All the Help We Can Get (Interview with Heidi Grant)

A conversation with Heidi Grant

Asking for help isn’t easy, especially when everyone around you is also maxed out. We assume that our request will be an imposition, or we worry that it’ll make us look like we can’t handle our jobs. Fortunately, the research shows that these fears are largely unfounded.

Social psychologist Heidi Grant spoke with Amy Gallo about asking for help while conveying confidence and strengthening your relationships with colleagues. She ex-plained how to ask in a way that can improve your chances of getting a yes and why lending a hand to others is good for you too.

AMY GALLO: What makes it more likely that someone will actually say yes to a request for help?

HEIDI GRANT: First and foremost, people are more likely to say yes than we realize. There are great studies on this. Vanessa Bohns, a professor at Cornell, researched this along with her colleagues. If you wanted to put a number on it, we are about twice as likely to help as we think we’ll be. In other words, if I ask somebody for help, they’re about twice as likely to say yes than I think. We’re already wildly underestimating the odds that other people will say yes, but there are some things you could do to make it a little bit more likely that someone will say yes to you. There are some common mistakes we make when it comes to asking for help. One of the most important things to focus on is the medium in which we ask for help. Typically, we ask for help by sending someone an email or a text. The reason we do that is because it’s more comfortable for us as the askers to not have that conversation live. I can send you an email or a text message and hope for the best because they’re not live interactions. Unfortunately, that’s the worst thing you can do. Live interactions are vastly more likely to lead to someone saying yes. In one of Vanessa’s studies, people were 30 times more likely to say yes if they were asked during a live, in-person conversation to help, rather than via an email.

AMY: Is that because it’s easy to send a text or email saying no?

HEIDI: Exactly. The reason we want to ask for help in a way that feels more comfortable for us is the exact reason we get more nos. It feels more comfortable for them to say no to us. Pick up a phone or get on a video call. You’ll be more likely to get a yes. People always say, “I have to do it over email. This is the nature of work. We communicate this way.” The other mistake we make is sending group emails. We’ll email 20 people, hoping that one of them will help us with something. The problem is, they see that there are 19 other people on the email thread, which leads to what psychologists call “diffusion of responsibility.” People think, “This isn’t being directed at me specifically. It’s being directed at all of us. One of the other people is probably going to say yes, so I don’t have to do this.” You don’t want to make somebody feel like they’re just one in a crowd that is being asked for help. Make any request for help feel personal, either because it’s a live conversation or because you’re addressing only that person. Explain why their help is specifically the help you need. Those things dramatically increase the chances someone will say yes.

AMY: The requests that I’m happy to help with are the ones where the person’s been really clear about why I’m the one they asked. It makes me feel useful, effective, even special.

HEIDI: That’s exactly the right way to think about it. It increases the chances you’re going to get a yes. It also increases the quality of the help you’re given. People will say yes much more often than we think they will. But they won’t necessarily give you their best help. Very often we give people a minimum amount of help to either get it off our plate, absolve us from guilt, or not damage the relationship. Making it clear why a certain person is uniquely able to help you increases the chances you’re going to get maximum help. They’re going to help you in ways you didn’t even consider because it boosts their self-esteem. It’s both about getting a yes, but also about getting a really good yes.

AMY: I would almost rather get a no to my request than a half-hearted yes.

HEIDI: When people can imagine the impact that their help will have on you, they’re more likely to give the best help they can. We ask for help, but we don’t explain how it will be helpful and then we fail to follow up. If you ask someone to do something of significance for you, you need to follow up with them to let them know the impact that it had, because that’s the moment they’re going to feel like it was rewarding, and it keeps them coming back. They’ll be a resource you can tap into again and again because this person knows that every time they help you, they feel great about it.

AMY: Many of us feel some obstacles when we’re asking for help. One of the biggest for me is knowing what I need help with. I know I’m drowning, I’m overwhelmed, and I’m not going to be able to do all this, but I don’t even know what to ask for. Do you have any advice on figuring that out?

HEIDI: You have to take a little bit of time to reflect. Look at your to-do list, identify some of the things that are stressing you out the most, and pause to ask yourself where you could use help. Are there components that someone could help you with? Block a half hour on your calendar each week to say, “OK, what’s on my plate for this week and what can I ask for help with?” Potential sources of help will surface. Part of what can make us feel like we don’t have support is that we operate under an illusion of transparency. We feel like our needs, thoughts, and feelings are obvious to other people because they’re obvious to us. But nothing could be further from the truth. Even those who see you every day don’t know that you need help. We also forget how dangerous it is to offer unsolicited help. When I offer unsolicited help to my daughter, the look I get reads, “Mom, I can do it myself. I don’t need your help.” People can get offended by offers of help, and it sometimes keeps other people from offering us help. If they don’t know we want it, they don’t want to risk offending us by offering it. So, you really do have to articulate your needs, and then you will find that there are lots of people in your life who will help. You need to take the first step.