The Right Way to Ask for Help at Work
Curated from: hbr.org
Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:
4 ideas
·1.2K reads
6
Explore the World's Best Ideas
Join today and uncover 100+ curated journeys from 50+ topics. Unlock access to our mobile app with extensive features.
What Not To Do When Asking For Help
- Instruct people.
- Tell or imply that they should help our debt they don’t have a choice about it.
- Using unnecessary prefaces makes people feel trapped.
- Profusely apologizing makes the experience seem less positive.
- Emphasizing reciprocity can make people feel indebted or like they are engaging in a purely transactional exchange.
- Minimizing your need suggests the assistance is trivial or even unnecessary.
127
453 reads
Reinforce A Request For Help
- In-group: Assuring that you’re on the helper’s team and the team’s importance taps into our need to belong to and perpetuate supportive social circles.
- Positive identity: Creating or enhancing their recognition that they are uniquely placed to provide assistance and that they aren’t just “people who can help” but routinely helpful people.
- Effectiveness: People want to know the impact of the aid they will give. Knowing one’s actions have an effect is a fundamental human motivation.
111
247 reads
Research Results On Helpfulness
- Studies indicate that people are willing to help more often than we expect.
- Studies suggest that we underestimate how much effort those who do agree to help will put in.
- Those who help others get to feel better with themselves than those who don’t.
109
254 reads
The anxiety of asking for help
... activates the same brain regions that physical pain does. And in the workplace, where we’re typically keen to demonstrate as much expertise, competence, and confidence as possible, it can feel particularly uncomfortable to make such requests.
The key to a successful request for help is to shift the focus to the benefits of helping. You want people to feel that they would be helping because they want to, not because they must, and that they’re in control of the decision.
124
255 reads
IDEAS CURATED BY
Paul 's ideas are part of this journey:
Learn more about communication with this collection
How to set achievable goals
How to prioritize self-care
How to create healthy habits
Related collections
Similar ideas
4 ideas
4 ideas
How to ask for help | Psyche Guides
psyche.co
1 idea
7 Effective Ways to Ask for Help (and Get It)
psychologytoday.com
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
—
100+ Learning Journeys
—
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates