How To Ask Me For A Favor

Recently two former law school classmates reached out to me for a favor.  One of them did it right, and one of them did it wrong.  I'm really glad about it, because it helps me do my job better.  

My job is to help college kids get comfortable with "networking" -- a word I hate, but that stands for a concept we all have to learn.  You'll need help some day, and learning how to ask for it well, from people who are mildly favorably disposed toward you, is a skill that will pay really big dividends in your life. 

There are some counter-intuitive things that come with asking for help.  You get better at learning to ask for help by practicing giving help and doing favors.  The more you do that, the better you understand, intuitively, what kind of favors people are glad to do and what kind they aren't.  You understand what the "payoff" is for the favor-doer.  Because that's another counter-intuitive thing.  When you need a favor, you can be blinded by what YOU are getting out of it, and you feel ashamed and encumbered and sorry that you aren't the one in the powerful position of offering help, rather than being in the humbling position of asking for it.  But you shouldn't be blinded! By asking for help, you are GIVING the OTHER PERSON a small gift: you are flattering them, you are putting them in the powerful position, and, especially if the help you ask for is easy for them, you are letting them feel generous and valuable and proud without having to do much work.  

That's why people like you more after they have done you a favor than they do before you asked them for one.  Strange, but true.  (At least, I seem to remember believing it is true after reading Influence.)  When someone has done you a favor they feel better about themselves (because they are a generous person who is sought after for valuable advice and powerful help) and they feel better about you, because they have invested some time in you, and they must have done so for a good reason, and also they now have a stake in you, and when you succeed, they look better, and also, you now owe them a favor, so they would like it very much if you get to a place where you can return the favor someday.  

Anyway, so I was favorably inclined to both of my old classmates, each of whom I hadn't heard from in a while.  They both buttered me up in a good way with their approach -- I have this interesting problem, and you seemed like the right kind of person to help me get unstuck with it.  I know you have a lot of good ideas, and you're well-connected, so I wonder if you'd be able to help me.  

If you want me to help you that's a really good way to ask.  It taps into something that I am proud of about myself, and it lets me know that my natural tendencies will probably be enough to assist you -- so the investment of work on my part isn't likely to be so cumbersome, which is important because I am busy.  That's important if you are not someone whose prior relationship with me makes me ready to move the earth on your behalf -- if I have a mild interest in your success, but it doesn't keep me up at night.  Meanwhile both of the requests tapped into my natural curiosity -- what kind of intriguing problem is this, I wondered?  Probably narcissism helped, too.  It's nice to have smart, successful people seeking me out, and I wanted to learn a little bit more about what kind of problem they see me as particularly suited to help.  

And then one of them botched it, and the other one didn't.  Maybe part of it was in the delivery, but I don't think so.  One of them was on the phone, and made the introductory pitch by voice -- I was thinking about you, and this seemed like a problem you could solve.  I said, yeah, go on, and he went into it.  We were on the phone for about two hours on a weeknight -- a lot of time for me to work on a stranger's problem.  I didn't mind, though, because my friend was right about the kind of problem, it was right up my alley, and he was there with me, listening to me think it through, so I got to feel smart and helpful and appreciated for those two hours, and he asked good questions and gave me feedback and now and then said, ooh, that's really helpful, I hadn't thought of that, I'm so glad I called.  Tiny rewards, but they helped me through. 

The other one approached me by email, same proposition, intriguing problem, thought you might have a good viewpoint on it.  I said, hmm, intriguing, would be glad to help if I can, I'm available for coffee or a beer in the next few weeks.  And he botched it, and thinking about why has taught me some helpful stuff.  He ignored my suggestion of coffee or a beer and instead sent me the problem by email.  There was homework -- go follow this link, learn this background information, and then help me find a solution to it.  It became an assignment without a payoff.  I immediately didn't want to help anymore, because I'm too busy to go follow the link and watch the videos.  I'm not too busy to have a beer with an old classmate, or to listen to him talk about a problem, or even to spend 2 hours on the phone on a weeknight if something turns out to fascinate me, but I don't want to get given a homework assignment about something that I haven't chosen to be interested in, to work on alone.  I expect doing the homework assignment wouldn't take anywhere close to the 2 hours I spent on the phone with my other classmate, so why am I resistant?  Because he jumped too far with the ask.  If my first classmate had said, hey, do you have two hours right now to talk about someone else's problem, I probably would have said no.  But I had a few minutes to be intrigued, and then I got caught up in the problem, and rewarded by the small but affirming bits of feedback I was getting from interacting with my friend, asking questions and hearing him respond to my thoughts.  In contrast, an equally compelling project, delivered by email from someone who doesn't want to make time to talk to me about it, just made me feel lousy. 

