Asking favours: One can lead to more

The nature of collaborative and cooperative behaviour in business is that we need to persuade or motivate other people to do things. These are generally people we do not know, thus, adding to the difficulty.

Imagine you are a sales person who wants to close a big deal but first the sales clerk needs to persuade computer support to modify her computer, slightly.

Intitially, our first instinct in difficult situations is avoidance. Rather than being direct we avoid asking for too many favours. We don't want to turn them against us, do we?

After all, the only thing worse than being asked for a favour is being asked for multiple favours, right? Unfortunately, the obvious and logical conclusion is wrong.

Behavioural research now shows us that sometimes asking for one small favour first, can greatly increase the probability of success with subsequent favours. This may sound counterintuitive but it is true.

During a recent research activity, a researcher asked passers-by for complicated directions. Not surprisingly, not all subjects bothered to help. The second approach was different. Some subjects were asked first for an extremely small favour: the researcher inquired as to the time of day.

Virtually all of the passers-by checked their watch and provided the time. Subjects that complied with the small request were much more likely to respond positively to the request for complicated diretions.

The psychology seemed to be a sort of subconscious feeling that having granted one request, it would be inconsistent not to grant a somewhat bigger one.