possibly exterior of their firm. Perhaps they want what I referred to as a mind belief. You realize, a bunch of trusted people who find themselves at an identical government degree however throughout totally different corporations you can go to and, and seek the advice of.
ALISON BEARD: And did you discover any variations between genders or ethnic backgrounds?
WAYNE BAKER: With our evaluation, we have now not discovered any gender variations that the propensity to be an excessively beneficiant giver is equally seemingly for males and for ladies. Now we don’t have sufficient information to reply your different query is how would possibly it differ by ethnicity or age.
ALISON BEARD: And what about throughout cultures?
WAYNE BAKER: It’s very attention-grabbing. We now have a, an exercise referred to as the reciprocity ring that we created about 20 years in the past. It’s, you may form of consider it as a bunch degree, pay it ahead exercise the place everybody makes a request, however you spend most of your time serving to different folks meet their requests. Both you might have the reply or the useful resource, or you may faucet your community and get it for that individual.
And method again then we thought that getting folks to offer to assist was going to be, that was going to be the actual downside, the actual impediment. But it surely seems that the largest barrier to generosity is folks’s reluctance to ask for what they want. So, within the reciprocity ring, the request is the ticket of admission. So, you need to try this. And since everybody’s doing it, everybody’s in the identical boat and it’s feels psychologically secure.
ALISON BEARD: And so, this works in all places on the earth?
WAYNE BAKER: Sure. That’s why I discussed it, is {that a}, it’s now been carried out by about 150,000 folks, 20 totally different nations, 12 totally different languages. And it at all times works. It appears to faucet into some human common. We’ve used it in Saudi Arabia. It’s labored in Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, you identify it. It’s labored in South America. It’s labored in every single place, you already know, it actually faucets into that human common, that folks wish to assist. And in the event you give them permission to ask, all types of issues are potential.
ALISON BEARD: A whole lot of the hesitation in asking for assist just isn’t realizing precisely what you want or who to ask for it, you already know, particularly in massive organizations. So how do you get previous that?
WAYNE BAKER: You realize I discussed earlier than that you simply wish to make a considerate, clever request and a part of that’s realizing the objective that you simply’re attempting to attain after which the requests you have to make with a purpose to get a useful resource to, to maneuver you in direction of that objective.
So, I supply a few other ways of doing it. Certainly one of my favorites is the fast begin technique and it’s quite a lot of sentence completers and I’ll learn simply two of them to you to get a way of it. And I discovered when folks do that, when executives do that, that it actually will get them eager about what they’re attempting to perform and what they should accomplish it.
So, right here’s two I’m at present engaged on, and I might use assist to, you already know, they fill in these two blanks. One other one is one in all my greatest challenges in my life is to, and I want recommendation on in the event you took simply these two and I’ve a number of of them, in the event you take these to reply these, fill within the blanks, you’ll go a good distance to determine what you’re attempting to do. It lets you prioritize and what sort of useful resource that you simply want.
ALISON BEARD: After which how do you go about discovering the individuals who can get these issues for you?
WAYNE BAKER: Nicely, there’s a few confirmed strategies. One precept is that you really want to go exterior of your interior circle of associates and acquaintances and household. Now in fact they might have the useful resource of the reply you want, so you’ll wish to ask them. However usually we discover the useful resource exterior of that community. Outdoors of that interior circle.
One technique I name the two-step technique. So, I won’t know who to ask when it comes to who has the useful resource, however I’d know somebody who would seemingly know somebody. It’s that two step or two-degree technique. So, I’ve a colleague of mine, Jeff DeGraff, who’s an innovation professional.
He used a two-step technique 180 instances in a single 12 months to seek out the professional and as he would say is that he goes, you already know, we frequently don’t know who the professional is, however we all know who to ask to get to the professional. It’s that two step technique.
One other is the usage of your dormant ties. Now a dormant tie is a connection or a relationship that you simply had with somebody previously, however you haven’t stored up and your lives have gone in numerous instructions. Now many individuals really feel reluctant, you already know, re reconnecting with somebody from the previous and making a request.
However what the analysis exhibits is that persons are actually, they’re thrilled. They’re delighted to listen to from you and really prepared that can assist you. And since they’re what they know, and their networks are actually fairly totally different now as a result of they’ve gone at a distinct course from you, due to that, they provide a world of assets which are out there that can assist you clear up an issue or get the recommendation that you simply want or no matter useful resource it could be.
ALISON BEARD: Proper. So how do I strategy this preliminary outreach to my community? After which as soon as I’ve recognized an individual who I actually suppose might assist me on this particular downside I’m coping with, make the request to them?
WAYNE BAKER: I’ve 5 standards referred to as SMART standards. The S is for particular and the extra particular you can also make your request, the extra seemingly will probably be fulfilled. And that’s as a result of if you ask a really particular request, it triggers folks’s recollections about what they know and who they know.
