Posted for discussion and future reference

[metawidget]

Ask Culture and Guess Culture (Found via Captain Awkward)

I think I'm guess by nature, but I can see how ask would be a good one to have a feel for, at least to pull out of my back pocket when I need it.

I'm not sure which model fits more at work — big-organization people, civil servants in particular reading this: what do you think?

Comments

[beable]

I think I mostly grew up as an unhappy guess who one the one hand prefersthat people be direct and on the other hand still feels guilty when I have to say no.

I'm trying to be more of an ask and it sometimes is less stressful and sometimes not.

In terms of civil service culture, I find it a real mix,

I find that work-tasks (e.g. requests from clients) tend to be more ask-based - in part largely because part of our methodology is using ITSM frameworks that essentially force this behaviour as the dominant culture. When dealing with IT work, ask-based is usually much clearer.

I find HR/opportunity/career-development/interpersonal type culture to be more guess-based - and I'm not sure how much of that is me being more guess-based as a gender typical thing and how much is the overall real culture. So for the example of if there was an acting opportunity that one knew was coming up, then in guess culture mode I might talk about how it sounds like an exciting way to get experience with X, but I wouldn't directly ask to be considered. If I was in ask culture mode, I would clearly ask whether it was possible to be considered for the opportunity. In this specific example, I have no doubt that askers get more opportunities, but I think more of us tend to be guessers in that context.