很少有人喜欢求助他人。神经科学和心理学研究证明，求助涉及一系列社会威胁，包括不确定性、被拒绝的可能、自降地位的风险以及必然要出让的自主权，这些都会刺激大脑中感受生理疼痛的区域。而在工作场合，我们往往特别希望能展现自己的专业技能、工作能力以及自信心，求助同事因此变得更加别扭。

Few of us enjoy asking for help. As research in neuroscience and psychology shows, the social threats involved—the uncertainty, risk of rejection, potential for diminished status, and inherent relinquishing of autonomy—activate the same brain regions that physical pain does. And in the workplace, where we’re typically keen to demonstrate as much expertise, competence, and confidence as possible, it can feel particularly uncomfortable to make such requests.

然而，在现代组织中，一个人想获得发展，不求助他人根本不可能。跨部门团队、敏捷项目管理技能、矩阵结构或层级最小化结构，以及日益流行的合作型办公室文化都要求我们不断努力，赢得来自主管、同事以及雇员的合作和支持。你的工作表现、进步以及职业发展越来越仰仗于寻求所需建议、参考及资源的能力。据估计，同事间互相提供的帮助，多达75%到90%来自直接诉求。

However, it’s virtually impossible to advance in modern organizations without assistance from others. Cross-functional teams, agile project management techniques, matrixed or hierarchy-minimizing structures, and increasingly collaborative office cultures require you to constantly push for the cooperation and support of your managers, peers, and employees. Your performance, development, and career progression depend more than ever on your seeking out the advice, referrals, and resources you need. In fact, estimates suggest that as much as 75% to 90% of the help coworkers give one another is in response to direct appeals.

那么，我们该如何更有效地寻求帮助？如何在麻烦别人的时候不让对方感到困扰？

首先，你要克服自己在求助时的不情愿心理。其次，你要明白一些普遍的或者说下意识的求助方式其实很低效，因为这些方法会让他人不愿提供帮助。最后一点，你必须学会委婉暗示，以便鼓励他人帮助自己，并正确使用之。

So how can you effectively ask for help? How can you impose upon people without making them feel imposed upon?

The first step is getting over your reluctance to ask for assistance. Next, you need to understand that some common and perhaps intuitive ways of asking for help are ultimately unproductive, because they make people less likely to want to give it. Finally, you must learn the subtle cues that motivate people to support you and how to deliver them in the right way.

代价和收益

也许，最容易让我们在求助时克服恐惧心理的，是明白大多数人其实都非常愿意伸出援手。康奈尔大学教授瓦内萨·博汗斯（Vanessa Bohns）是该领域的优秀研究者，近期她评估了一组由她和同事完成的实验，发现当人们向陌生人求助时，对方提供帮助的比例，也就是依从性，比求助者预计的平均高48%。活雷锋的人数比我们想象中更多。研究还表明，大家低估了助人者所需要付出的努力。

Costs and Benefits

Perhaps the easiest way to overcome the pain of asking for help is to realize that most people are surprisingly willing to lend a hand. When Vanessa Bohns, a professor at Cornell University and a leading researcher in this area, recently reviewed a group of experiments that she and her coauthors had done, she found that compliance—the rate at which people provided assistance to strangers who asked for it—was an average of 48% higher than the help seekers had expected. Clearly, people are much more likely to be helpful than we think they are. Studies also suggest that we underestimate how much effort those who do agree to help will put in.

部分原因是，拒绝或随意的帮助需要一点心理成本，而这点我们往往会忽略。另一原因在于，多数助人者知道（即使是下意识的），无偿并有效帮助到他人，能让人感觉良好。2017年瑞士的一项研究发现，我们即使只为别人花一点钱，也比只满足自己更快乐。

That’s in part because saying no or helping only halfheartedly carries a psychological cost that we tend to discount. But it’s also because most helpers know—even if only subconsciously—that giving freely and effectively of themselves has emotional benefits. A Swiss study published in 2017 found that people who simply pledge to spend even a small amount of money on someone else feel happier than those who plan to indulge only themselves.

