The Art of Manliness - #593： All You Have to Do Is Ask

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast are you feeling

00:00:11.520 overwhelmed at work trying to find a job but can't seem to get your foot in the door you've

00:00:15.300 been knocking your head against a problem over and over again but haven't made any headway on it

00:00:19.580 my guest today says you can solve most of those issues by simply asking for help his name is

00:00:24.260 wayne baker he's a sociologist consultant and the author of the book all you have to do is ask how

00:00:28.740 to master the most important skill for success we begin our conversation discussing what the

00:00:32.860 research says are the benefits of asking for help and why people are nevertheless so reluctant to do

00:00:37.880 it wayne then provides insights on how to overcome those obstacles and asking for help the best way

00:00:42.040 to formulate an ask so it actually gets a response how to handle rejection we then turn to wayne's

00:00:46.440 research on how organizations can benefit from creating a culture of help seeking and what you

00:00:50.520 can do within the organization you belong to to foster such a culture after the show's over check

00:00:54.680 at our show notes at awim.is slash ask all right wayne baker welcome to the show thank you brett glad

00:01:08.540 to be here got a new book out all you have to do is ask how to master the most important skill for

00:01:14.040 success so what got you thinking and writing about the benefits of asking for help in your career in

00:01:19.460 life well i have an origin story that goes back 21 years when cheryl baker and i created the

00:01:26.740 reciprocity ring activity it's a group or team level activity in which people can ask for and give help

00:01:33.160 to one another and back then when we started using this activity i thought that getting people to give

00:01:39.860 to help that that was going to be the problem and so i'd always start out with a little lecture on

00:01:44.200 generosity and the importance of giving and helping but i soon discovered that that was rarely if ever

00:01:50.340 the problem what i discovered is that the main barrier to generosity is not that people are unwilling

00:01:56.560 or unable to help but that most people don't ask for what they need and people are really quite

00:02:01.900 reluctant to do that so i had the shift and i had to focus on well what are the reasons why it's hard

00:02:07.180 to ask what is the benefit of asking and then what kind of tools can one use to ask and what got you

00:02:13.520 started with the whole reciprocity ring like what was it in your what were you looking at that you

00:02:17.280 thought that was needed well i'm a sociologist by training and i teach in a business school

00:02:22.540 and my specialty is social networks in particular network analysis and i would teach my mba students

00:02:29.240 how to analyze their networks how to interpret them to think about the strengths and the weaknesses

00:02:35.260 but i didn't really have a lot to tell them about what to do in fact i remember a pivotal

00:02:41.140 conversation i had with cheryl when she said you know you teach your students how to analyze their

00:02:45.280 networks what do you tell them to do and i said well i have a couple stories and some anecdotes

00:02:50.260 and basically i'm waiting for the bell to ring and run out of time because i don't have a lot

00:02:54.160 and that started a conversation about social capital you think about human capital is that's what you know

00:03:00.620 your skills your experiences your knowledge social capital is your network informal informal personal

00:03:06.900 and professional and i said well you know teach people how to analyze their networks but that's

00:03:11.540 only half of social capital the other is this principle that we call generalized reciprocity

00:03:17.380 what that means is you know i help you to help me that's direct reciprocity and that's great we

00:03:22.680 would want that to happen but generalized reciprocity is bigger than that it's like you help me i feel

00:03:29.540 grateful and i pay it forward and i help a third person who helps a fourth person and then

00:03:34.240 eventually it all comes back around to us again and so the reciprocity ring creates that form of

00:03:40.120 generalized reciprocity people get to make a request in fact that that's the ticket of admission

00:03:45.040 they have to make a request but they spend most of their time helping other people and what they

00:03:49.860 discover is that the people they help are not the people that they receive help from it's that more

00:03:54.880 indirect or generalized form of reciprocity well before we get into the benefits of asking for help

00:04:01.280 you talk about what i thought the surprising thing from your your reciprocity ring is that more people

00:04:05.380 were willing to give as opposed to receive so like what what are what keeps people from asking for help

