This month marks my 20th anniversary of helping professionals improve their communications with clients and prospects, colleagues, and sometimes with themselves. Thousands of conversations with people just like you have taught me that even the most educated and experienced people have great difficulty asking for what they want.
Managers continue to run ineffective teams because they don’t know how to ask individuals in their group to do better. Employees gnaw at the cultural foundation with gossip and complaint because they don’t know how to ask for better treatment from co-workers. Leaders live in a constant state of irritation because they don’t know how to ask partners to participate in the business of the firm.
The results of not asking for what you want: unmet expectations, because they are unspoken; fractured relationships, because they are unclear from the outset; and broken trust because it is lost in consistently poor communication.
Nearly always, one of the two parties involved in miscommunication is utterly clueless as to any transgression or difficulty. This person simply had no idea he was hurting someone, or being unclear, or failing to adequately describe expectations. While he is in the dark about all this and going blithely about his day, the other party feels all kinds of negativity. Often, that negativity spills into other professional relationships. As office drama spins upward, productivity, camaraderie, and general happiness fall.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We all know the only person you can fully control is yourself; do that by asking for what you want. Take the initiative. Start the conversation only after your negative feelings (anger, embarrassment, hurt, etc.) have subsided. Ask him or her for some time when the two of you can talk. Describe your emotions surrounding something specific and relevant to the other person. Ask that person to work with you to improve the situation. If you need an apology, ask for it. If you need a change in behavior, ask for that, too. Be specific. Be as calm as you can. Make the communication or behavior the issue rather than the person.
Will you always get what you want? No. But in two decades of working in this arena, I know one thing for sure: you’ll never get it if you don’t ask.
