How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

PROVIDE SOME CONTEXT
A classic study by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer tested three different ways
of persuading people to do a simple thing: to let someone cut in front of them as
they were about to use a photocopier.
1
 She had the person who wanted to jump

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in line say one of these three sentences:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” When hearing
this, 60 percent of people were kind enough to agree to let them go first.
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in
a rush?” This time, 94 percent agreed. The addition of a reason meant that
almost everyone said yes—quite a big change. People may have rolled their
eyes, but they probably felt some sympathy for the person in a hurry. We’ve
all been there.
The most surprising thing happened when this third sentence was used:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have
to make some copies?” This time, the “reason” given was a meaningless
tautology—but 93 percent, about the same proportion, still agreed. Signaling
that there 
was
a reason—even if it wasn’t a very good one—seemed to be
enough to make the request feel acceptable.
What does this mean for you? Well, when you’re asking people to do
something, you’ll probably get more cooperation if you give a brief reason,
rather than merely asserting that it’s what you want them to do.
You might have thought this was obvious, but I’ve observed that people often
make requests of colleagues—asking an assistant to book a meeting room, for
example—without any explanation. After all, if booking rooms is part of a
colleague’s job description, why explain the request? But taking five seconds to
say “Because it’s an important meeting for us at this point in the project”
instantly makes it feel like more of a team effort and less of an order, which in
turn translates into better support. In effect, you’re helping colleagues stay in
discovery mode, by treating them with more of the respect that everyone’s social
brain craves. So for the simple requests you’re making each day, remember to
give a couple of seconds of context rather than barking the kind of transactional
order you’d make at a fast-food restaurant.