00:04:11.780 whether it's in their career or just life in general well there's a lot of things that get in the way a lot of

00:04:16.980 obstacles or barriers a common one is that people are concerned or they fear that they'll appear to be

00:04:24.580 incompetent or weak ignorant can't do their job not educated whatever you know they fear that they'll be

00:04:32.620 perceived to be simply incompetent but here the research can be really helpful for updating that 0.96

00:04:38.220 what we've learned through research is that as long as you make a thoughtful request people are more

00:04:44.740 likely to think that you're competent and less likely to think that you're incompetent it's how you make the

00:04:51.040 request why you're making the request that's what really matters a thoughtful request will increase

00:04:56.180 perceptions of your competence so that's one another common barrier is that we don't ask because we

00:05:03.140 assume that no one can help us and the research here is helpful as well there have been a number of

00:05:08.720 interesting studies that have shown that in fact even strangers are very likely to help in fact most

00:05:14.120 people want to help and most people will help if they can the problem is getting people to ask

00:05:19.780 and some another you know sort of block that keeps people from asking for help is like some people

00:05:25.120 sometimes people don't feel like they earn the privilege to ask for help like you they feel

00:05:28.960 like they got to do something first before they can like there's a score they have to meet before they

00:05:33.260 can ask yeah that's another common barrier what i always prescribe is is this okay well then go out

00:05:40.140 and give help people earn the privilege of asking it's important to do both in fact i think that the best

00:05:46.180 place to be as an individual as a team or an organization is what i call the giver requester

00:05:52.980 that's where you freely and generously help other people you don't keep track who helps you it's not

00:05:59.400 about tit for tat exchange and you ask for help when you need it as long as you're doing both that's the

00:06:04.920 best place to be both individually as a team and even as an entire organization and one that you talk

00:06:11.020 about too that keeps people it's like psychological but you highlight research we just mentioned

00:06:14.940 research that that's not true is that people feel like if they ask like they're imposing on other

00:06:19.220 people like that they don't want to impose they don't want to be a burden it feels uncomfortable to

00:06:24.020 say that they need something from somebody that's right in fact that it's important to realize is that

00:06:29.820 most people do want to help you know it feels good to help it creates kind of a warm glow it creates

00:06:34.840 positive emotions in us to help other people i actually think that as humans we are hardwired

00:06:41.000 to give and get help from one another so we talked about what keeps us from asking for help but what

00:06:46.760 are the benefits from help seeing what happens when we get over those blocks and start asking for help

00:06:51.580 well oftentimes you can be much more productive efficient and creative by asking for input and resources

00:07:00.080 from other people and the research is very clear that you will perform at a higher level if you're

00:07:05.800 both asking for and giving help so that's one if you look at at the team level we see the same thing

00:07:12.300 is that teams are much more effective much more creative perform at a higher level if people can freely ask

00:07:19.760 for and give help to one another inside the team and they develop good external networks where they can ask

00:07:25.820 for help from resources outside the team and are there any examples antidotes from your research and just from

00:07:31.360 your experience with working with people where they hit a problem and this they thought there was no solution

00:07:36.160 to this but they never thought to ask for help and then when they finally did it was like the thing that

00:07:41.600 just instantaneously solved the problem well it's interesting i just got an email from someone who had

00:07:47.760 finished reading my book right before they had to go in to have a meeting with a client who was a president of a very very large

00:07:54.720 company and they had to make a request about implementing a company-wide program and because

00:08:03.380 they used the method in the book and they thought to the criteria for making an effective request

00:08:08.040 they were able to have the meeting make the request to get it responded to affirmatively and they're not

00:08:14.980 working out all the next steps but i bet that person before they read the book thought you know

00:08:19.540 i don't know if i should really ask for this but they were empowered to do so and they also learned

00:08:25.080 how to make a thoughtful request that part's really important as well and besides just furthering your goals

00:08:30.720 and advancing your career goals or your life goals like asking for help can also just alleviate a lot of stress

00:08:36.860 i mean one thing you hear over and over again people at work are feeling burnt out they're feeling overstretched

