She blocked your design
in the review.
Firmly,
in front of everyone,
and she was not wrong
about the part she objected to.
Since then
you have worked around her.
A different person to ask
about the storage layer,
even though she knows it best.
You are being considerate,
you tell yourself.
She clearly does not rate you.
Why bother her.
In 1736
Benjamin Franklin had a problem like yours.
A new member of the Pennsylvania Assembly
had spoken against him,
and Franklin was standing
for re-election as its clerk.
He did not flatter the man.
He did not do him a favour.
He asked him for one.
He had heard
the man owned a scarce and curious book,
and wrote to ask
if he might borrow it for a few days.
The man sent it.
Franklin returned it about a week later
with a note of thanks.
The next time they met,
the man spoke to him,
which he had never done before,
and with great civility.
They stayed friends
until the man died.
Franklin wrote down the lesson
in his autobiography.
He that has once done you a kindness
will be more ready to do you another
than he whom you yourself have obliged.
In 1969
Jon Jecker and David Landy
tested it.
Participants won money
in an experiment.
Afterwards some were asked
by the experimenter himself
to give it back,
as a personal favour,
because it was his own.
Others were asked by a secretary,
for the department.
Some were not asked at all.
The ones who had done
the experimenter a favour
liked him most.
It was one small study,
and the explanations vary.
One explanation is simple.
People watch what they do
and infer what they feel.
I helped her,
so I must think she is worth helping.
Avoidance teaches the opposite,
to both of you.
So ask her.
Not for approval.
For something real and small,
that she is genuinely better at.
Would you look at how I have handled
the storage writes,
before anyone else does?
Then use what she gives you,
and tell her that you did.
It only works if the request is honest.
A request invented to manage someone
is the kind of thing
people notice.
But a true one
turns a critic
into someone with a stake
in your work going well.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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