You Want Something; You Have to Ask for It
Karen Laos, a communication specialist and confidence builder, set as her mission “to eradicate self-doubt in 10 million women by giving them simple strategies to ask for what they want in the boardroom and beyond.”
She is author of Trust Your Own Voice: Growing Your Influence Through Confident Communication and hosts the Ignite Your Confidence podcast.
The “how” is what people want to know to get much more of what they want and feel sufficiently qualified to receive. Knowing what to communicate and how to present it is not always clear.
Laos details where to begin.
“We need to know (specifically) what we want. If we don’t, it’s going to be hard to get it,” she says. “One of my favorite questions to ask yourself is ‘What would you want if you weren’t afraid to want it?’”
This requires developing clarity from extensive thinking.
“What is it, exactly? To win that new client you’ve been dreaming of? To get that corner office as an executive vice president? Or simply to get a special-order at your favorite restaurant,” Laos says. “We also need to be specific with our ‘ask.’ The more specific we can be, the easier it will be for people to clearly see it and give it to us.”
She explains why clarity is a crucial piece of the puzzle, a piece that not enough people consider and don’t realize is costing them in their pursuits. This means not only in thought but how the request is communicated.
“As one of my mentors, Donald Miller, says: ‘If you confuse, you lose.’ Be crystal clear,” Laos advises. “Don’t bury the lede or in this case, the ‘ask’ by adding in a bunch of other details that muddy the message.”
One area where people may not be communicating with strength and effectiveness, she’s come to learn, is their mindset which affects how people convey what they want.
“We need to be direct. Many of us make passive ‘asks.’ We aren’t direct because we don’t believe we can have what we want, we’re afraid of being rejected or we’re worried we’re going to inconvenience someone,” Laos says.
She provides an example from her own career and life, calling it one of her biggest mistakes.
“In one of my corporate jobs we were incorporating a more formal leadership team and my boss, the company president, asked me to be a part of it. I was thrilled,” Laos says. “Recognizing that most people on the team were director level or above — and I wasn’t; I was a senior manager — I asked what my title might change to. My first problem: passive question.
“My boss was distracted when I asked and she said we’d have to figure that out. I passively implied, ‘Well, everyone else is a director or above, so…’ thinking that was an ‘ask.’”
She says that was an error.
“I knew better but I truly wasn’t conscious of my mistake and the magnitude of how this would affect me,” Laos remembers. “A few months later and after I was already on the leadership team, I brought it up to another leader in the company and the discussion didn’t go anywhere. Second mistake.”
Looking back, she knows what she should have done and would do if she could go back in time.
“I would’ve asked for a title change or promotion plan by the time the leadership team was in place,” Laos says.
She continues the story, remembering how she remained optimistic about the quality of her work and how her team focus was going to pay dividends.
I realized I was the problem.
“Fast forward 8 months to my annual performance review over a delicious lunch in the financial district of San Francisco. I was expecting a promotion to director,” Laos says. “It didn’t happen.”
She didn’t realize it but she wasn’t using a poker face to mask her hurt.
“Sue sensed I was disappointed and asked me what was wrong. That’s when I shared my expectation. She didn’t remember the initial conversation. I was surprised at first but upon reflection I realized I was the problem. I didn’t make a direct ask,” Laos says, realizing the responsibility was at least partially on her.
She used that pain to learn from the experience.
“In hindsight, here’s what I would’ve done differently: I would’ve said I wanted to be promoted to director and asked what it would take to get there: where did I need to improve and by when? I would’ve asked for mentoring and proposed a draft timeline,” Laos says.
She explains the differences between direct ‘asks’ and passive ones.
“We have to recognize when we’re passively asking something so we can adjust and therefore get a more desirable result,” Laos stresses. A passive ask sounds like this:
“If you’re interested, let me know.”
“If you think this is something you’d like to do, I’m happy to talk more about it.”
“Perhaps you’d like to…”
Instead of that route, be direct and say this instead:
“Are you interested?”
“Is this something you’d like to do?”
“Would you like to?”
“We’re socially conditioned to go with the passive ‘ask’ because most of us fear rejection,” Laos says. “We want to have an ‘out’ so we don’t have to hear ‘no.’”
What drives progress and a higher rate of success, she says, is assertiveness. “Going with the harder option of asking directly takes courage,” Laos admits, “but will make you much more effective in your communication as a leader and get you closer to what you want even quicker.”
This sounds like a simple process and Laos agrees yet she is quick to point out that simple doesn’t equal easy.
“One of the biggest roadblocks is ourselves,” she says. “We may not feel like we deserve it. The biggest hurdle to overcome is to believe that you can get it.
“So often we shy away from asking because we’re either a) Afraid we won’t get it and be further disappointed or b) We fear rejection or c) We don’t know what we want. We know we want something different but we don’t know what that is to be able to articulate it to someone else.”
Because I didn’t expect it to come easy, I didn’t have a problem with rejection.
When someone is in that frame of mind, Laos has some advice.
“You won’t ‘get’ if you don’t ask,” she says. “My dad was known for saying, ‘The squeaky wheel gets the grease.’ The worst that can happen is a ‘no.’”
Laos says she learned early how to respond to indifference or rejection with poise and continue on towards the goal.
“I did well selling Mary Kay Cosmetics and one of the things I learned at 18-years old is to expect 50 ‘no’s’ to get to a ‘yes’ for a sale. That’s what I learned and believed to be true,” she says. “Because I didn’t expect it to come easy, I didn’t have a problem with rejection. Expectations setting is important. You have to have an idea of what reality is.”
It’s valuable to understand the approach to take and successfully apply it to ethically take advantage of opportunities.
“Use my Negotiation Equation,” Laos recommends. “These “3 C’s work together to create your ideal negotiation conversation. Preparing in these areas will increase the probability of not only negotiating well but walking away with what you want.”
The 3 C’s she elaborates on are confidence, clarity and connection.
With confidence, Laos says, it’s necessary to “know your worth, own your strengths and stand secure in them. Believe in yourself. Be clear on what you do well and what you don’t. Know what you want and don’t waver. Speak with vocal conviction.”
When it comes to clarity, she explains “how you package the ‘ask’ is vital. Think of what’s in it for the person you're asking and be clear and concise. Instead of saying, ‘I'd like to be promoted,’ which while direct, is self-focused, be others-focused instead.
“Consider the value first of what promoting you will do for your boss and the bottom line. If promoting you will increase the team’s development, say instead, ‘I'd like to develop the sales team and I have a plan to share with you. Can we set up a time to do that?’”
Connection is Laos final negotiating value and point and it’s a critically-important one in seeking out what is desirable and-or deserved.
“Negotiation is about relationships,” Laos contends. “You’re not here to strong-arm someone into granting your requests, you're coming together to create a plan that benefits both while building trust. It’s about both parties winning.”