00:08:40.840 stressed out and oftentimes they just ask for help that could help with that

00:08:44.460 absolutely you know the most common type we see is what i call the overly generous giver

00:08:49.780 that's a person who freely helps other people but doesn't ask for what they need

00:08:54.300 and they often experience burnout they might go so far as actually compromising their ability to follow

00:09:00.760 through on their commitments and my prescription there is well balance it you want to put boundaries

00:09:06.040 around your generosity so you don't burn out you don't overextend your resources and you need to ask for help

00:09:12.560 and when people do that they find that work becomes less stressful as a result

00:09:16.520 so you've developed this idea to try to figure out where you are in this asking receiving continuum

00:09:21.100 so the way what you're saying here it's not it's like giving and receiving are part of a continuum

00:09:26.440 it's part of a cycle it shouldn't just be seen as either or it's something that's going on all the time

00:09:31.280 right yep that's right you know it's giving and receiving is a cycle you can't have giving without

00:09:37.660 receiving and you can't have receiving without giving and nothing happens until a request is made

00:09:43.780 the request is the driver or the catalyst of that process and you lay out in the chapter called the

00:09:50.200 law of giving and receiving that you can break down askers and givers into like four categories and you

00:09:56.620 mentioned one the overly generous giver these are people who just give freely all the time and i think

00:10:02.320 adam grant he did in his book give and take he talks about those people like the most generous

00:10:07.320 people are often the most successful but they're also the most unsuccessful in their career and i

00:10:12.320 think that the reason they're unsuccessful is because they overextend themselves they overextend

00:10:16.740 themselves and they don't ask for what they need and it's okay you don't want to be an overly generous

00:10:21.200 giver like what are the other types of givers and givers and takers well the opposite of the overly

00:10:26.460 generous giver is the selfish taker so that's the person who has no problem asking and makes

00:10:32.300 requests all the time but they're not helpful they don't give they don't reciprocate and what the

00:10:37.800 research shows is that over time their performance declines because people see what they're doing

00:10:42.060 and they're much less likely to respond to them i had a friend who used to work at ibm consulting and

00:10:48.100 when i explained this these categories or these types to him he said oh yeah the selfish taker we

00:10:53.080 called them a sponge you know they just sucked in everything and they never gave a drop back

00:10:57.240 so that's two the overly generous giver and the opposite the selfish taker

00:11:01.080 a third type is what i call the lone wolf or the isolate now in some ways that's the most tragic

00:11:07.360 position to be in because you've just hit your head down focusing on your work you don't give

00:11:13.060 you don't ask and it's tragic because that person is just disconnected from you know the ongoing

00:11:19.180 activity and network around them the best place to be is the giver requester that's the fourth type

00:11:25.000 and in our assessments we found that about maybe 15 of people are giver requesters most people fall

00:11:33.020 in the category of the overly generous giver followed by the lone wolf and we do see some selfish takers

00:11:39.240 every now and then but often not in the extreme and i guess to shift your way shift from the overly

00:11:45.500 generous giver to a giver requester like you have to get over those like those social or psychological

00:11:51.600 blocks in your head that that tells you it's not okay to ask but just remind yourself about the

00:11:57.020 research that no it's okay for you to ask it actually makes you look competent and people are

00:12:01.700 ready and willing to help you yes and i think you can go even further and say it's a requirement to ask

00:12:08.200 is that you know without asking all the resources all the answers are just sitting out there so you

00:12:13.720 imagine an organization where people don't ask for what they need just think of all the resources that

00:12:19.380 are wasted that are unused that are just sitting out there dormant the only way they get activated is

00:12:24.900 when people make a request no and you can see that in your personal life too right like there's a

00:12:30.040 oftentimes a lot of problems interpersonally no one ever actually says hey can you stop doing that or hey

00:12:36.500 this because they're afraid but once the once they do the other person says like well i didn't know

00:12:40.920 that was an issue i'm glad you brought that up thank you for doing that yep that's right i think a team

00:12:46.500 leader or an organizational leader has a responsibility there to recognize and even reward