The M, and that is the way it differs from conventional, the normal “M” in sensible, which frequently means measurable and measurability is sweet, however what I imply is significant. That you must clarify why the request is significant and necessary to you, to your group, to your prospects or what have you ever.
The A is for motion. You must ask for one thing to be carried out. Generally folks will state a objective as a substitute of a request, however a objective is a vacation spot. A request is one thing that helps you progress towards that individual objective.
The R is for actual or reasonable. Now, I encourage folks to by no means prejudge the capabilities of a bunch or a community, however you already know, you wish to make a sensible request. It needs to be strategically sound. In case your request is to colonize Mars subsequent 12 months, that’s not going to occur.
ALISON BEARD: In case your request is to fulfill Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos to possibly begin engaged on their attending to Mars applications, you would possibly have the ability to obtain that?
WAYNE BAKER: Yup. The truth is, I ran the reciprocity ring for medical college students on the Mayo Clinic and one of many medical college students had a really comparable request is that she wished to be the flight doctor on an area flight.
And it was wonderful, Alison, she acquired a lot assist, so many nice connections, connections to somebody at NASA to some engineer, some scientists. It was really astounding. And for her it was a stretch request, however nonetheless possible as a result of you already know, she was most likely about 25 years outdated getting her MD on the Mayo Clinic, you already know, inside 20 years or so she can be about the precise stage in her profession to be the flight doctor. And so, for her it was a stretch, but it surely was reasonable.
ALISON BEARD: And let’s get to that T in sensible.
WAYNE BAKER: Oh, the T is for time-bound, is that there needs to be a deadline. And I discovered that the extra particular you could be, the extra seemingly you’ll get a response. Now typically folks say, “Oh, you already know, subsequent 12 months, someday or possibly subsequent quarter.”
That doesn’t encourage folks to reply. It’s like, I want this by the tip of December, or I want this by tomorrow. That urgency will actually encourage folks to reply. After which if somebody can’t show you how to, graciously settle for that. And you already know a “no” is an opinion, a “no” is info. Generally in the event you say, effectively, “why” to the no, you would possibly study one thing that can show you how to to refine the request.
The truth is, you’re telling that person who you already know, that you simply see them as an necessary individual, somebody who, who could be useful. The truth is, when, if you ask for assist, folks infer what we name an affiliative motive, which is that they really feel that you simply’re asking for assist in half since you need a nearer relationship with them they usually react positively that that’s what we’ve seen time and time once more.
ALISON BEARD: After which even when you might have that sensible pitch put collectively, you additionally want to grasp the person who you’re approaching. You realize, a pal of your dad’s may be very totally different than Elon Musk. So how do you determine methods to pitch totally different folks in numerous methods?
WAYNE BAKER: Sure. In order that’s you need to be delicate to the individual. Um, and so you may ask your self some very fundamental questions, you already know, does this individual desire to fulfill in, in individual? Would they like an e-mail or a textual content? How a few cellphone name? When can be time for them?
Years in the past, I used to work at a consulting agency and after I wanted to ask the senior companions for one thing they have been by no means out there. However then I discovered or I discovered that if I timed it excellent, I might get within the elevator proper when one of many senior companions was taking place to go away for the day.
ALISON BEARD: That’s artful.
WAYNE BAKER: Yeah. So, I’d simply soar within the elevator with him, and I had his undivided consideration for that time period. He was truly very receptive, you already know, his day was carried out. U He was going dwelling and we might have a dialog. I’d even stroll with him to his automotive, and he would often drive me again and drop me off on the entrance entrance to the workplace. You realize? So, it’s, you need to take into consideration these issues in addition to that what’s the finest time and one of the simplest ways for the person who you’re asking.
ALSION BEARD: A whole lot of this appears to be about confidence too. You realize, you clearly had the boldness to leap in that elevator, however loads of junior folks wouldn’t. So, does this simply require loads of observe to get snug with it?
WAYNE BAKER: It’s a behavior. It’s a behavior that one must study, and also you get higher at it over time by doing it an increasing number of. So, I at all times advocate that folks begin small. You need it to be a considerate request. Use the 5 sensible standards, however maybe, you already know, ask one thing in your neighborhood or in your loved ones community or in some affiliation or one thing at work or discover a secure place at work, possibly amongst friends or no matter. However it’s one thing that you simply study to get higher at over time.
ALISON BEARD: So, we centered rather a lot on people right here, however how would possibly a frontrunner unfold one of these pondering on a workforce and get extra of their folks asking one another for assist?
WAYNE BAKER: What I’ve discovered is that folks have to understand how they could do one thing to instill these sorts of practices, however they want the how. I can provide you a few fast examples. Nicely, we talked about the reciprocity to ring already. Uh, that’s one. One other is the standup.
