This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
Whether at work or at home, we’re often trying to solve problems that prove difficult. We’re trying to come up with a solution for a particular thing and we don’t know how to do it. And often in those situations, we want to ask someone else for advice. We know someone when they know more about the situation than we do, and so we think we might benefit from their feedback. But we don’t do it. Why? Well, there are a few reasons.
First, we don’t want to bother them. Second, we’re not 100% sure they’ll know the answer. But third, even if they do know the answer, we’re worried they’ll think less of us. Somehow by asking them for advice, they’ll think we’re less smart or less intelligent. Particularly at the office, asking our boss or our colleague for advice, we’ll think they’re going to wonder whether we don’t know what we’re doing, and so we’re not going to ask. But it turns out that’s a mistake.
A few years ago, some researchers from Harvard and Wharton looked at this question of asking advice. They put people in a variety of different situations. They had some people ask for advice and others didn’t, and they looked at how people were perceived. And they found something quite interesting.
First, it wasn’t that asking for advice made people seem worse, seem less competent, less intelligent. It had the exact opposite effect. People who asked for advice were seen as more competent and more intelligent. And you might sit there going, “Well, why would that be?” And what it boils down to is the fact that everyone is egocentric. People love thinking they give great advice. And so when you go ask someone for their advice, they say, “Wow, you must be such a smart person because of all the people you could have asked, you asked me, and obviously I give great advice, and so you must have really good taste.”
These researchers found that asking for advice made us seem better, not worse, and so I think the implication here is really clear. First, ask for advice. Not only will that allow us to collect information, that beneficial information, but second, it allows us to be perceived more favorably as a result.