How to confidently ask a senior exec for help
Imagine this . . . There is a senior executive in your organisation that you know, and who knows whom you are.
How would you confidently ask the senior executive for help?
You might think – as some of my junior level executive clients have thought that, asking for help signals weakness, or signals that you’re stupid, or that by asking for help, you might not be considered worthy, to be included in upcoming projects.
Or you might think that the senior executive will be too busy to help you.
There are ways to confidently ask for help.
Here’s one way** – and when you ask for help always ask for it, in a face to face interaction. Don’t use an email, a text or a phone call.
#1 Choose a good time. Reflect on the times you see the senior person in the office. From that reflection plan time options for engaging the executive.
#2 When the opportunity arises:
> Get the person’s attention, ask for thirty seconds and make your request for help.
> Sample words and syntax to use (that are said with an energetic speaking cadence).
“Sarah… would you have 30 seconds?’ If they say “No”, say “fine, I’ll catch you later.”
Assuming the say “Yes”, you say:
Hey, I’m giving a presentation next week and really looking forward to it… I think I’ll nail it… but there are two areas where I think I can do some fine tuning. Would you be able to listen to my opening five minutes or so and give me feedback?
(get to the point of being saying the above words, seamlessly, at a moment’s notice)
** This way of asking for help is informed from an idea in Syliva Ann Hewlett’s linkedin.com/in/sylvia-ann-hewlett Talks at Google presentation.
Own the Conversation
Implementation idea:
In next seven days do the following:
- Choose a senior executive to ask for help.
- Adapt the above approach.
- Make a plan for the asking for help.
- Complete the asking for help.
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p.s. I found this Atlantic article Secret Fears of the Super-Rich thought provoking. It might interest.
Here are some snippets from the article:
- ‘Money is like fire: It will warm your feet or it will burn your socks off’.
- ‘The former (those who inherited the money) are members of what Warren Buffett famously dubbed – “the lucky sperm club”.
- ‘One respondent, the heir to an enormous fortune….reports that he wouldn’t feel financially secure until he had $1 billion in the bank’.
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