00:12:52.040 people who will stand up and ask for what they need oftentimes the systems are geared towards

00:12:56.920 rewarding those who help and that's important you want to do that but i think you need to reward the

00:13:01.780 other side as well those who ask and we'll talk a little bit more about how you can incentivize for

00:13:06.160 that but let's say someone's overcome those psychological and social barriers for asking for help

00:13:11.720 so they're going to make the ask though but how can people mess up asking for help is there like a

00:13:16.220 wrong way and right way to do this a wrong way would be to rush to a request and assume that you know

00:13:22.180 who to ask i think preparation is really the key to make a thoughtful request so it begins with the goal

00:13:28.980 what is it that you're trying to accomplish what are you trying to achieve and then once you have that

00:13:34.440 you say okay well what's the resource that i need that will help me to achieve or at least make

00:13:38.340 progress on achieving that goal and to think widely and broadly so it could be advice information

00:13:44.840 ideas opportunities a a brainstorming session a referral a connection financial resources

00:13:52.020 political sponsorship the list goes on and on but once you've got the goal what you're trying to

00:13:57.260 accomplish and you think about what's the resource that i need then the next step is to make what i

00:14:02.960 call a smart request and a smart request the five criteria for smart request but these are different

00:14:10.100 from smart goals so the first the s is specific you want to ask for something very specific and that has

00:14:18.160 to do with the way in which the human memory works is that people are more likely to remember who they

00:14:24.800 know and what they know when they hear a specific request than a general one oftentimes people think

00:14:29.920 it's just the opposite in fact the most general request i ever heard was from an executive from

00:14:35.200 the netherlands who said my request is for information that was it and so i said well can

00:14:41.460 you elaborate he said no it's confidential can't say anything more well yeah so he got no help right

00:14:47.420 how could anyone help with that request he actually was quite generous he helped other people but he

00:14:51.960 didn't get any help himself so the m and this is different from the m for smart goals which is measurable

00:14:58.680 and measurability is nice but here m is meaningful it's the why of the request why will this request

00:15:06.840 help you to be better able to get your job done at work how does it help your boss meet his or her

00:15:13.920 goals how does it align with the organization's objectives that's very important often left out but

00:15:20.020 it's important to explain the why the meaningful part of the request the a is for action you're asking

00:15:25.820 for something to be done the r is strategically realistic now i always encourage people to make

00:15:32.820 stretch requests to make big requests but it has to be within the realm of possibility and the t is time

00:15:38.660 a deadline much more likely to get a response if you actually have a deadline for it we're gonna take a

00:15:46.360 quick break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show no i thought this i thought

00:15:52.460 the activity you have this you kind of lay out sort of a worksheet for people to go through to figure

00:15:56.640 out what exactly they need to ask for help for i think that's a big problem people have is like okay

00:16:01.400 they don't even know what what they need help with and so they do what that business guy said and just

00:16:06.540 says i need information which is you can't do anything with that and then after you figure out what you

00:16:11.220 want the smart thing is really helpful in my experience whenever people have requested you know help

00:16:16.040 for me whenever they get very specific i'm like i can do that whenever they come to me with like a vague

00:16:21.480 issue i find myself having to spend more time trying to help them figure out what their problem is

00:16:25.980 and then i just don't have the time for that i'm sorry i don't have time for this that's right that's

00:16:30.160 right okay so let's say someone's made their their smart request they got that all laid out i mean i think

00:16:38.080 a lot of times people too worry about is how like the tactics of it how do you make the ask so that

00:16:44.020 it's effective so i'm talking about like timing on when you should make the ask make the request

00:16:49.400 things like that what does the research say about that well i think figuring out who to ask is the

00:16:55.300 last part of the process and there are different ways of thinking about it so one is you know maybe

00:17:01.800 you know that you have to go to your boss and it's it's that clear and if that's the case then you

00:17:06.060 would want to be sensitive to the form of communication the boss wants you know some people prefer email

00:17:12.180 some like a text some like a face-to-face meeting i remember i used to work at a consulting firm and

