How to ask for help?
Will you ever ask the owner to drive his car?
Earlier in my career, I led a major project with a fantastic team. However, I knew we lacked the specific skillset and capacity needed to guarantee success. As a new PM, I felt apprehensive about asking my director for help. I worried it would make me appear incompetent. Months passed, and the stress began to manifest physically – even leading to my first grey hair! Finally, realizing the project's potential failure, I approached my boss. To my relief, he wasn't critical. Instead, he offered valuable guidance that turned the tide. Together, we tackled the challenges and ultimately celebrated a successful outcome. This experience taught me the importance of seeking help early on. It's a sign of leadership, not weakness, to recognise when your team needs additional support.
Now when I look back at it, asking for help is an art and can be intimidating especially for high achievers, or coming from a personal or company culture where seeking support wasn't encouraged, it can be surprisingly daunting to navigate this new approach.
Here are my tips on how to go about it:
1- Let people know you need help
As much as it seems obvious, don’t assume people know you need help because you overwork, or because you have your Open for work tile in your Linkedin profile, or because you’ve been doing someone else’s job for quite some time etc People are busy with their own business!
Let people know that you need help from them and make it clear the type of help you need (time, money, introduction, job, promotion, customer insight, budget …):
reach out personally
repeat or follow up until you are confident it’s clear for them
let them be in the position to offer their help vs you asking (remember, people like to be in control :) )
From my experience, most people are genuinely willing to help (to the degree of their possibilities).
And if you can:
let everyone feel exclusive in your network
personalise your ask (if you request the same thing to many people) and adapt those generic communication templates to reflect your personality
dedicate proper time for each request for preparation, delivery, post. eg: If you need 1 hour, request for 1 hour not 30 min meeting
2- Do the heavy lift
I discussed with a friend recently on digital channels to connect with people. This is what she said: when she tried to reach out to a lady on Linkedin, she never got any answer. But as soon as she wrote to her professional email address, she got an answer within 5 minutes and her request got forwarded to the right person immediately.
People are willing to help, but we have to do the heavy lift, and make it easy for them:
use their preferred channel (Linkedin, Whatsapp, email, FB …)
craft the message for them so they only need to forward
share with them the job description you want to apply for
use automated platform to schedule appointment easily
if you need promotion or salary increment, do the benchmark for them and propose
if you want a different work arrangement, come up with proposals
adapt to their timezone, workplace
tell them exactly who you wish to speak to
know the regulation
…
And if you can:
adapt to their environment: dress code is very important. People judge you externally.
let your digital presence filter out some conversations: most people do research about you before your first meeting
3- Are you a giver or a taker?
Someone in Europe reached out for mentorship. It was not the right time for me and with timezone, I could not see any obvious win for me. I decided to recommend another mentor.
When asking for help, make it a win-win. Try to find what they might be interested in. Take, but also give, it can be simple:
access to your network (your network is your net worth, so that’s something usually lots of people are interested in)
access to your expertise
access to tool
access to data
…
And if you can:
make the experience memorable: meet in an unusual café ( I have 100% success rate for this one :-) )
leave a tangible token of appreciation
4- Ask one thing at a time
When asking for help, it's important to prioritize clarity and simplicity.
Instead of overwhelming people with our laundry list of needs, focus on articulating one request at a time.
This ensures clarity and makes it easier for others to understand and address our needs effectively.
I left the agile coaching world some times ago to focus on business and product, but if you want the detailed explanation, just ask an agile coach why small batch is more efficient!
5- Be patient, timing matters
One of my past company could not pay the salary I wanted when I joined them. We negotiated and agreed to adjust 6 months later with some backfilling. In the end, it was a win-win.
Unfortunately, people who may be willing to help do not have the same sense of urgency as you. The worst thing is to blame them … Be ready to wait or negotiate.
Life is a marathon, not sprint.
And if you can:
nurture the relationship - so they do not forget you
check in regularly to see whether they can still help or not
6- Power of words
Without being a NLP master, I noticed that the words I used influenced the result.
For example, when I started some Linkedin outreach, people tend to ignore my invitation for casual coffee when I said “ Would you be available?”. But when I changed to “ Would you be open to?”, I started to have a 100% yes.
In a similar way, I tend to respond more positively when people say “Not urgent” instead of “ASAP”, when I know that both requests are urgent ;-)
7- Pay it forward
Remember it’s not always a 1:1 transaction. As my former mentor said: The World needs us, and we shall all do AYNI (reciprocity)! If someone helped you, don’t hesitate to pay it forward.
Lots of people need help, especially in these challenging times where companies lay off, climate change, war …
One last ask from me: if you found this valuable, feel free to subscribe and invite your colleagues, friends and family to subscribe, as I will be sharing more about Product, Digital Transformation, Customer Experience, Luxury.