Why am I writing about this?
I recently read this insightful blog post by Jean Hsu titled “Ask vs Guess Culture” which usefully divides communication styles into two cultures called “Ask Culture“ and “Guess Culture“.
Working on a team that is fully remote, international, multi-cultural, and includes people from different companies (employees, contractors from company Y, contractors from company Z, etc) each with a different set of communication styles, it’s often difficult to know if you should “ask“ or “guess“.
Note:
this blog post is a summary of and small expansion to Jean Hsu’s blog post. It might be best to read her blog post before reading mine.
Also, keep in mind that I view the world through a straight-white-American-male lens 😅 😉.
What is Ask and Guess Culture?
- Ask Culture: In an Ask culture, individuals are straightforward about their needs and make direct requests. They assume that it’s the responsibility of the person being asked to set their own boundaries and to say “no” if they can’t or don’t want to fulfill the request.
- Guess Culture: In a Guess culture, individuals avoid making direct requests unless they’re reasonably sure before they ask that the answer will be “yes”. They try to read social cues and context to assess whether a request would be welcomed or seen as an imposition –favoring politeness over directness.
People, teams, and even countries tend to gravitate toward one of these cultures over the other. For example, the US tends to be more ask culture oriented while Japan is more guess culture oriented.
It’s not a dichotomy. It’s more of a spectrum. But it’s a great framework for understanding our different communication styles and can help us be intentional about the communication styles we use on our teams.
When Should You Ask Instead of Guess?
It depends. But, in my opinion, most of the time you should probably ask.
Here are a few scenarios with some general rules-of-thumb that work for me:
You need help with a task
If you’re a junior developer or a new dev on the team, it is expected that you’ll need help with most of your tasks. So if you’re spinning your wheels for more than an hour you should ping someone and ask for help.
If you’re not new to programming or the team, then you should probably lean more toward guess culture –being considerate of the person’s time of whom you are asking. But even then, I wouldn’t spin your wheels for more than a day before asking for some help.
Your ticket’s description is unclear
Ask for clarification. Don’t try to guess your way through it. Remember, “Assume” makes an A** 🫏 out of U and ME (most of the time at least).
source: https://xkcd.com/1339/
You’re trying to get a promotion
Some managers are really good at guess culture. They have great observation skills, a high level of emotional intelligence, and understand you enough to know when you’re ready to be promoted. This, however, is extremely rare. Managers are busy people and they need hints from you. It’s a good idea to be proactive about asking for a promotion when you feel ready.
“At a certain point, guess culture is not going to work for you, and you’ll feel under-acknowledged and overlooked. If you want to get more of what you want out of your work situation, you’ll have to lean more into ask culture.”
– Jean Hsu
You’re trying to follow a process that has recently changed
Most processes should be written down. So start with a quick search to find a ReadMe, a Confluence doc, etc. If you can’t figure it out in a few minutes just ask someone.
If the process isn’t written down yet, write it down. If you find a doc with an out-dated process, please leave it better than you found it.
Conclusion
It would be great if we were all so tight-knit and equipped with a deep level of understanding that goes beyond mere spoken words. But, of course, this is not the case. By leaning more into ask culture during work, we can get the help we need faster.
If ask culture is hard for you, I highly recommend reading this section from Jean Hsu’s blog post: Navigating corporate America as a guess-culture person.
Additional Resources
- Jean Hsu’s post: https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/ask-vs-guess-culture
- Jean Hsu’s follow-up post: https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/bridging-the-ask-vs-guess-culture
- Katherine Wu’s talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxTXf6qyaGk
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