成功获得他人帮助的关键，是将焦点转移到这些好处上。要让人们感到他们提供帮助是出于自己的意愿，并非不得已为之，他们拥有决定权。也就是不要表现出，某人要求你提供帮助，你应该提供帮助或者使用别无选择必须帮助这样的语言。下列这类开场白应该尽量避免：“能请你帮个忙吗？”——这会让人感到前面是个陷阱；也不要表达多余的歉意——“我感到让你做这件事很过意不去，”这让事情变得消极。也不要强调互惠性“你帮我我也会帮你”，这会起反效果，因为谁都不喜欢欠别人，也不喜欢纯粹的交易型关系。弱化自己的需要也不合适，例如“我一般不会求助他人”或者“就一点儿小事儿”，这会让人觉得提供的帮助微不足道甚至很多余。

The key to a successful request for help is to shift the focus to these benefits. You want people to feel that they would be helping because they want to, not because they must, and that they’re in control of the decision. That means avoiding any language suggesting that you or someone else is instructing them to help, that they should help, or that they have no choice but to do so. This includes prefaces such as “May I ask you a favor?,” which make people feel trapped, and profuse apologies such as “I feel terrible asking you for this,” which make the experience seem less positive. Emphasizing reciprocity—“I’ll help you if you help me”—can also backfire, because people don’t like to be indebted to anyone or to engage in a purely transactional exchange. And minimizing your need—“I don’t normally ask for help” or “It’s just a tiny thing”—is equally unproductive, because it suggests the assistance is trivial or even unnecessary.

但你可以避开这些陷阱寻求帮助，让人们对自己的回应有掌控感，感到助人为乐的幸福。要实现这些，你可以在具体求助中采用“强化”策略或“诱因”。也许更重要的是，你可以在日常和他人的互动中使用这些方法，让身边的人准备好提供更有益的帮助。

But you can ask for help in a way that avoids these pitfalls and instead gives people agency over their responses, allowing them to experience the natural highs associated with helping. That’s by using what I call reinforcements, or cues, which you can incorporate in specific requests. Perhaps more important, you can also use them in day-to-day interactions to prime the people around you for greater helpfulness.

三种强化方式

自己人心理。对潜在的助人者可以采用的一种强化方式是，确保你和他或她是一队的，而且这个团队很重要。这点利用的是人类天生需要归属感，需要维护身边社交圈的利益。具体有几种方式。例如，斯坦福大学朴雅卡·凯尔（Priyanka Carr）和格雷格·沃尔顿（Greg Walton，彼时是一名研究生）证明，仅仅加上“一起”这个词就能产生效果。当独自解决难题的实验参与者被告知，在其他房间还有人在一起做着类似的工作，之后他们可以互相交流，这些参与者的解题时间延长了48%，正确率更高，比那些认为自己在独自作业的人感到更轻松。

Three Reinforcements

In-group.

One reinforcement you’ll want to give a potential helper is assurance that you’re on his or her team and that the team is important. This taps into the innate human need to belong to—and ensure the well-being of—supportive social circles. There are several ways to do this. For example, research by Priyanka Carr and Greg Walton (a graduate student at the time), of Stanford University, shows that simply saying the word “together” can have an effect. When participants working on puzzles alone were told that they were doing so in tandem with people performing similar tasks in other rooms and could later exchange tips, they worked 48% longer, solved more problems correctly, and said they were less depleted by the task than those allowed to believe they were working fully independently.

你还可以提出共同的目标、敌人或者特性，例如想超额完成团队销售目标，和行业竞争对手一较高下，或者对超级英雄电影的热爱等。但最佳方式是创造一种自己人的感觉，强调共同的经历、观点、想法和感觉。例如，如果高管团队中只有两位女性，不要只是说：“我们是团队中仅有的两位女性”（强调特性）。这么说会更好：“你有没有发现说话时总有男性打断我们？”（共同经历）

You might also cite a common goal, enemy, or trait, such as the desire to exceed your team’s sales targets, rivalry with a competitor in your industry, or a love of superhero movies. But the best way to create a strong sense of in-group is to highlight shared experiences, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. For example, if a senior management team includes only two women, don’t just say, “We’re the only two women on the team” (emphasizing the trait). Say, “Have you noticed that we get interrupted all the time?” (shared experience).

积极形象。第二种诱因是让求助对象意识到自己提供帮助的独特身份或强化他们的这种意识（通过他们的特性或者角色），说明他们并非是可能会施以援手的路人，而一直是助人为乐的人。研究表明，当询问人们是否愿意“做一名慷慨的捐赠者”（而不是“捐款”）时，慈善团体获得的捐助更多。如果你告知一个年仅三岁的孩子，他可以“做一个小助手”（而不是“帮忙”）时，他会更愿意完成类似收拾积木的任务。但是记住，并非所有人对正面形象的看法都一样，记得在措辞上随机应变。例如，在宣传环保时，自由派更喜欢类似“关心自然世界”以及“不要让任何生命遭受不幸”这样的句子，而保守派则更喜欢“展现你的爱国心”以及“为自己和家园负起责任”。

Positive identity.

