Episode 101: Wayne Baker — All You Have To Do Is Ask

Wayne Baker is the author of the new book “All You Have To Do Is Ask: How to Master the Most Important Skill for Success.” He is the Robert P. Thome Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and Faculty Director of the Center for Positive Organizations. Wayne is also a cofounder and board member of Give and Take, Inc., the developers of the Givitas platform based on the principles in his new book.

On this episode, you will hear Wayne talk about:

• How his research led him to realize that the main obstacle that prevents people from getting the help they need, is their willingness (or unwillingness) to ask for help
• The importance of asking for what you need to developing your career and finding success in your life
• Some examples of how he has asked for help
• The importance of maintaining human connection in the time of COVID-19

You can connect with Wayne on LinkedIn and learn more about his book at AllYouHaveToDoIsAsk.com.You can also find out more about the Givitas platform here as well.

Subscribe to the FREE Beyond 6 Seconds newsletter for all the latest news and updates about my podcast!

The episode transcript is below:

On today’s episode, I’m speaking with Wayne Baker. Wayne is the author of the just published book, “All you have to do is ask: How to master the most important skill for success.” He’s the Robert P. Thome professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and Faculty Director of the Center for Positive Organizations. Wayne is a co founder and board member of Give and Take Inc., the developers of the Givitas platform based on the principles in his new book. Wayne, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Carolyn. Glad to be here.

So happy to have you here. Today, we’re going to be talking about a really interesting topic that I feel like is even more important today than ever before. That is about asking for help. So how did you become interested in researching this topic of people asking for help?

I can trace the idea back 21 years if you can believe that. At that time. Cheryl Baker and I were creating a team activity that we called the Reciprocity Ring. And it is very particular way it has to be run. But in brief, it’s an opportunity for people to make requests for something that they need. But they spend most of their time helping other people. You know, they’ve got the answer, they’ve got the resource, or they can make a connection and tap their network to get the resource for someone. And back then I started the activity the same way, which was a little lecture on the importance of giving of helping on the importance of generosity. But what I quickly discovered was that generosity was not the problem. People were so willing to help. But everyone struggled with the request. Everyone struggled with coming up with something that they needed to ask. And without a request, no one could help, they can’t read your minds. So this was very curious. So I shifted to start thinking about, okay, well, what are the, how can you help people get better at making requests and figure out what they need, how they formulate an effective request and so forth. And then the Reciprocity Ring is one activity. I said, there’s got to be plenty more. And we either created more, or I learned about more, and that ended up in the book.

Wow, that is interesting that the challenge is not people’s generosity, that people actually are very willing to give, but that the challenge is in people not asking for what they need. Have you found that, is the challenge really that people just don’t ask, but they know what they want, but they don’t ask, or that they they don’t know what they want? Or they asked the wrong person or they asked the wrong way? What’s the nuance behind that?

Well, it’s all of the above. Sometimes we don’t ask because we’re worried that people will think that we are incompetent or unable to do our jobs, weak, ignorant, whatever. But here research is really helpful for updating that assumption. Because the research says, as long as you make a thoughtful intelligent request, people will think you are more competent, not less. So that’s helpful to know to get past that barrier. But it could also be some of the things that you mentioned is that sometimes people are not sure what they really need. Or they ask for something, and they’re not clear on what they’re trying to accomplish, so they get the wrong resource, or they ask the wrong person.

So there’s really a lot of things at play there. So how did you figure out the importance of this ability to ask for the things we need to succeed? Because it sounds like it ties into the ability to grow your own career, and I imagine it plays out in all parts of your life potentially.

Oh, absolutely. The lessons and practices I talked about in the book work in the workplace, but also in one’s personal life. So when you think about what you need to be successful, you need what we call human capital and social capital. So human capital is what you know the kinds of things that appear on your resume. You know, where you have worked, your experiences, you education and so forth. But that’s only part of the story. You also need resources, you need information, you need input, you need ideas, opportunities, connections, advice, whatever, a whole bunch of resources that you need, in combination with your human capital, and it’s through your social capital, those are the networks that you have and the resources that reside in those networks. You need that, you need to draw resources from that in order to put your human capital to work.