00:17:17.820 my boss was always too busy to meet but i discovered that the best time to make a request it was when he

00:17:24.220 was leaving work and going down in the elevator and i would watch for him to get into the elevator and i

00:17:29.040 would jump in at the same time and for the few minutes we had going down to the first floor i had his

00:17:35.000 undivided attention so that's what worked for him i had to adapt to his particular style

00:17:39.040 it's important to realize you know what is the person working are they under a really strict

00:17:44.460 deadline are they you know working all kinds of late hours maybe you need to wait on the timing of

00:17:50.220 your request so it's the form of communication is the timing you need to be sensitive to that

00:17:54.960 but you know that's kind of the category what i call the usual suspects you know your boss a co-worker

00:18:00.680 family friends i think it's important to realize that you can tap a much broader swath of your network

00:18:08.180 so one method that i advocate is called the two-step or the two-degree method which is that

00:18:14.500 you know i may not know who the expert is but i know who to ask who knows who the expert is

00:18:20.080 so a colleague of mine who runs a an innovatrium for innovators and entrepreneurs and he said that

00:18:26.700 he keeps track of this he said he used that two-step method 180 times in one year

00:18:32.200 and had really remarkable success in doing that and he said you know we could figure out

00:18:36.680 who to ask to get to the person we want so that's another way to think about it a third is to think

00:18:43.240 about your dormant connections so a dormant connection is a relationship that you had in the

00:18:48.140 past but your lives have gone in different directions the many times we'd be very reluctant

00:18:53.560 to try to reactivate a dormant connection when we need to make a request but here again the research

00:19:00.160 could be really helpful it says that most of your dormant connections are delighted

00:19:03.620 to hear from you and they like that the connection has been been reactivated and they're willing to

00:19:10.320 help and because their lives have gone in different directions that means what they know and who they

00:19:15.040 know is really different from what you know and who you know so they could be even more valuable

00:19:19.720 sources of help and then finally you could crowdsource you could think about a group that you

00:19:26.240 could broadcast or request to you know sometimes you could do that on linkedin or facebook maybe there's a

00:19:31.580 company intranet there's all sorts of messaging apps many different platforms that you could use to

00:19:37.560 broadcast a request to a group and take advantage of that six degrees of separation that's right

00:19:43.240 that's right i've really found that you know i've so we developed a platform that's called givitas

00:19:49.180 givitas is a combination of giving and civitas for community and it's a digital platform and it's based

00:19:56.360 on the principles in the book and we have some very large communities thousands of people many of whom

00:20:02.020 are strangers and i just see day after day people make requests for some really difficult things and

00:20:08.880 they get help from all over in fact i use givitas when i was writing my book and i needed say a fresh

00:20:15.300 example you know a different way of thinking about something i would post a request in some of these

00:20:20.260 givitas communities and i connected with so many wonderful people all around the country that i

00:20:26.280 would not have ever connected with and got amazing help from them in fact i tried to acknowledge all

00:20:32.360 those people in the acknowledgments for the book and the first line of my acknowledgments is that

00:20:36.480 i asked a lot of people for help with this book and i have to say it's a lot better because of the

00:20:41.700 generosity of other people well you gave an example of you know crowdsourcing help one of your personal

00:20:46.600 life where you got you and your wife tickets to the emerald show the cook show a long time ago you

00:20:51.560 just said hey can anyone help me out here and they they helped out yeah that was absolutely amazing

00:20:56.780 that was a number of years ago we were coming up on a milestone anniversary and i had occasion to use

00:21:03.720 some of these ask and giving activities with all of our incoming mba students so you can imagine about

00:21:09.160 450 students and we have this orientation program and we put up these big tents for the students and the

00:21:15.700 faculty will come in on jubotrons so you're being broadcast to all these different groups of students

00:21:20.660 and i made that request because my wife and i were really big fans of emerald lagasi we always wanted to

00:21:28.680 be on a show emerald live that's virtually impossible we had tried to get tickets for years we never able

00:21:33.740 to get on and so i made that request but you know it was because it was a smart request it wasn't

