Avoiding the “I’m a helpless incompetent” perception.

Dr. Laurence J. Stybel and Maryanne Peabody

KEY POINTS

• Obtaining informal feedback on difficult problems is one of the advantages of working in teams.
• Asking for advice in a structured manner will increase perceptions of your competence.
• There are online channels to avoid when seeking advice remotely.

Knowledge workers derive benefits from exchanging ideas with colleagues. Prior to the COVID pandemic, Alison Wood Brooks and her colleagues showed that people were often reluctant to ask for advice for fear of appearing incompetent (2015).

In-person informal settings provide team members opportunities to float ideas. Such settings include waiting at the coffee machine, standing in line at the company cafeteria, or even being in an elevator.

With the rise of virtual knowledge work, however, opportunities for informal advice-seeking become more difficult. In this blog, we recommend how to frame advice-seeking.

Advice-Seeking Can Strengthen People’s Perception of You

Contrary to accepted wisdom, effective advice-seeking can increase the perception of competence. According to Brooks and her colleagues, the key variables to consider are (1) task difficulty (2) advisor expertise, and (3) advisor ego.

You will be perceived as more competent if you seek advice on a difficult task, ask for advice from a team member who has more expertise than you, and make it clear that you have singled this person out for advice.

Another way of phrasing these suggestions: (1) Avoid asking for advice if you can find the answer yourself (2) Avoid asking for advice during in-person or online team meetings.

How to Ask for Advice

There are two broad approaches to asking for advice. The weakest way is to describe the problem and conclude with, “What do you think?” The unstated message is, “I don’t know how to solve this problem so I am asking you to solve it for me.”

We recommend framing your problem around the words “second opinion.” With this approach you describe the problem, describe your proposed solution(s), and then conclude with “This is an area where you have experience. I’m reaching out to you for a second opinion.”

Using “second opinion” frames the interaction as a conversation between peers. It also appeals to the advisor’s ego.

Asking for Advice in a Virtual Environment

“Accidental” encounters with team members can easily happen in person, but they cannot happen virtually.

When working from home, you will have to set up a formal online meeting. Frame the problem as seeking a second opinion relative to your initial hypothesis. Conclude the meeting by explicitly stating that you are available to provide second opinions anytime your colleague wishes.

Avoid “What do you think?” emails and texts. Such communication channels are not informal conversation channels. Conversation involves dialog. Texts and emails are one-sided communication tools. One-sided communication is not conversation.

Summary and Conclusions.

Many of Psychology Today’s readers are knowledge workers grappling with difficult problems. One barrier to problem resolution is the perception that peers will think you are weak if you need assistance. The purpose of this blog is to help you to structure requests so that you will be perceived as a strong colleague.

References

Wood Brooks, F. Gino, M.E. Schweitzer “Smart People Ask for (My) Advice: seeking advice boosts perceptions of competence.” Management Science, 61,6,2015, pp.1421-1435.