I see yeah, there’s really ties in both ways, having the resources to do what you need. And, you know, I guess a lot of the discussions that we hear from career management about building your network, and that ties really into a lot of the the social capital. It sounds like over time that we really need to know who, who we need to build relationships with and then just being mindful of how we give to those people and how we receive from them as well.

Mm hmm. I always advise people to build your network before you need it. I’ve run into a lot of people who didn’t have a very good network, and then suddenly they were laid off. They didn’t have a good network, so they didn’t see it coming. And now they don’t know who to ask for, where are job openings? You know, how could I find a good, you know, recruiter or whatever it might be. But, developing your network should be a byproduct of productive behaviors, like, one of the best ways to building your network is to say, join a group, to contribute to the mission of that group, find a way to give to that group. And in the process of doing that, as a byproduct, you will create good connections with other people, and they will be there when you need them.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s something that helps. Really, when I think of building a career, it certainly helps for that. And in some ways, it’s really critical. If you want to either move up the ladder in your organization or move to different companies and sort of build that social capital so that you can achieve new things in your career, really working with the right people and building those strong relationships. So you mentioned that a lot of people are scared to ask for help. But that if you ask for help in the right way it can actually make you appear more competent. Make you sort of appear like people would want to work with you more because it’s the vulnerability and you know what you want to ask, and how to ask the right people. Is there a right or a wrong way to ask for help?

Yes, there is. I think, to come up with a thoughtful request, you need to first, figure out, you know, what are you trying to accomplish? What’s the goal? What’s the objective here? And to be clear about that first, say, Okay, if I’ve got that goal, that’s what I want to get to. Well, what are the resources that I need to help me make progress on achieving that goal, and that could be information, ideas, access to an expert, brainstorming session, whatever. You have those resources, then say, Okay, now I want to formulate an effective request. And I have five criteria for an effective request, I call them SMART criteria. But these are different from the SMART criteria for goals and I can go over them quickly. So the S is for specific, you want to ask for something specific. And that has to do with the way in which the human memory works. So remember, people can help by sharing the resource that they have or they control or they could tap their network and refer you to someone who has the resource. Well, a specific request will triggers people’s memories about what they know and who they know, a general request just won’t do that. The M and this is different from the M for smart goals, which is measurable, and measurability is nice. But here M is meaningful. It’s the why of the request. You know, Carolyn. it’s interesting that oftentimes people will leave the why out, the meaningful part of it out, and that’s what really motivates people. That’s what gets people to understand. Oh, that’s why you’re asking. Now I see why you’re asking, now I see what you’re trying to accomplish. I get how important that is. Yeah, I’ll be glad to help you. So the A is for action, you’re asking for something to be done. So restating a goal is not a request. Because a goal is a destination, a request is something that helps you get there. So you ask for something to be done in action. The R is for strategically realistic. I encourage people to make small requests, big requests, stretch requests, but it has to be within the realm of possibility. And then the T is for time, you need a deadline, you need a date. And if I said, Okay, sometime in 2020, that’s not going to motivate a lot of people. But if I say, I really need it by the end of this month, and here’s why, that will motivate people to respond. So if you’re clear on the goal, you know, the resource that you need, and you formulate it as a SMART request. You’re just about all the way there.

Wow. So that’s a pretty detailed formula. If people can think of that when they’re forming their asks, I could totally see how that’s compelling for someone being asked and how it can help them think about how they can help someone, whether they have a direct connection, or maybe they can refer you to the right person to help out with that request. Absolutely. So are these some of the methodologies or techniques that you talked about in your latest book?

