The one thing I constantly saw as a tech leader and coach was the number of stalled careers. These are brilliant, hardworking people who are waiting for opportunities to find them instead of creating them.
Why do so many careers stall or regress especially at senior levels?
Asking as a skill
I grew up in India which has a “guess culture”. Many Asian cultures are “guess cultures”. In such a culture you are expected to anticipate and guess others needs instead of making explicit asks. In fact you are encouraged to only ask for something when you are fairly certain the answer will be a Yes. It's considered rude to put someone in a position where they have to say no to you.
Corporate culture however is a “ask culture”. If you don’t ask for what you need, you may never even be considered for it. In fact, asking repeatedly and asking for seemingly big and unreasonable things is expected. Just as a No is a perfectly acceptable answer, no hard feelings either way.
If you are from a “guess culture”, you probably find it difficult to ask for what you need. You may also find it harder to get past a No.
But here is the thing — Asking is a learnable skill. And like any skill, you get better with practice.
This was my motivation behind creating the “21 days of asking” series. Over the past 21+ days, we've practiced asking for many things.
Let’s dive into a recap of the different categories of asks!
This article is best viewed on the website. If you are reading this in your email inbox, head here to read it as intended with links to the different asking posts.
1. Professional Development & Learning
2. Leadership & Growth Opportunities
3. Strategic Moves for Career Advancement
4. Project & Resource Management
5. Work-Life Balance
This post is intended to be a reference post. I hope you will bookmark and revisit here periodically when you need help making asks. In addition, if you haven’t already, I’d love to have you as a ChaiTime subscriber for more such content!
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Definitely bookmarked and I’m sure I’ll revisit it :)
This was really helpful, Chaitali! As someone working to gain traction for the next stage in my career, I find that these 'small' tasks grease the wheels for bigger ones and help build the experiences needed to move forward. Your post gave me a lot of great ideas. Thank you! :)