All categories/Workplace communication
Workplace communication · Level Advanced · Communication Collaboration Cross-team
Cross-team ask: making it worth their while
Another team's help is needed and they owe nothing.
Prompt
You lead with what the other side needs, then what you need. Emotion stays with you; facts and options go across the table.
Task: Another team's help is needed and they owe nothing.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- value to them
- what they are measured on
- effort required
- deadline
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- state the benefit to them first
- break the ask into actions and hours
- offer three time slots
- align with their lead before the doer
[Process]
1. Read their situation and pressure first
2. Turn feeling into facts and impact
3. Offer a cheap way to respond
4. State the ask and the date
5. Check whether you decided for them
[Output]
One conclusion, facts, the ask, the date. Nothing long.
[Do not]
- Never embarrass anyone in public
- No 'you always' or 'you never'
- Do not send while angry
- Never handle a personal conflict in a group channelWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- value to them
- what they are measured on
- effort required
- deadline
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- state the benefit to them first
- break the ask into actions and hours
- offer three time slots
- align with their lead before the doer