Yes, I talked about the SMART criteria. And I talked about three different approaches for figuring out what it is that you need. There’s one called Quick Start. The other is Goal Setting or Goal Articulation, and then the third one is Visioning. So Quick Start, as the name implies, is something you could do quickly. It’s five incomplete sentences. And if you complete those sentences, you’ll get a good sense of what you want to accomplish in a resource that you need. I can share one or two with you. So it can be as simple as, I’m currently working on, you got to fill in that blank, and I could use, and that would be the resource, or it could be, my greatest challenge is, and I would benefit from, that would be another, and I’ll give a third one, which is, my biggest hope in life is, and I could use. So I have five of those and if you fill in those blanks, and I have executives do this all the time in our executive education, you know, they’ll take five, six, maybe 10 minutes to really think about, they’ll feel that out. But do they really have a good idea of what it is you’re trying to accomplish and the resource that you need. Now goal articulation method, which I read about in the book as the second method, it takes longer to do that. And just a quick summary, it involves thinking about different domains in your life. Think about the goals that you have in those domains, what resources you would need, so forth. And then the third one is very powerful, but it does take a while which is Visioning. It’s a process of writing a vivid, inspiring, detailed narrative of what your life looks like, say three or five years from now, it’s the life that you want to have. And once you have that vision out there, you have a good sense of what the goals are, and then the resources that you need. In fact, sharing the vision with others is an implicit ask. People will say, oh, you’re trying to accomplish that, that’s the life you want to have? Or you’ve got to talk to my old college roommate, because that person can really help you with this. So those are the three different methods.

Those are great, I could totally see how having a template for an ask can be really helpful for people, thinking specifically about the first methodology that you shared, I could even envision taking something like that to a team meeting or even a networking group and kind of going around the room and having people complete that particular methodology or that particular script on their own, and I could totally see how it might spark ideas in other people at that meeting to be able to help.

In fact, that’s how we use it. We use it before we do the Reciprocity Ring, or stand ups, or any of the other team activities that I talked about in the book. I will often start with that Quick Start method, because it doesn’t take very long to do it. And it really gets people thinking about what it is they really need. And that everyone’s doing the same thing, that kind of helps, too, because, I’m not the only one who’s making a request here. In fact, you know, that’s one of the keys to these team or group processes is that they normalize asking. Asking becomes an expected behavior, and everyone makes a request. It’s just psychologically easier to make a request if you know that everyone’s going to make a request. It’s really hard, you know, if the spotlight’s on you, and you’re the only one, well, that’s pretty hard to to ask for anything, but if you know everyone’s gonna do it, it’s a lot safer.

Yeah, and I was just thinking that if you’re the person making an ask, you know, to make the real ask, like something that you really deeply want, requires a certain amount of vulnerability. And I could imagine that’s uncomfortable for a lot of people, especially if you’re meeting strangers or even, maybe coworkers that you may or may not be super close to. So it’s easy to kind of give a surface ask like, Oh, I’d love to have the opportunity to do, I don’t know, some generic type of thing at work, versus I’d really love to get a half hour coffee with the CEO. Like, yeah, sure, everybody would love that! So I think being willing to be vulnerable, and I think these templates and again, normalizing this, saying that everybody’s gonna be asking for something, I think really helps as a first step towards being more vulnerable in that position.

Yeah, it really does, it really does.

So you know, since you’ve spent quite a lot of time studying the nuances and the importance of asking for help, I’d love to kind of learn how that’s played out in your own experience, either in your own life or career. So we’d love to hear maybe an experience that you had, or tell me about a time that you asked for help that was, you were maybe in a really challenging position, or maybe was just something that was really memorable, where you had to ask for help, and what the reaction was?