00:21:39.460 one of those oh wouldn't it be nice to be on those requests don't get much help because they're not

00:21:44.160 really serious you know they knew what a milestone anniversary was like they were either married

00:21:49.980 themselves or they remember their parents important anniversaries you know and i made it i said this is

00:21:54.640 a gift that my wife would really like and i'd like to surprise her with this and so i used the spark

00:21:59.200 criteria and i think that's the reason why i got so much help and i have to say even now thinking

00:22:05.040 about it i was still amazed i had six people came forward somebody knew somebody who was dating emerald's

00:22:11.000 daughter that's true it's also true that that one didn't work out because they broke up but there

00:22:15.740 was a connection that did work out and we were in new york city for a recording that turned out to be

00:22:23.040 valentine's day so i didn't know that before we were on the show which couldn't have been more perfect

00:22:27.880 for an anniversary and i'm sure these people felt good that they were able to help you and they

00:22:32.880 wouldn't have been able to feel good helping you unless you asked that's right they wouldn't have

00:22:36.960 known that i had that need unless i asked i mean we're not mind readers we're not telepathic

00:22:42.160 and so the only way someone can help you is if you ask so i think another thing that keeps people from

00:22:48.820 asking is the fear of rejection so let's say they do all this stuff they get the smart request they

00:22:53.840 think about the purpose the meaning behind it and they make the ask and then it's no like how do you

00:22:59.260 handle rejection it does happen from time to time in fact recently someone made a request of me

00:23:05.160 on linkedin and i had to say no but i explained why and gave some feedback as to why i said no

00:23:11.840 so hopefully it was a it was a learning opportunity and i think that's the best way to take a no

00:23:17.260 you know a no is information a no is not a rejection of you it's information about your request you know

00:23:24.100 perhaps if you follow up with okay well why you might learn that the person actually would like to help

00:23:30.180 but it's bad timing or they're having a bad day or they're just not the right person to ask you might

00:23:36.620 get some information that will help you to refine the request so that when you ask it again of someone

00:23:41.940 else it'll be a better more thoughtful request and it's important to realize that a request is never a

00:23:47.740 demand requesting is a privilege and that you're making a request that it might be rejected and not to

00:23:54.960 be deterred by that rejection learn from the rejection right so the rest of the book so you

00:24:00.000 talk about setting the smart requests thinking about how you're asking being not only but also

00:24:04.860 thinking about not just asking but also you know being a asker giver so you're giving as well but in

00:24:10.500 the rest of the book you talk about how businesses or organizations can create a culture of help

00:24:16.060 seeking and we mentioned some things earlier but let's still dig deeper into that what happens to an

00:24:22.120 organization when they develop a culture of help seeking i'm sure in your work you've gone into

00:24:26.700 organizations where there was none of that they're probably all lone wolves but then they started

00:24:30.720 implementing some of the things that you have researched about what happens to those organizations

00:24:34.380 but what happens is that the teams and the organization itself become much more efficient more

00:24:40.360 creative profitability increases performance increases i'll give you an example so one of the many

00:24:47.080 tools i write about is called the daily stand-up the daily stand-up is very common in it and software

00:24:53.700 development firms and i think it has widespread application and it's very simple everyone stands

00:24:58.940 in a circle at the same time say 10 a.m every morning stands in a circle and every person has to

00:25:04.520 address three things here's what i worked on yesterday here's what i'm working on today and here's the

00:25:09.780 help that i need and then it goes to the next person and so the help is given after the stand-up is

00:25:15.140 done but you can imagine doing that it becomes psychologically safer when you know that everyone's

00:25:21.140 in the same boat everyone's going to make a request it's a lot easier when you know that everyone is

00:25:25.640 going to make a request and it's not just you in fact it becomes a norm it makes it routine

00:25:30.940 expected to make requests in fact not doing so is letting the group down i recently spoke with the

00:25:37.300 leadership staff at the wharton school and they said that after reading about the daily stand-up that

00:25:42.180 they had started that practice themselves but they added a fourth item which i think was just