I am mildly put out by the second guy now, and I like the first guy a tiny bit better, even though the first guy made more of an imposition on my time and the second guy, theoretically, was more conscientious, by outlining the whole problem and inviting me to solve it at my convenience.  The problem is, people who do favors get a reward by doing it.  Part of that reward is in the interaction itself, the feeling that you are strengthening a relationship by helping.  The second guy focused on the problem and forgot about the relationship.       

Comments

[twitter.com/copytailor]

Interesting perspective. I can't believe the second guy turned down meeting in person. That's the best way to network!

[gretchen]

You're such an extrovert, Sherry -- do you think that someone who was an introvert would have responded to the two favor requests differently?

[Sherry]

Hmm. What an interesting question, Gretchen. I hadn't thought of that.

I do think there's a relationship "payoff" implicit in the dynamic of giving and receiving favors that is fundamental to everyone, but there probably is a difference for introverts about what is comfortable or pleasant and what feels icky.

It's also probably true that if you ask someone to do homework in order to do you a favor, it depends heavily on WHAT the homework assignment is. I'm much more likely to do extra work if the person asks me to read and respond to a short piece of writing than I am to do something like watch videos, or look at charts, or read a screenplay. Although the truth is most people whose writing I'm not paid to edit have to "earn" my willingness to do homework on their behalf, by feeding the relationship before they give me an assignment.

Interesting. I'm going to keep thinking about it.

[F.F. Coppola]

I continue to be amazed by the regularity with which people confuse sunny friendliness with stupidity.

As in assuming I didn't remember the last time they were supposed to follow up and never did, and now they're back asking a favor of a presumed amnesiac.

I'm nice, I'm friendly, but, yes, I remember.

I always think of the great scene at the beginning of The Godfather when a neighborhood small-fry is beseeching Don Corleone for protection and the latter says "I can't remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child."

Yes, coffee, again. Why is this hard?

B

[NickS]

That last comment is very helpful for me in thinking about what rewards I get from doing favors for people.

I am very, very much an introvert, so one pleasure of doing favors for people is that it can feel like a simple form of relationship maintenance. If there's someone I haven't talked to in a while who, perhaps, I've been meaning to contact, and they ask me for a small favor it's great, because it gives me a concrete task that allows me to feel like I'm keeping up my end of the relationship.

Contrariwise, a request for a favor feels much less welcome if it feels like the request creates a situation that is open ended -- either because the request itself seems like it will likely lead to future requests, or if the person asking is someone whom I don't know well, and I have to wonder what relationship will be created with that person.

This is where the introvert/extrovert split matters. On some level, having more people in my life that I feel some obligation to keep track of is not a benefit, it is a cost. So, while meeting new people is fun, I still wouldn't be happy about the "new person" aspect of a favor request from someone who isn't currently part of my life.

But there's another important possible payoff from doing a favor, beyond the interpersonal. There can be a sense of accomplishment from accomplishing the task itself. I have no shortage of interesting things to work on but, at the same time, it's always nice when someone else hands you pre-packaged problem. If somebody asked me a question in a field in which I'm comfortable such that the question was interesting and the answer was both unknown, non-obvious, and meaningful, I'd be happy just to have a good question to work on.

So I could certainly imagine getting excited about something presented in the manner of the second request that you got, but only if thinking about it would extend my knowledge of something that I was already interested in.

[abl]

I feel like #2 wouldn't have botched it if his response was "I am afraid it might be really difficult to find a time to meet up. Would it work if I emailed you a little more information about it? There's this interesting video online that pretty much sums up my problem." rather than just ignoring your request to meet in person. It's still saying no, essentially, to your offer of how you were willing to help (in person) but it requests an alternative - with some explanation of why (the video is concise, accessible).

It still has a bit of "you were willing to make time to meet in person, and I'm not" and "how about we do this my way, even though I'm asking YOU a favor" but I think it's much better than just ignoring your suggestion. It opens the door for you to say "that sounds good, send the link and I'll take a look at the video when I get a chance" -- it keeps it more conversational/back and forth, and while it still might feel like homework to you, it would at that point be homework you agreed to rather than were just assigned.

[YK]

That is fascinating. I'm not so sure I would say that the second guy botched it, more that there's a conflict between his style of doing things and yours. It sounds like you enjoy the social aspect of work -- you like your colleagues, and you choose your work partly to be around the people you like. This guy seems more about professional duty -- he just wants to get this problem solved, and he contacted you because you're qualified. He's evidently not as interested in being friends, but on the other hand, there's a good chance he'd do some homework for you if you asked him to.

But there definitely seem to be more people like you than there are people like him...

[Matthew J. McDonald]

If any of the posters here would like the perspective of the "botched" favor asker, you should feel free to e-mail me at mattmc13 at gmail dot com. It might give you some perspective that you are not getting.