Well, I had to ask for a lot of help to write this book. If you look at the acknowledgments, and it’s interesting, in the old days, the acknowledgments would be, that statement would be in the front of the book. Now they put it at the end. I don’t know why. But that’s where it is now. But if you get to the end, you see the acknowledgments. The first line is, I asked a lot of people for help with this book, and I kept track of everyone who I asked, everyone who helped me, whether the name appeared in the book or not, and there’s well over 100 names of people who I asked for help, asked to interview them for the book, or I learned a process or practice from them that I put in the book. So it really was putting into practice the whole lesson of the book to write the book. So that would be a very recent one. But there’s been others. I think back on our 10th wedding anniversary. This, oh, this was a long time ago, but very memorable. I had made a near mistake of asking my wife what she wanted to do for number 10, because number 10 was kind of a big one. And at that time, we were great fans of Emeril Lagasse, the celebrity chef, you know, he’s still on TV, but he used to be on every night. And we love watching the show. When we tried to get on it, it was just impossible. I said to my wife, what would you like to do? She said, I want to be on Emeril Live in New York City to celebrate our wedding anniversary. And I went, Oh, I thought to myself, what did I get myself into? But you know, I said, Okay, I’ve got this request, I’ve got the SMART criteria for it. And then I had an opportunity to address some of our MBA students as part of an orientation, and I made that request to them. And it was amazing. Six people came forward. Somebody knew somebody who was dating Emeril’s daughter. True. But it’s also true, they broke up. So that didn’t help. But there was a connection that worked out. And because of the generosity of a student in Ann Arbor that day, who made a connection to a producer in New York. My wife and I were on that week of our anniversary. We met Emeril. We didn’t know we were going to be on the Food Network show. He does a Friday morning segment every now and then on Good Morning America. And we met him there. And at the end of that we got two tickets to go across town to be his guests on the Food Network. And to make this even better, it turned out, and we didn’t know this either, they were filming the Valentine’s Day show for the upcoming Valentine’s Day. And this was our anniversary. So it was, it was really amazing. Just an incredible story. It was just a, and again, it was, boy did I feel vulnerable asking all these students, you know, but I said, if I don’t ask, we’re not gonna get on this show. And I explained why it was important, when the anniversary was, and then it was the generosity of the students that made it happen.

That’s amazing. Yeah. And, in that case you were sharing with, I would call it your your network, but people that you had relationships with, even though you had no idea that they necessarily had a direct line to Emeril or had that influence, but you were still able to have enough of a relationship with them to make an ask like that and be vulnerable, as you said. And when you were reaching out to people to write your book, and asking for help, in that case, were you mainly reaching out to people who you already had that social capital with? Or did you have to do cold outreaches to people that you wanted to be involved with in the book?

There were some times I’d be giving a talk. And I would mention, I was looking for team practices about asking for and giving help. And, one or two people would come forward, and they mentioned something, and I’d end up interviewing them, and then it would be in the book. But I also use the Givitas platform that you had mentioned in the introduction. So I described the Reciprocity Ring In brief, that’s the face to face activity that people ask for and give help to one another. We can imagine that on a much, much bigger scale, done through your computer, that’s what Givitas is. So it’s a digital platform for asking for and giving help. And we’ve got a whole bunch of different communities that are set up and they’ll have thousands of people in them. There was one for example, that was for people who are in human resources. And it was a great resource for them. Because you can imagine there are human resource directors or managers at companies all over the place. One of them runs into a problem that’s unique for them. But three other people have solved that problem somewhere else, you just don’t know where. But if you can post a request for a solution, you find these people even though they’re strangers to you. And so I actually posted several times and say, Look, I’m writing this book, here’s the topic. Here’s what I need. Here’s when I need it by, here’s why I need it. So the SMART criteria, and I met so many delightful people that are complete strangers to me, that ended up in the book, including somebody who is involved in running one of the native Aboriginal corporations in Alaska.

Wow.

Who I never would have met. And yet she’s in the book and she’s quoted in the book with a tool that they used, which I found helpful I wanted to tell other people about so yeah, so I use the the platforms that we develop as well.

Yeah, and you mentioned the Givitas platform. I actually did join about a month ago. I’m in the one specifically for women and women in leadership. So I’m in that one. And yeah, I don’t think I’ve actually posted a request for help yet. But I have seen a couple of requests come through that I’ve been able to respond to, and share some helpful resources. I think there’s one woman who I’m going to be connecting with, hopefully later this week about a project that she’s working on. So even in a relatively short amount of time of me being part of that community, I have already made some connections there. So it really is a great, a great free resource for people who are interested in practicing their asks, and asking a group of people for help in sort of a structured situation where it’s a kind of normalizes the actual ability to ask people for help.

Mm hmm, yeah, well I’m glad you joined.

Yeah, it’s really great. And, you know, it’s a simple enough platform. It’s almost like the message boards of old, but it kind of feels like that even though it’s a closed group that you join, and you could ask within that, but it’s a simple concept. And, it sounds like that that’s been, you know, really successful. And, again, it’s a great free resource for people to ask and to give as well, just really, really great.

