424: Are you "Ask" or "Guess" Communicator? Navigating mixed communication styles

Ella: 00:00:00

Hey, it's Ella. I want to share a concept that I am fascinated by that I read about recently and I want to share it with you. Are you from an Ask or a Guess family?

Communication dynamic. What do I mean? I'll tell you and I'll tell you why it matters. Let's go. Welcome.

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I just read something that I found so compelling and I wanted to share it with you. I believe this was originally based in a Medium article, but I'm going to link to the Mamma Mia Podcast.

That's an Australian podcast where I first heard about this concept, Ask versus Guess culture. I'll link to the Medium article and a few other resources just to give proper attribution, but. But here it goes.

Okay, let me share a summary of this theory that I find so interesting.

The Ask A S K versus Guess framework describes two fundamentally different approaches to communication, especially around requests and getting your needs fulfilled and expressing those needs to begin with. In summary, in an Ask culture, and perhaps you were raised in an Ask family.

In an Ask culture, people are encouraged to directly state what they want or need, regardless of whether the request might be declined.

The expectation is that everyone will take care of their needs, and a no is a perfectly acceptable response, and there's not a lot of emotional weight attached to the asking or refusing. In a Guess culture, people avoid making these direct requests unless they're almost certain that the answer will be yes.

And needs and desires, they're communicated like more through hints or contextual suggestions and indirect cues. And the goal in Guest culture is to avoid putting anyone in the uncomfortable position of having to say no or even having to say yes.

But putting someone else in the position to say no to you is seen as almost like, awkward or even rude. For Guess people, the Ask method feels like a lot of pressure.

It can put people on the spot to say yes or no directly, something that may be uncomfortable to them, but it's not to someone who's immersed and comfortable in the Ask culture. So why do I want to talk about this?

Well, first of all, I Just find the concept interesting, but also recognizing and respect expecting these differences. It is just one of these tools we can put in our toolkit to help us in the future.

And by future, I mean five minutes from now, when we are communicating with people who may be in a different point of reference than we are. Perhaps you grew up in a guest culture where people hinted at their needs.

And perhaps you married someone who grew up in an ask culture where people just said what they needed and meant what they said. Neither is good or bad. It's the understanding whether you and those around you that you interact with.

It's about understanding whether you operate from an ask or a guess orientation, if you will. And that can explain a lot of everyday friction.

It can help you navigate communication dynamics better with your family at work and in relationships in general with more clarity. Right. And more empathy and more understanding of each other's point of view. Okay, let's dive into this and with. With some examples.

Now, I have to be honest with you. You may have been able to deduce this if you are a longtime listener, but I grew up in an ask culture, okay?

There were six of us in my household, and hints were getting you nowhere.

But I married someone who was raised in a guess culture who occasionally implied what they needed, but they did not come right out and say it because that is consciously or subconsciously viewed as almost selfish. Let's break this down with some examples, okay? Let's use examples from, like, early adulthood.

Let's say you had to paint your apartment or move house, right? Okay? Something nobody really wants to do before. You have a whole house and you need, like an 18 wheeler. All right?

If you need someone, if you need help painting or you need help moving in an ask culture, you would just text a few people. You would ask friends directly for help. You might throw a moving party or a painting party, and if they say no, you move on.

Like, you're not necessarily taking that as a personal affront, but in a guest culture, you might. You might mention to the friend that you're moving soon, or you might mention to the friend that you're.

You're thinking about, like, maybe hosting some sort of painting party. You're hoping that they offer to help, but you would rather die than ask directly for their help.

Unless, according to this theory, that you are 99% sure that they will say yes. If you are 99% sure that they'll say yes, you're much more likely to ask anything below that threshold if they do not pick up on your hints.

You might feel disappointed, you might feel even resentful over time, but you are not asking them directly. Okay? You put the hint out there and you're wondering why they did not pick up what you were putting down. Hey, it's Ella.

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This has implications outside of our homes, outside of our friendships, at work. For example, in an ask oriented workplace or just with an ask oriented employee.

Someone might request to lead a project or ask for time off when they need it or state what they need no matter what. It is very Directly. But if you have a guest culture colleague, they might hope that their needs are perceived.

They might say, oh, I have a sick family member and hope that somebody offers some PTO to support that family member.

