Ask vs Guess Culture
At some level you know this, which is one of the big reasons asking for a raise causes anxiety. Try replacing “I think I deserve a raise” with “I’d like to explore whether a raise for me might make sense. From the information I have, I think I deserve one. [Here’s my reasoning.] I wonder how you see it?”
Sheila Heen • Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
Things that make this hard in practice:-It’s hard to actually know what you want or need;-It’s hard to be creative about solutions and imagine how another person would help solve it;-It can be intimidating to ask the person;
Evie Cottrell • Seven ways to become unstoppably agentic - EA Forum
If you both settle on a question about what is meaningful, you can ask: Why is this important to us? What past experiences led to us having these preferences or values? If you both settle on a question about what is useful, you can ask: What would happen if we didn’t do anything? How confident are we in the outcome of these different proposed actio
... See moreBuster Benson • Why Are We Yelling?: The Art of Productive Disagreement
But even if you know what you want, and you ask for what you want, and it seems to be heard, it’s often hard to hear the answer to your request, which might be not Yes but rather No. Or Maybe. Or Not that, but this instead. And on the other side of the conversation, it can be hard to understand that when someone makes a request, when she tells you
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