Yeah, I think we have six free communities. Now you’d mentioned the women at work. There’s one for leaders and other for people in human resources, people in people analytics, and we the newest one is for nonprofits. Oh, and then we have the private ones too, that are set up, say for an association or company, but those are just for that group. But these are open for anyone to join.

And that’s fantastic! We’re recording this right now. It is April of 2020. And, we’re currently in an unprecedented situation where you know, all of our routines are disrupted by Coronavirus, and I feel like a lot of people are in positions where they really do need to ask for help, even more than they may have in the past. I’m wondering, either through the Givitas platform or any other platforms that you work with, have you seen some of the requests coming in change, either increasing or in the types of things people are asking, in these times that we’re in right now?

Oh, yes. I think asking for help asking for what you need is more important now than ever before. So a lot of people are working at home in isolation. I’m working at home, I probably spent about half my time at the university half my time working at home anyway, but now I’m here all the time. You know, teaching remotely through my computer. Fortunately, the podcast that you’re doing is something that you could continue to do this because this is the way you do it. As I think podcasts are more important now than ever before, you know people need things to listen to, to learn from. Yeah, but I’ve seen through the Givitas platform and through other platforms, people asking for, or could be like how do I run a virtual meeting? How do I make meaningful connections in a virtual meeting? How do I get accurate information about something? I’ve heard people asking questions about symptoms that they have, or someone they know, a loved one might have, or as simple things, I’ve seen people, they ran out of toilet paper, and the stores were empty. Or they are in a very high risk group, and they needed someone to run a favor for them, to get a delivery on something. So I’ve seen all sorts of things. And now it’s really important to do that. And of course, people will help. Generosity is just built into us, but no one can help if they don’t know what you need, so you really need to ask; and I think we need to ask a lot for emotional support as well, because it’s lonely to be working day in and day out. You go outside if you can you take a walk and you’ve got to be on the other side of the street and not talk to people who you would normally talk to. It’s such an unusual and it’s such a strange environment to be in. But you could still connect virtually. One thing that we’ve done is we are now having with different groups, virtual lunches, where people who used to get together for lunch will still have lunch, but they do it through Zoom. And even on Friday nights, there’s a group of us who started a virtual happy hour. And what we found is that it’s important that these are facilitated even that virtual happy hour. So it’s usually me, I’ll be the emcee and I’ll pose a question to the group. It could be what, What’s, uh, what’s a fun fact? So I’ll make a request. What’s a fun fact about you, something that’s not generally well known? People have fascinating lives and they’ll tell you these really interesting stories. We’ll do that and and then we’ll always have someone who’s a member of the group and we’ll be doing the fourth one this Friday, to say, Okay, let’s have a, somebody who’s prepared to give say, no more than a 15 minute, interesting, fun presentation on something. We had a presentation about the Egyptian pyramids, somewhat turned out that they were an archaeologist. Right? And that was really fascinating. The one that’s coming up this Friday is someone who is an animal enthusiast who has worked in different zoos around the world. And it’s going to show some pictures and things like that, and, then we had someone else who was a member of the Audubon Society, that was his hobby. And so he gave just a 15 minute presentation on birds coming to Ann Arbor this time of the year. So what we find is that It has to be facilitated. But it’s just an hour. It’s just that break. It’s just to have a little bit of fun together and connect. And what’s really happening is that it’s helping people to reach out and connect in a meaningful, and a supportive, and an emotional way. But we had to make a request to even start this thing, asking people if they wanted to join, and then asking them what they wanted to do. So you think about all the requests that are built into that, and the technology will help you do that now.

Absolutely. Yeah, I’ve seen an increase in the use of particularly Zoom as a platform, but also, you know, WebEx or any kind of webinars or video chats or phone calls. In my own situation, my job, I did go to an office, but most of my coworkers were not located in the same office as me anyway, they were all around the country. So I was very accustomed to being on the phone, being on webinars and video chats. So now I’m just sort of sitting at home and doing the same sorts of things. But at the same time you miss that whole social interaction. And while sometimes it can be a little exhausting to just sort of hang out on a Zoom call with with someone, although everybody’s different, but I find that if you’re just sort of that unfacilitated time, depending on what’s going on, that can be a little tough if everybody wants to do their own meetings like that. But I really like the idea of having that facilitated conversation and even if it’s not work related, even if it’s just a little bit of fun, but something structured. Something that the presenter is really passionate about or really knowledgeable about, and it’s an opportunity to learn something and just distract yourself from the the seriousness of either your work or the whole situation around you. I think that’s really powerful.