A second cue for potential helpers involves creating or enhancing their recognition that they are uniquely placed (by virtue of their attributes or role) to provide assistance and that they are not merely people who might help you but helpful people who routinely come to others’ aid. For example, studies have shown that people contribute more to charity when asked if they would like to “be a generous donor” (versus “to donate”) and that children as young as three are more motivated to complete tasks such as cleaning up blocks when told they can “be a helper” (versus “can help”). Remember, however, that people don’t all have the same vision of positive identity, so tailor your message. Research on pro-environment appeals suggests, for instance, that liberals prefer phrases such as “care for the natural world” and “prevent the suffering of all life forms,” whereas conservatives respond better to “show your love for your country” and “take responsibility for yourself and the land you call home.”

感激是另一种能激发助人者积极形象的有力途径。生产率软件公司Boomerang最近进行有关35万封电邮往来的研究，结果发现，如果邮件中包含“提前致谢”“谢谢”这样的词，平均回复率超过63%到66%；而普通的通用语，如“祝好”“致意”和“再见”，回复率仅有51%到54%。提前致谢会提高人们的兴趣，让人愿意帮助他人，只要你别把关注点放在自己从帮助中得到的好处上，而是放在对方的慷慨和无私，以及助人展现出的品质上。

Gratitude is another powerful way to boost helpers’ positive identity. A recent study by the productivity software company Boomerang of 350,000 e-mail exchanges found that “Thanks in advance” and “Thanks” yielded average response rates from 63% to 66%, compared with 51% to 54% for other popular options including “Best,” “Regards,” and “Cheers.” Even expressed preemptively, gratitude can keep people interested and invested in helping you, as long as you focus more on their generosity and selflessness—and what that says about them as people—than on how you’ll benefit from the help.

效力。人们希望看到自己的帮助行为产生的效果。这并非出于自负。很多心理学家认为，人们感到行为达到预想中的效果，是人类根本的行为动机。这是让我们感到人生有意义和有参与感的根本。

沃顿商学院的亚当·格兰特（Adam Grant）进行了一项研究，在某教育和营销软件公司的国外呼叫中心，雇员知道中心产生的收益支持其他部门的工作，但和这些部门并无接触。之后，一位受益者来参观，讲述了这里的工作对自己和其他人产生的影响，这间呼叫中心的销量和收益随后翻了一番。确保潜在助人者知道他们的帮助会起到很大作用，阐明你所需要的东西以及预期的效果。例如，在请同事帮忙评估一份客户提案时，你可以说：“在我发给XX之前，你能帮忙看下这份提案吗？之前就是因为你的帮忙，我才拿下了XX案子。”

Effectiveness.

People want to see or know the impact of the aid they will give. This isn’t an ego thing. Many psychologists believe that feeling effective—knowing that your actions created the results you intended—is the fundamental human motivation; it’s what truly engages people and gives their lives meaning. Consider a study that Wharton’s Adam Grant conducted at an outbound call center in an educational and marketing software company. Employees knew that the revenue they generated supported jobs in another department, with which they’d previously had no contact. After one of the beneficiaries of their work visited and spoke to them about their impact on his and others’ jobs, the call center’s sales and revenue doubled. To ensure that your potential helpers know that their assistance will matter, be very clear about what you need and its projected impact. For example, when asking a colleague to review a client proposal, you might say, “Would you please review this before I send it to XYZ? Your input really helped my previous pitch to ABC succeed.”

如果你承诺接下来会跟进，信守诺言。可能的话，让对方选择提供帮助的方式，如果和你预想的不一样，也愉快接受。要让助人者选择自己感到最有效的方式，给予你力所能及的帮助。

Promise to follow up afterward, and do so. If possible, also allow people to choose how they help you, and be willing to accept alternatives to your original request. You want helpers to give what they can—and what will make them feel most effective.

生活和职场

当我向他人解释这些战略如何落地时，我通常会举一个生活中的例子：宜家书架的故事。大约一年前，一位研究生同学让我帮她组装一个有点复杂的书架，你可能有点惊讶，我当时想都没想就答应了。当天早上，我拒绝了一个请我评估科学杂志投稿的朋友，忽略了一封女儿学校邀请家长帮忙筹备冰激凌聚会的邮件，不情愿地洗完了衣服但没有叠。那么为什么组装书架这件事我这么痛快就答应了？

Personal and Professional

When I explain to people how these strategies work in practice, I often give an example from my personal life, involving an IKEA bookshelf. About a year ago, a friend from graduate school asked me to help her assemble a particularly complicated one, and—this might surprise you—I eagerly agreed. That same morning, I’d turned down a request to review a submission to a scientific journal, ignored an e-mail from my daughter’s school asking for parent volunteers to help with an ice cream party, and grudgingly said I would do our family’s laundry but refused to fold it. So why was the DIY request an easy yes?

