An Army of Normal FolksFor Shop Talk, Coach Bill reflects on some fascinating studies that show people are far more willing to help us than we might expect. And what this means for the Army.
Everybody, It's Bill Courtney, Welcome into the shop. What's up, Alex, It's living the dream, baby, live in the dream. Me too. I've I've been traveling too much lately, and I'm so glad to be home and back in the shop.
I feel so bad for your going to weddings and vacation, and.
Well, vacation's fine. Weddings. You know, who actually goes to a wedding that's not in the family or being married, that actually looks forward to it? I think most wedding.
It looks like it was in a beautiful spot though I saw Malli post pictures of is it ESTs Parker? You guys right, I don't know.
I don't even remember.
I think you don't even know where you were hurt.
Well, I mean it's you go to weddings more is an obligation than anything else. I mean, that's what people don't.
I hope this couple here is this episode and that'd be amazing.
I love them and I hope they have a wonderful life. And I was so happy to be at their wedding.
How was that that was obligatory to keep going?
It was shop talking number fifty four. Everybody, this one is titled Don't be Afraid to ask for Help, which reminds me of like the nineteen seventies parody where people before cell phones. People would drive around but the husband would never get out ask for help at the gas station and would just stay lost for hours because they're unwilling to admit they're loss to need help.
But pride of every man.
Yes, that's it. So Shop Talk number fifty four, don't be Afraid to ask for help. Welcome in the shop. We'll talk about this right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Welcome back to the shop, everybody. Shop Talk number fifty four, Don't be Afraid to ask for help. In Chicago Booth Review a publication of the University of Chicago's Booth Business School. That's where really smart people go to school.
I think, yeah it is.
I mean University of Chicago's Booth Business School. I mean when it says in the University of Chicago's Booth Baby, if you have to have six names, six words to describe your school, it's probably hard to go to school.
Now speaking of a normal folks. Thing for a little diversion, yeah, one thing like me go and all these fancy schools like that Sam Natius I was telling you about. By the way, they're not a church school. They're found in the eighteen hundreds. No, right, yeah, but or even UVA like living in Oxford, missive be now that all these people went to Old Miss It's amazing how many people make more money than me despite the fancy schools. Yeah, so it's like who cares, like the u went to these fancy schools?
Whatever? Yeah, I mean we're in Oxford. Who cares? Right? Okay. In Chicago Booth Review, publication of the very fancy University of Chicago's Booth Business School, Cassandra ra Ball I don't know, I don't know. Br A ba w under Braba wrote an awesome article titled Don't be afraid to ask for help. Walking in a park one day, Stansford's.
See Stanford, it's not that I know.
It's us. I'm gonna say, Jean, it's spelled x u A n z h A O. So. Walking in a park one day, Stanford's Jean Jao noticed an elderly couple trying to take a picture of themselves. She heard the husband whisper that they shouldn't bother a young man using a laptop on a bench nearby. Noticing their struggle, the woman offered to help. Really, the wife asked, you can help us take a picture? It was It was a common enough interaction, and it mirrored the findings of a study that Joao conducted with Booth's Nicholas Epley when she was a post doctoral scholar at Chicago Booth. The researchers find that people can be consistently reluctant to reach out for assistance because they underestimate how happy others are to comply. That's interesting. Often it is our own preconceived notions that hinder us from reaching out and seeking help, even though people are frequently more more than willing to lend a hand when asked. This reluctance creates a barrier to a social interaction that would increase the well being for both the request of the helper and the helper. The researchers right. In six experiments, Epl and Jall surveyed hundreds of people to gather information about study participants expected and actual reactions to either asking for or being asked for help. For example, in their first experiment, John Epley recruited fifty visitors of a public park and asked them to find someone to take their picture on a Polari camera. Participants first filled out a survey that gauged both how they felt about making the request and how they expected the people they approached to fill and react. In forty seven the side of fifty now in forty seven cases, the first person approached agreed to help, and three others. The first declined, but the second person said yes. The researchers then approached the picture takers and surveyed them as well. To participants significantly underestimated the picture taker's willingness to help and overestimated the discomfort involved. The surveys revealed. Another experiment tested how willing strangers in a university laboratory were to help each other. Participants were paired up and seated at a computer desk, close enough that they could see each other but not the other's computer screen. They were then tasked with, within five minutes, counting the number of instances the letter E appeared in an academic article. One partner was given too much material to cover in that time, while the other was giving so little as to have lots of time left over. The overburdened participants were encouraged to ask for help, whether by asking their partners directly or by tapping the experiment instructor to ask on their behalf. As before and the other experiments, the results indicate that the people in need of help tended to underestimate how happy others were to provide help, and they overestimated the perceived bother involved in asking for help. We believe