Ask for Advice, Not Permission

[Swiddis]

In the "Other similar problems" section at the end, I think a related idea that is really potent is Ask for Advice, Not Permission ¹. I recognize that it might not specifically fit in with the other pages referenced, but it's another similar-in-nature communication antipattern that would be nice to call out.

The problem with permission is that you are implicitly asking someone else to take some responsibility for your decision... Advice, on the other hand, is easy. “Hey, I was thinking about doing X, what advice would you give me on that?” In this instance you are showing a lot of respect to the person you are asking but not saddling them with responsibility because the decision is still on you.

I'd like to open a discussion for adding this to the similar problems list.

Footnotes

1. If you're a fan of Don't Ask to Ask et al. and haven't heard of Bosworth's blog, the whole site might be worth checking out. He goes into a lot of larger-scale organizational communication issues. Many of them aren't snappy catchphrases, but still valuable. (Not sponsored, I'm just a big fan.) ↩