May 6, 2020
Wayne Baker is
a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of
Business, and author of All You Have to Do Is Ask,
his sixth book. He directs the
Center for Positive Organizations and also co-founded Give and Take
Inc., an Ann Arbor-based technology firm. Through Wayne’s research,
he has discovered that leaders are often happy to help others, but
are unwilling to ask for help themselves. The good news is that you
can create healthy environments in your organization where asking
for help is encouraged and rewarded.
Key Takeaways
[2:40] As an avid sailor, Wayne
had to learn to not panic when everything went awry.
[5:35] Some people ask for what
they want and others take what’s given.
[7:50] Wayne has observed that
there are some mentors that want you to be mini versions of them,
but he recalls a great mentor of his who was always trying to push
Wayne to be a better version of himself.
[11:20] People want to be
generous, but don’t always know how to help unless you ask them
to.
[12:15] There are four steps to
making a thoughtful request.
1.
What is the goal of your request?
2.
What are the resources you need?
- Come up with a SMART
request.
- And then find ‘who’ you need to
ask.
[16:50] Most people will help
you if you ask!
[19:25] It’s hard for leaders to
be vulnerable and to ask for help. You can break this mold by
creating a 15-minute staff meeting addressing what you need help
with. When it’s expected that everyone is supposed to ask for help,
it makes it easier for leaders to get the support they
need.
[25:00] When asking for
feedback, it’s important to know what are both your strengths and
weaknesses, but you want to get these two pieces of information at
different times so that you can better process it.
[26:35] Don’t feel comfortable
asking for help? Go out and help others first, and then you’ll feel
more confident asking for help in return.
[30:00] Nobody associates Bill
Gates with having a partner or a team, but throughout his career,
Bill has relied heavily on the partnerships of others.
[32:15] Men have a harder time
asking for help compared to women. Wayne believes it has something
to do with the way boys and men were raised and
socialized.
[35:20] It’s a powerful
leadership moment when you ask someone for help and together you
co-create a solution.
[36:20] We are living in a time
where we get to reinvent work.
[37:00] People support what they
help create, so it’s critical to ask for feedback, input, and
help.
[39:30] Asking for help now is
more important than ever. As more people work from home and feel
isolated, reach out to your network, do work lunches together, and
be proactive in being connected to your social network.
Quotable Quotes
- “The
greatest hazard to a mariner is your calendar when you feel you’ve
got to be someplace at some time.”
- “What I
discovered over time: asking is the key to
generosity.”
- “One of
the barriers to making your request is we might assume that people
are unwilling or unable to help us.”
- “When
you know everyone’s going to make a request, it’s a lot easier for
you to make a request.”
- “By
helping other people, you earn the privilege of asking for
help.”
- “Unless
the leader is willing to ask, they’re going to get limited success
in getting other people to do it as well.”
- “It’s a
leadership moment if you ask someone for help and together you
co-create a solution.”
Resources and Books Mentioned
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