those asking for help are likely to focus on the inconvenience of helping, as the help required as likely to be their primary focus. That Pally says, someone being asked for help, in contrast, will focus on the inconvenience of helping, but will also focus on an enhanced sense of agency for being identified as someone who could provide help. Now that's interesting. Huh, I'm gonna read that again. This is in quotes. We believe those asking for help are likely to focus on the inconvenience of helping, as the help required is likely to be their primary focus. Someone being asked for help, in contrast, will focus on the inconvenience of helping, but will also focus on a hand sense of personal agency for being identified as someone who could provide help. In other words, we like to be helpful for the person being asked for help. The social connection and positive feeling of performing and active kindness most likely always outweigh the inconvenience. Sal and Epley say the finding change their own behaviors. Zu now proactively offers help, knowing how reluctant others are to ask. She gives the example of a recent vacation to Murewood's National Monument, where she offered to take photos for other visitors, even suggesting she use a panorama mode to capture the full grandeur of the monument's old growth redrig trees. Epley no longer hesitates to reach out for help. In some ways, it's actually unkind not to ask or help, and someone would be quite willing and even happier if you did ask. He says, pretty phenomenal stuff, But how does that all really relate. It's this an army of normal folks is only as good as an army, and we often take on a project and feel like it's our duty to finish it and oftentimes won't ask for help because we feel like we're inconvenience in somebody. But what the study tells us is people want to be asked for help and by asking people for help, you give them agency, ownership, you give them a place in a project. So if you're engaged in something and you want to grow an army around your idea, it might be as simple as just asking for help to give people agency in your idea. One, they want to help. The research shows people want to help. And two you grow agency and ownership by involving people into help. And three, as pointed out at the very end there, you're actually doing the service to other people by not asking them for help, because you're not giving them the opportunity to engage. It's pretty interesting stuff, Alex.
Yeah, curious where'd you find this?
This is all Alex's idea.
By the way, so our good friend Evan Feinberg shared the article on LinkedIn.
Why wouldn't it be Evan fiden He.
Posts a lot of good stuff like this that are good shop talks.
So this actually came from Evan Biberg. Yeah, yeah, shout out to Evan. That's pretty cool. So shop talk number fifty four, don't be afraid to ask for help. Here's the asterisks. Why shouldn't we be afraid to ask for help? One? People want to help, That's what the research shows two people take on agency when they're allowed to help, meaning they get involved in your work, your idea, your need. And three because people want to help. When you're afraid to ask them for help, you're actually doing them a disservice because you're precluding them from engaging in something that will make them feel better. So don't be afraid to ask for help, not just because it's good for you, but it's good for the people you ask for help too. Pretty interesting stuff.
And I think for all of us to be healthy as healthy as possible, we all need help. And so I hate asking for help. It's not like I really hate it, but you know, for me to be the best version of who I can likely is going to require help from other people. Therefore I'm going to be a healthier person. Therefore I can actually given help more people myself at the end of the day.
So yeah, and they're healthier too because people want to help. It's good stuff. That's actually kind of an army and normal folks kind of thing, isn't it.
How we did it is a shop talk bro.
Yeah, there it is Shop Talk number fifty four. Don't be afraid to ask for help because you're doing yourself and others are disservice by doing it.
Oh yeah, or a new plug. This is a good playoff of our recent new plug go for it. Speaking of asking.
For help, oh, we want your help.
Yes, and you can help other people by doing this too.
This is just a big old help thing. Yeah.
We're all just helping each other in one big circle. So if you do a good act, whether it's like giving blood like John Norman is, or you're running with the homeless like Michael Lignosis and all the amazing thing Army members are.
Doing, yes, anything, post.
It on social media and write some kind of message like join hashtag an army of normal folks. Together, we can solve our problems tagging us tag us in it too. We want to shift start sharing a lot of those we'll post all that on our accounts, yep. But also those posts can help other people by seeing look, normal folks like me can solve these problems, and together we can solve almost all the problems.
And hopefully it brings more people to the ship. That's true, So we help each other.
We're all helping each other. There's kind of post. You just got to be humble about it, right, you can't be a Turkey person bragging about how great you are.
Yeah, it's just do it and send it to us and we'll repost it and who knows, maybe something goes viral. But more importantly, growing the Army sharing our stories.
That's it.
That's it. Hey, if you liked this episode, rate and review it, Join the Army at normal folks dot us, subscribe to the podcast.
You're really nailing it in right now.
I think I got it all, didn't I.
You can become a premium member of normal Folks out us that one.
Yeah, and besides that, we'll see you next week.
Yes, next week, yes, next week.
Okay, that's shop talk at number fifty four. We just ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Let's grow the Army and we'll see you next week. Thanks for joining
