Let’s say someone asks you a favor.
- „Hire me!”
- „Teach me X!”
- „Get me into the masters!”
- „Give me object Y!”.
You want to help, but you would prefer investing in helping someone you know is committed. One possible solution would be to refuse the person – „Look, it’s better for both of us if we don’t do so”. What might an even better solution be?
Ask for a commitment.
- „You want to get hired? Sure. But, first, work for one month doing the most boring things for us, without being paid, then for two more months doing less-boring stuff, and only with poor pay, and after three months we’ll see. Are you committed?”.
- „Sure, I can teach you X. But, first, do so-and-so procedure to get acquainted with the process. It’s not complicated, but you need to take a few steps towards it.”.
- „Great, we can get you into a Master’s Degree. We see that you don’t have either the work experience or some academic background to consider this, but we’ll give you a chance. Get a (paid) class at our Master’s, and strive to be in the top 10%. If you manage to do so, we’ll accept you into the MD”.
- „OK, I’ll give you object Y, but first you need to prove to me that you have Z ability, and for this, you need to take a course”.
⚙️ A quick primer on using friction as a relationship management technique.
If your role involves responding to lots of requests from others, this is a tool you’ll want in your belt.
Screenshot Essay #5: pic.twitter.com/KtaJnKosD4
— Nick deWilde (@nick_dewilde) August 31, 2020