00:25:48.100 brilliant which was what have i learned and it could be something you learned about work something

00:25:53.040 you learn listening to the radio on the way to work whatever it might be and because they want to be a

00:25:57.740 learning organization i thought that was a brilliant extension of that idea they were adapting it

00:26:01.860 to their particular needs and and their situation but that's just one of many but you can imagine people

00:26:07.860 are doing that is that it really starts to connect the need with the resources so it becomes much more

00:26:14.340 efficient that you get the answer you get the resources that you need so let's say you've got

00:26:18.680 a big organization and it's divided into silos that just seems to be part of human nature but here there

00:26:24.840 are tools that can help as well some are low-tech some are high-tech so a low-tech is one that i learned

00:26:30.160 from a senior director at one of the large automakers who was in charge of two different divisions

00:26:36.000 one was racing and the other was advanced engineering so if you think about that racing

00:26:41.740 they're trying to fix the car week to week to get it back into the next race so very short time

00:26:46.740 horizon extreme pressure the other group advanced engineering you know they're thinking of technologies

00:26:52.620 that may not see the light of day for five or ten years so very very different time horizons

00:26:57.240 but he said you know i think these two groups could learn from one another and so he created

00:27:04.020 something called a cross collaboration workshop and i talk about this in the book where he got the

00:27:08.980 engineers from both groups to get together it was like for two or three hours let the engineers set

00:27:14.880 the agenda what they wanted to talk about but they started sharing here's what we're working on here are

00:27:20.160 the problems we're running into and you know the advanced engineer engineer group got a little bit

00:27:24.940 faster more efficient because they learned some techniques from the racing group and the racing group got some

00:27:30.420 new ideas to think about how they can make that race car a little bit faster so that's low tech a high

00:27:36.180 tech would be to use any of the digital platforms that are available i already mentioned give it to us

00:27:41.860 as one which we've seen just naturally breaks down the silos because you're broadcasting your request

00:27:47.300 to people in many silos sometimes all around the world and you know you never know where the help is going

00:27:53.340 to be but it is out there somewhere but you have to ask and so you know part of this creating a norm

00:27:59.660 of asking you'd mentioned referenced earlier that some organizations actually incentivize help seeking

00:28:05.240 what does that look like yeah if you want people to do something you want to recognize it and you want

00:28:10.840 to reward it so it could be informal or formal so an informal might be the team leader or the boss

00:28:18.200 the ceo will acknowledge people who made a request it could be as simple as you know thank you for

00:28:24.220 asking that was really important and you're going to get a resource you're going to get some help

00:28:29.520 here and we'll we'll learn from that you know what it's basically do is saying is that asking is

00:28:35.200 important to do and we're going to recognize that informally you could also recognize it formally by

00:28:40.740 making a part of someone's performance feedback and evaluation oftentimes helping is a part of it

00:28:46.900 but the other should be included as well which is the asking part people who are making requests

00:28:52.920 because that's we know that both of those are really important you know and there's a there's a

00:28:57.560 variety of ways you can do it but it's like thinking about it both formally and informally

00:29:01.360 one of the worst things a leader can do would be to criticize someone who made a request

00:29:06.680 unfortunately i've seen that a couple of times where there are teams and organizations using these

00:29:12.080 tools making great strides and then for some reason a leader says oh you know you shouldn't

00:29:17.760 have made that request you should have figured that out on your own and even if that were true

00:29:23.180 you wouldn't want to say that because it will just stifle the whole activity and that happens from time

00:29:28.940 to time so the leader plays a really important role in being willing to acknowledge and recognize and

00:29:34.100 even reward the people who request yeah you have an example from your own personal experience of

00:29:39.620 of a leader disincentivizing someone asking i guess there was a professor you had a question

00:29:44.360 about statistics you went to this guy professor and he's really condescending towards like well

00:29:48.940 anyone should know this and here's his book and you basically stopped going to him and then you

00:29:53.160 found another professor that was actually more helpful yeah that's right that was early on in my

00:29:57.820 career when i was an assistant professor and you know and every now and then i would run into a

