I worked in the airline industry, and I have seen an account of a leader who asked an employee, before deicing an aircraft, if they were okay. The leader meant, are you okay with the process? The employee heard, are you generally okay? The leader could have asked a different question, such as: Can you walk me through the process of deicing the aircraft?
And what happened? The employee drove the truck while it was still connected to the deicing machine. It destroyed the entire equipment. None of the flights were able to take off that morning, leaving the passengers scrambling.
A simple ask, asked very well, can make an impact on everyone.
Talent assessments measure many important things. Technical skill. Problem solving. Communication. Culture fit. Leadership potential. Yet the ability to ask, and to ask well, rarely appears on any scorecard. It shapes how people learn, how they get help, how they lead, and how safely the work gets done.
Why People Hold Back
Over 30 years, I led research asking more than 10,000 people the same questions about why they don’t ask for help. They included youth, their parents, and acquaintances I met everywhere I traveled for studies, research, and speaking. I found the top nine answers. They were almost the same, worded slightly differently across all the cultures. They ranged from not wanting to impose to the fear of getting a rejection or feeling incompetent.
Within the first two years of asking these questions around the world, I found how similar the answers were across cultures. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my career wondering why people don’t ask. A lot of the time, people didn’t even know why they held back. They were not sure what caused them not to ask. Maybe it was culture, maybe upbringing, maybe lack of training. I couldn’t pinpoint it. What became more important was how to change it. How can we make an ask so compelling that it would be difficult to say no?
I had seen this challenge in the airline industry. It became imperative that I address it. I created a seven step formula I call: If the ask is an ogre, tame it like a PRO. I implemented it and found there was no rejection. All I needed was one ask. Most people are willing to help. What is needed is ways one can reciprocate.
I also taught this formula to my eighth graders in an under-resourced district. With it, they enlisted community leaders for large scale projects that seemed ridiculous to even dream of, from turning the school courtyard into a Japanese garden to launching a teen cooking show called Chow and Tell with a local cable company. It didn’t matter what we did not have in the classroom. What mattered was the skill to make the ask.
Published research agrees. In studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Francis Flynn and Vanessa Lake found that people underestimated by as much as 50% how likely others were to agree to a direct request for help. In one study, participants guessed they would need to approach about 7 strangers to get a single yes. They actually needed to approach just over 2.
Inside organizations, this fear costs money and talent. People wait until a problem becomes a crisis before asking for help. They leave for another company without ever asking for the growth opportunity they wanted.
Small Asks, Big Returns
Whenever I speak, I ask the event planners about ways to make their work easier. I ask the tech team too. The outcome becomes different. They become very eager to help. In one instance, I was speaking in Mexico, and I offered the tech the option of choosing which gift he wanted. He was blown away. He told me he had been almost ready to walk out. Those little asks make a tremendous impact.
How You Ask Is How You Assess
The deicing story holds a lesson for anyone who assesses talent. A yes or no question tells you how someone feels in the moment. A walk me through question tells you what they actually know. HR leaders already have the tools to assess the ask. It simply needs to be named and looked for.
In interviews, ask candidates to describe a time they needed something from someone who had no obligation to help them. Listen for how they prepared, how they framed the request, and what happened afterward.
In simulations and assessment centers, build in a moment where the participant must request resources, time, or support to finish the task. Watch whether they ask at all, how early, and how clearly.
In 360 degree feedback, add a question such as: When this person asks you for something, how clear and considerate is the request?
In development planning, treat asking as a skill to build. Many high potential employees have never been taught how to ask for a stretch assignment, a mentor, or a raise. Once they learn, they take ownership of their own growth.
What I Would Ask HR Leaders to Do
Employees watch closely how their leaders ask. When a leader makes a clear request with a reason people understand, the team learns that asking is safe. So add the ask to your definition of talent. Name it in your competency models. Look for it in interviews, simulations, and feedback. Coach it in your development programs. Model it in the way you ask your own people for their time, their ideas, and their trust.
People want to be heard and seen. A well made ask gives them both. Organizations that learn to assess and develop this skill will find talent they have been overlooking, and they will keep the people who were one good ask away from staying.