The standup is a quite common observe in IT and software program improvement companies. And I feel it has widespread applicability nearly in all places. So, right here’s how it might work. You’d have a bunch of individuals get up, they stand in a circle and really rapidly they go round and every individual has to say three issues. Right here’s what I labored on yesterday, right here’s what I’m engaged on right now and right here’s the assistance I want. And when, and if you try this, it makes asking a routine anticipated habits. The truth is, not asking, is letting the group down.
Different teams, I do know we’ll use what we name huddles and there’s two boards, a proper huddle and a casual huddle. IDEO is a superb instance of the usage of casual huddles. When a designer is caught on an issue, they’re anticipated to cease, deliver collectively a bunch of different designers and have a fast huddle or brainstorming session, ask for recommendation, enter, no matter. Everybody’s prepared to do this as a result of they know sooner or later they’re going to be caught they usually’re going to wish to faucet into the collective data and networks of the group itself.
ALISON BEARD: Are there some organizations the place this works extra simply than others as a result of the work is collaborative and significantly difficult versus locations the place it requires loads of heads down, impartial, toil and to be tapped on the shoulder and requested for a colleague’s assist could be very disruptive?
WAYNE BAKER: Nicely, I can provide you instance. I do know this economics consulting agency, they’re all PhD economists who work there. So, these tremendous sensible, well-educated folks and the principals, the leaders of this agency inform each new rent in the event you work on an issue for greater than 20 minutes and you’ll’t clear up it, we wish you to cease. And we wish you to deliver collectively a bunch of individuals and seek the advice of them, ask them for assist, ask them for recommendation.
ALISON BEARD: In the event you survey your present workforce and discover that somebody’s superb at saying sure to requests, however then they’re not at all times asking for or receiving assist, what do you say to them to teach them into higher habits?
WAYNE BAKER: Nicely, that’s a quite common downside. One you point out, is you can take them apart and really coach them and to say that it’s anticipated that you really want them to ask for what they want.
I at all times subscribe to what we name the habits first precept. So, if you wish to change beliefs and their attitudes, it’s very arduous to do this. However in the event you change folks’s behaviors, what they do, then they are going to replace their beliefs of their attitudes. greater than often, I’ve had folks say, oh, that is by no means going to work.
And I say, you already know, will you simply do it? And what they uncover is that once they would simply undergo and do the steps that incredible issues occur and afterwards, they are saying, oh, now I get it. Now I imagine.
ALISON BEARD: So, let’s pull this out yet another step. Throughout a corporation, how can we get teams to start out interacting extra and serving to one another extra?
WAYNE BAKER: Each group is split into silos. And so, the trick is to have folks ask throughout these cycles. And right here once more, there’s quite a lot of confirmed instruments and practices which are actually, actually fairly efficient.
One that’s used {that a} GM is named the cross-collaboration workshop. And on this one instance, the senior individual was in control of two totally different teams. One was um, superior engineering, the opposite was racing. Superior engineering is engaged on these advanced issues. Um, you already know, that gained’t see the sunshine of day for years.
Racing is simply attempting to repair a automotive from race to race. However what he discovered is that he stated, you already know, I’m going to have one in all these cross-collaboration workshops the place engineers from each teams, we’ll spend a few hours collectively, replace one another on what they’re engaged on and get assist from each other.
He even had the engineers what subject that they wished to concentrate on. He didn’t impose that or mandate that. So, there was a observe and that may very well be used wherever. We now have folks from the 2 totally different silos get collectively, find out about each other, join with each other, and interact in a few of these giving and getting actions.
ALISON BEARD: As a supervisor, how do you begin this dialog together with your workforce?
WAYNE BAKER: I feel one of the simplest ways to start out is to deliver the topping up within the subsequent group or workers assembly and say, I would really like us to create a tradition right here the place folks assist each other. And with a purpose to make that occur, we’d like folks to ask and to elucidate a bit of bit about what I write about within the e-book this to you already know that the good thing about doing this, how will assist everybody individually, the way it’ll assist the group after which say, okay, and we’re going to observe it proper now and we’re going to proceed this each week after which select one of many instruments or the practices and begin it proper then.
And I at all times encourage a supervisor to not surrender too quickly to decide to no less than 30 to 45 days. As a result of to start with persons are going to be a bit of skeptical and marvel what’s occurring. However as they begin doing it they usually begin experiencing the advantages of it, they usually developed a behavior and get higher at it, it’ll work higher and higher over time.
That was Wayne Baker, professor emeritus on the College of Michigan’s Ross Faculty of Enterprise, talking with HBR IdeaCast host Alison Beard. Wayne’s the writer of the e-book All You Must Do Is Ask: How you can Grasp the Most Essential Ability for Success.
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This episode was produced by Mary Dooe and me, Amanda Kersey. On Management’s workforce consists of Maureen Hoch, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Anne Bartholomew, and Nicole Smith. Music is by Coma Media.