Yeah, we did. And, you know, we, we always start out and say this is not to deny the reality around us, which we all know is there and we have totally changed our lives. Just say let’s take a little break from it just for an hour together, as friends and new friends and to connect, have a little bit of fun and learn something new.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think it’s going to get more and more important as this situation goes on. And people are kind of self isolating from each other, at least in physical ways for a longer period of time. I know I feel like this current crisis is really bringing out the importance of generosity and being connected as people. I feel like, certainly in the culture of the US, there’s a huge myth of the power of the individual and the overall overarching importance of individualism, achieving things on your own and doing whatever you want, which really doesn’t work in a situation like this. I think it reminds us all that we are strongest as humans when we are working together, when we are able to give and receive and work together as groups to fight this new challenge, this unprecedented challenge that we’re all facing together. So I think it’s increasingly important for people to not have to play it off and say that they’re always fine. I mean, some days you might be fine, but you know, it’ll probably vary day to day depending on what’s going on. So having that vulnerability, knowing what to ask for, and then of course, being willing to to help your fellow humans is more and more important now.

Yep, it’s absolutely true. And I think that, you know, that’s another barrier to asking is that people feel that they have to be self reliant. Self reliance is a good thing. But you can over rely on self reliance, and particularly now when we’re working alone, working at home and stuff, is that trying to just go it alone and to be self reliant is just not an emotionally healthy thing to do.

Yeah, absolutely. Since we’re all working virtually now or interacting with each other through mostly virtual means, do you have any other kind of advice for building those connections when we can’t physically be near each other?

Yeah, I’ve been in so many different virtual meetings that I’ve seen some patterns. I’ve been in virtual town halls, committee meetings, church staff meetings, virtual classes, virtual lunches, it kind of goes on and on. And the ones that work have some common features. We’ve already mentioned one, which is that there is some sort of facilitation that goes on, okay. You could be very light handed, but there is facilitation that goes on. Another is that everyone’s video should be on. And it’s amazing, I’ve been some where in the first town hall, I’d say two thirds of the people had their video on. In the second one, maybe only a third did. And the third one is going to be this Friday, and I bet very few people, I think we hit a tipping point, and most everyone will have their video off. Well, if you have your video off, you’re probably not really paying attention. And if you can’t see people, you just see a name in a little rectangle. It’s just not the same. So I always encourage people to have the video on. So that’s important. Another is to is to make it personal, is that even if you have business to do to take a moment to share a celebration. Take a quick round and say what you’re grateful for, or something you saw in the world where someone was helping someone else to start off in that way. That would be an example of sharing something that makes it personal. Some of the others that would be that you have a particular time, that if you have a meeting that it should be at a particular time, you should try to stay within those bounds. And also just as simple as to make sure that everyone introduces themselves.

Yeah, I could definitely see, certainly, if it’s a small enough meeting, I think it’s important to give everybody that opportunity to talk and share. And, I know a lot of times I’m on meetings, you know, even just normal phone calls, from months and years ago at work where, or even in a physical meeting, and only three people talk. Everyone else is just sitting there listening. But I think especially now that maybe you can see each other on the video, but you can’t necessarily be there physically, it’s even more important to make sure that you give everybody a chance to contribute to the conversation, even if it’s just sort of gently saying, Oh, you know, so and so what are your thoughts on this? And it doesn’t even have to be that much more than that.

Right, right. And I think that that has to be done, because what you just described is really common, which is, so if the group leader says, Is there anything anyone would like to contribute, it’s going to be the usual suspects, the same extroverts who are going to contribute, and everyone else is just going to listen. And the only way it’s going to work is that you actually gently call on people. And if people know in advance, they’ll be prepared. People can respond if they’re being called on. Now, if it’s a big group, you could also break it into, one thing that I’ve learned is that you can have breakout rooms, you could do that in Zoom, BlueJeans, others do it as well. And that can be very handy. So if you have a large group, the moderator could say, okay, we’re gonna break into groups of five and here’s a little agenda and we’ll be back in 10 minutes or 15 minutes, that can be very effective as well.