其中一个原因是，求助的这位老友和我很聊得来（自己人心理）。另一个原因是，我天生就有奇异的组装天分（并非多精通建筑构造，而是擅于理解难懂的安装说明）。多年来每当这位朋友需要帮助，我都是她第一时间想到的闺蜜（效力）。最后，每次有这样的事情，她总会在事后对我说：海蒂，谢谢你。你总是这么助人为乐而且慷慨大方（积极形象）。

One reason is that the person asking was a long-standing friend with whom I enjoy spending time (in-group reinforcement). Another is that I’m weirdly good at such projects (owing less to my construction prowess than to my ability to interpret poorly written directions), and for years I’d been her go-to gal for help with them (effectiveness). And finally, whenever we work together in this way, my friend always wraps up by saying something like “Heidi, thank you. You are always so helpful and generous” (positive identity).

职场情况也是如此。一家学习软件公司的产品开发部门主管，想要销售部门更多地配合他的工作，由于销售部门承诺在几乎不可能完成的日程下，为顾客提供高度定制化的产品，这让他的工作难以推进。他几次主动要求参与和顾客的交流，但总被忽略。销售部门的同事觉得他会拖慢进程，阻碍他们的成功。大家都觉得自己是为公司好，却各行其是。

I’ve seen situations play out the same way in professional settings. Consider the head of product development at a learning software company who wanted more input with the sales department, which was making his team’s work difficult by agreeing that highly customized orders would be delivered according to near-impossible schedules. He pleaded to be included in discussions with clients but was often ignored; the people in sales believed that he would slow them down and be an obstacle to their success. Of course, all parties felt they were doing what was best for the company, but in their own ways.

最终，深感挫败的主管决定采用全新的方法赢得同事的合作。他组织了一场和销售部主管的会议，给他们讲产品研发的流程。他发现多数人并不清楚研发过程中涉及的工作内容。换言之，他们并不知道自己有什么可配合的。他反复强调双方目标相同，都是满足顾客需求，确保复购，这让销售团队深感大家是一体的，从而消除了芥蒂。他将销售团队描述为守护客户体验的人，并强调他们决定了公司的品牌未来，这让销售团队有了很积极的形象，并激励他们稍微换一种方式看待并完成工作。

Eventually, the frustrated executive decided to take a fresh approach to getting the cooperation he needed from his colleagues. He set up a meeting with sales leaders to talk through the product development process, realizing that most of the team had no idea what work was involved. In other words, they didn’t understand why their help was needed. He began to emphasize in every interaction that they all shared the goal of pleasing the customer to ensure repeat business, creating a strong sense of in-group with the sales team. Suddenly it was clear that everyone was on the same side. He also started describing sales leaders as the protectors of customer experience and talked about the power they wielded in determining the future of the company’s brand, which gave them a strong positive identity and motivated them to see and approach their work in a slightly different way.

最后，只要销售人员同意帮助他，并让他参与工作提案流程，他都表示会跟进，告知他们的帮助对最后的成功起到了怎样的作用。大家因此看到自己的行动落地并感受到效力。

Finally, whenever salespeople did what he asked and included him in the work proposal process, he made a point of following up with them to say how important it had been to the ultimate success of the delivery. They saw their help land and felt its effectiveness.

慢慢地，这些战略极大改进了两个团队的关系，客户满意度和利润率都得到了增长。

下次当你感到需要求助他人时，记得多数时候大家都愿意帮助他人。很少有人会因为你需要帮助而看低你。寻求帮助是让他人感觉良好的不二法门。它让我们获得最好的感受，同时看到自己最好的一面。

Over time, these strategies dramatically improved relations between the two teams, and the company saw increases in both client satisfaction and profitability.

When you next find yourself in need of help, remember that people are willing to give it much more often than not. Few will think less of you for needing assistance. And there is no better way to make someone feel good about himself or herself than to ask for it. It brings out the best—and the best feelings—in all of us.

（牛文静 | 译   刘筱薇 | 校   万艳| 编辑）

海蒂·格兰特是研究动机和沟通的心理学家，著有《无人理解该怎么办》（No One Understands You and What to Do About It）和《高效达成目标：就这9招, 让成功率提高3倍》（Nine Things Successful People Do Differently）等。她的新书是《援军：如何获得他人的帮助》（Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You，《哈佛商业评论》出版社2018年出版）。