00:30:03.640 data analysis problem that i didn't know how to solve maybe it was some you know new statistical

00:30:08.960 routine or procedure that i didn't really know and i know a fair amount about of statistics but i'm not

00:30:14.480 a world-class expert and so maybe naively i looked up the expert on a particular type of analysis and i

00:30:22.560 approached that person and it was just what you described the person was very condescending

00:30:27.040 now he looked at me and said you know i thought everyone learned that in graduate school so he's dissing my

00:30:31.700 my graduate education and he said well here's the answer and what happened is that i got the answer

00:30:37.080 but i was so de-energized that i really couldn't work on the project for for a couple of days i was

00:30:43.080 really deflated by the whole experience but you know maybe i thought okay maybe maybe he was just

00:30:48.820 having a bad day so the next time i had a question i went to him again it was the same thing in this

00:30:54.660 time he actually pulled a big statistics book off of his bookshelf toss it to me and he said well

00:30:58.980 you know everyone knows it's in this book so you'll find it it's in there after that i said okay i'm not

00:31:05.280 going to that person again and you know but there are a lot of experts at the university and so i just

00:31:09.780 found someone else and his approach no matter what i said was just the opposite was so positive he said

00:31:17.380 well that's a very interesting question and here's why and it wasn't interesting to him but it wasn't

00:31:23.400 he said he approached it that way said here's why that's an interesting question and here's how we can

00:31:27.740 solve it and so i went back to this person a couple of times and it was always the same we actually

00:31:33.720 developed a relationship at one point i proposed a collaboration research collaboration and we ended

00:31:39.160 up co-authoring an academic publication in you know one of the top journals and it all can be traced

00:31:45.120 back to me being willing to ask and someone being receptive to the asking it all goes back to the law

00:31:51.900 of giving and receiving exactly well let's say we've been talking about what you know organizations

00:31:56.920 can do let's say you're a freelancer or you're a small business owner and you work by yourself and

00:32:01.300 you're not embedded in an organization like that how can you use these ideas to help with your

00:32:06.040 business well i think it's very important for the freelancer or someone in the gig economy to join

00:32:13.000 groups and they could be digital groups or they could be face-to-face groups so i know here at ann arbor

00:32:18.920 there's a meetup every month of people who are interested in positive organizations and that's an ideal place

00:32:24.960 to go because it's people from you know all different companies all different industries many small

00:32:30.740 business owners are entrepreneurs and working alone and here they have a community of like-minded

00:32:35.360 people and they feel safe to ask for and to give help to one another so you can look for a maybe it's

00:32:43.040 your local incubator maybe if there's a university nearby sometimes there are these groups that you can

00:32:49.020 join i would say that i have a three-part mantra that says join give ask you know find a group and

00:32:54.800 join it find an opportunity to give them to help and then make a request when you need it now

00:32:59.480 that's true for a face-to-face community like the meetup group i just described also true for a

00:33:04.280 digital community and these days there is a digital community for anything and you just have to find

00:33:10.780 your group maybe it's a linkedin group or or something else and to become a member of that

00:33:16.060 really really expands your network well wayne this has been a great conversation where can people go to

00:33:20.680 learn more about the book in your work well i've enjoyed this conversation brett thank you you can learn

00:33:25.400 more about the book by going to the book website and it's the booktitle.com so all you have to do is

00:33:31.220 ask.com and ask well wayne baker thanks for your time it's been a pleasure oh thank you brett i've

00:33:36.440 enjoyed it my guest today was wayne baker he's the author of the book all you have to do is ask it's

00:33:40.780 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about the book at

00:33:44.720 his website all you have to do is ask also check out our show notes at aom.is slash ask where you find

00:33:50.300 links to resources when we delve deeper into the topic well that wraps up another edition of the

00:34:01.220 aom podcast check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you can find our podcast archives

00:34:05.420 as well as thousands of articles rewritten over the years about pretty much anything you can think

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00:34:47.160 you

The Art of Manliness - March 16, 2020

#593： All You Have to Do Is Ask

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