Absolutely. And one more technical trick that I’ve noticed now that I’m on more and more meetings, and with more and more audiences or people who are joining the meetings is that, you have to, if you asked a question, does anybody have any questions? Or does anyone have something else they want to contribute? you have to leave like the uncomfortably long pause. Because I notice in a lot of tools, it’s very easy to mute yourself or double mute yourself on the phone and on the tool. So a lot of times people are talking, but they don’t realize they’re on mute. So you almost have to give people time to figure out how to get themselves off mute so they can start talking, in addition to them thinking about what they want to say.

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

I noticed that quite a lot. So, wow. So I’m just trying to think, we talked a lot about how to ask for what you want and certainly the importance of asking for what you want and what you need. I feel like so many of us, you know are very consistent with the findings that you had about people wanting to be generous. And especially at times like this, I certainly feel it myself. I feel like, I want to help, I want to do something. But in some ways, it’s like, I have no idea how to help, this situation just seems so overwhelming. And so often, you know, we feel like we want to help, but we don’t know how to help. Or we have a friend who’s challenged and you know, they don’t know how to tell us and we don’t know what’s really helpful for them. For the givers or people who want to be generous, particularly at this time, do you have any advice for them about what do they do? How do they help people ask for what they need, or at least sort of help start that conversation?

I think it is a conversation. People have to learn to ask, it’s a habit that gets stronger and better over time. But if you’re in a situation where you think someone might need something, you just have a conversation with them, ask them some questions, perhaps in a gentle way, and listen to what they’re saying. And maybe even suggest, it sounds like you’re asking that you need this, or you need that. Is that right? And then people will respond to that. And they say, No, it’s not quite that, it’s something else. It’s not very powerful to say, let me know how I can help you, because that really puts a lot of burden to the other person, they have to figure out what they need. They need to figure out okay, well, do they think you could satisfy it? And they’re probably going to say, no, there’s nothing, I’m fine. But if you say instead of how can I help, you say, what do you need, or what would be helpful for you here? The person can then focus on what it might be. You also could suggest some of the methods that I write about in the book such as the Quick Start Method. So if you’re in a group, that could be an activity that people are required or urged to do prior, and they’ll be primed with that, before they come together in a virtual meeting.

That’s great. That’s great advice. And I hope that all my listeners will take that to heart as we interact with each other and as we go through this challenging time together. Wayne, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom about this topic and and helping us think about better ways that we can all ask for what we really want and need. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your new book, or the type of work that you do either with Givitas or the Reciprocity Ring or any of those things?

Oh, well, thank you for asking it. Thank you for the opportunity to be on your program. Sure. So you could find me on LinkedIn, just look for Wayne Baker on LinkedIn, or you can go to the website for the book, which by the way, has a lot of free resources. There’s an assessment in the book that you can do to figure out what type you are, but we have a free one that’s on the website for the book, which will give you a report comparing your results against a population of other people, which is pretty interesting. There’s also a learning map that describes this whole process that’s free and downloadable. And the website is the book title dot com. So it’s, AllyouHavetodoisAsk.com. And there’s a lot of resources up there. And we’ll put your program up there as well.

Wonderful, and I’ll put the links to your website and the other contact information you shared in the show notes of the podcast so that people can find it there too.

Great. Thank you.

Great. Thanks again for being on my show. As we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can help or support you with?

Oh, well, thanks. I think this is a really important message. The reason I wrote the book is that I saw that it really could help individuals, or teams or entire organizations, and I’m sort of in the last stage of my career. And I’d like to get the word out there to as many people as possible. So opportunities to speak, to do a webinar, to be on a podcast, anything really where people might benefit from hearing the message. That would be wonderful.

Fantastic. So we put that out into the universe. So your ask is out there and I hope that you will get many opportunities from putting that out. Thank you.