Or they might hope, and this is more detrimental and possibly more common, they might hope that their interest and their commitment to work and their work ethic, they might hope that this is noticed and then they run the risk of feeling frustrated if overlooked. Does any of this resonate with you? Obviously this is highly contextual. It's also very dependent on the culture that you're raised in or lived in.

I mean, western culture and more individualist societies are definitely more ask oriented overall and put more value on directness and self advocacy. And many eastern and more collectively, excuse me, collectivist cultures, like we're very individualistic in the west, right?

And the more collectivist cultures, they lean more toward a guess culture because there's a more of an emphasis on harmony and indirect communication.

And while that is all certainly true at a macro level, even on a micro level within families and relationships, these differences can be a source of misunderstanding and even conflict. A especially if partners or relatives come from different backgrounds or are accustomed to different backgrounds.

Again, neither is good and neither is bad. They do not have inherent qualities like that. It is how we work together when both are present, right?

If you have an ask person talking to an ask person, we're good. If you have a guess culture person communicating with another guest culture person, they're going to pick up on each other's cues a lot better.

But it is when you have an ask and a guess talking to one another or God forbid, married to one another, right? That's when it can get tricky. I find this true in parenting. So we have raised. We have a lot of dependents in my family.

We've got kids kind of all over the place. But my son was primarily raised as an only child. Okay. His bonus sister was gone when he was still younger.

She was out of the house already living her life independently. And so he was largely raised in our home as an only child. Well, he's also extremely accommodating. That's just his nature.

That is clearly nature non nurture, but that's another show. Okay? So one of the things that I have gone out of my way to do is I will not respond to his guess culture, his guess references.

When a direct inquiry or a direct statement is needed, I will not play the passive guess game and I will insist that he asks directly when he wants or needs something. Something.

And it's again, it's not because I'm judging the guest culture, the guest culture point of view, it's that I firmly believe that in this life we do need to get more comfortable with asking for what we want, stating what we need, especially in partnerships. So as his safe space, I want to teach him that in my home.

So I do not respond to hints, I respond to direct asks so that I can teach him that as a life skill. But I have a lot of empathy for the guest culture.

Like a lot of empathy for the guest culture, it's so much more nuanced in a way, because really the goal, again according to the theory, is that in guest culture you're seeking to minimize the chance of what feels like potentially relationship damaging rejection. So guest culture people may try to nudge someone toward the outcome they want, right, with leading sentences instead of a direct request.

But I mean, truth be told, ideally the guest culture person is hoping for an offer without having to ask at all. Does that resonate with you? Is that you are you a guest culture person? Were you raised in a guest culture household? Did you marry and ask?

Imagine if you have difficulty asking people outright for help.

If you dislike conflict and asking for things and getting to know feels like conflict, and you often worry about imposing on people, then you're most likely to identify with that guest culture. Imagine partnering up with someone in ask culture. Ask culture is much more direct.

They have a blunt style of talking, they prefer directness, and honestly, they'll get impatient with the waffling and the hinting and the suggesting. At its core, this is about how we express our needs and how we expect others to do the same.

So I think that this is a useful framework to take into your next conversation, to take into your family dynamics, to take into your partnership, perhaps. And look for this. Look for cues as to whether you are. I bet you know already just from listening to this, whether you're an ask or a guess.

But I find it super useful to take this lens into conversations with people that we might have struggled with in the past. So my final thought is this.

Effective communication is not about forcing other people to be like us or to read our minds so that they know what we want and like. If they really loved us, we wouldn't have to ask.

It's, of course, about making sure that both sides are valued, both sides are heard, and both sides are respected. At the end of the day, we have personal accountability here.

We need to be aware of not just how we communicate, but also how other people might approach things and build in allowances for both styles. So I hope that this is adding one more tool to your toolkit. And I'm dying to know from you, are you an ask or a guess?

And once you see the world through this lens, share a story with me. Like, did this help you see anything in a different light? Okay, that's it. I will put this article. I found it fascinating.

I'll put it in the show notes right here in your podcast app. Okay, a little bit of housekeeping. I've mentioned this previously, but it bears repeating. I am headed to Australia in October.

I want to do some sort of event in Brisbane and then possibly maybe a meetup in Melbourne. If you are listening from either of those locations, I would just love, love, love to hear from you. You can DM me on Instagram.

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But for now I wanted to let you know that I am about to be entangled in a very large work project that I'm super, super excited about. So I am taking a brief recording hiatus. Not a podcast hiatus, but a recording hiatus.

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