Ask vs. Guess Culture
jeanhsu.substack.com
Ask vs. Guess Culture
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Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#2The "Ask vs Guess" name rhetorically frames it in favor of the Askers. Asking sounds reasonable, guessing does not!
But really it's not about "Guessing", it's about understanding. It's about community, and relationship, and trust. What this culture really wants is for you to pay attention and understand the people around you, rather than treating everything as a transaction.
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#3I remember when I first heard about this concept and found it explained a big difference between my brother and I that I had struggled to articulate (he is an asker and I am a guesser)
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#4Interestingly, I went into this article thinking that "guess culture" would mean something along the lines of guessing what others want or what the right thing to do is, executing it, and revising after the fact based on feedback. Essentially, "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." I guess you can call this "do" culture. However, the article talks about guess culture as something else.
One of the most valuable skills I've learned in grad school is how to get good at using all three: guess, ask, and "do" culture. You really need all three in an environment like that to navigate complex admin tasks, raise money, pursue ideas, and be a normal, friendly, empathetic person to work and collaborate with.
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#5Isn't this just a manifestation of high-context versus low-context cultures? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context...
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#6Interestingly, I went into this article thinking that "guess culture" would mean something along the lines of guessing what others want or what the right thing to do is, executing it, and revising after the fact based on feedback. Essentially, "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." I guess you can call this "do" culture. However, the article talks about guess culture as something else. One of…
> Interestingly, I went into this article thinking that "guess culture" would mean something along the lines of guessing what others want or what the right thing to do is, executing it, and revising after the fact based on feedback. Essentially, "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." I guess you can call this "do" culture. However, the article talks about guess culture as something else.
Yeah, a more intuitive name would be "Just Ask" vs "Guess If You Can Ask" which emphasizes the difference: Someone from a Just Ask culture wouldn't understand having to guess if you can ask someone something.
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#7I am from the northern US (Protestant Scandinavian/German) and my wife is from the southern US (Protestant English/German) [1]. In the first several years of our relationship, we had several big disputes about how to treat each other, and how to treat guests. After a while we realized that she had been brought up to feel extreme insecurity over responding to the needs of guests, and I had been brought up to be blithely ignorant to the needs of guests.
Over the years I definitely insulted several southern guests by mostly ignoring them, and she definitely projected insult onto several northern guests by assuming that they were secretly judging us for not being better hosts. We've since realized that southerners tend to prefer "guess" culture and northerners tend to prefer "ask" culture, to use the terminology from the article. There are certainly many exceptions, but this generalization has taught her to chill out a little over hosting duties, and taught me to pick up some slack when taking care of guests.
We still both greatly prefer our native cultures. I don't like being fawned over or offered things I don't want, and she is extremely recalcitrant when it comes to asking for anything.
[1] I mention the distant ancestral backgrounds because it's amusing to me how well I get along with northern Europeans who are plainly spoken and "rude" by US standards, and how a lot of proper hosting culture from the UK reminds me of how her family operates. She finds Scandinavians and Dutch incredibly rude, whereas I find the English hilariously polite, even to their own detriment.
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#8I disagree with the way these behaviors are portrayed as a cultural dichotomy. To me, the author's examples all fall under ineffective communication.
Their example of "ask culture" involves stoking resentment by making unreasonable requests. This can be avoided by practicing a little empathy. Ask questions, provide some basic context, and offer an escape hatch: "What are you busy with? I need X because Y. It's fine if you can't, I can also get it from Z".
Their example of "guess culture" sounds like mind-reading and ambiguous non-verbal signaling, maybe even to the point of being passive aggressive. Again, use empathy. Volunteer information that others might want to know. Be genuinely curious, ask questions. Communicate.
Make sure both parties know enough to make informed decisions.
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#9Isn't this just a manifestation of high-context versus low-context cultures? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context...
Yes, it's just another name for that.
But this article paints high-context as bad and low-context as good, when they're really just different (and opposite ends of a spectrum, not a black or white one or another).
Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture
#10I don't really care for the "Ask vs. Guess" framing.
More like "make demands without considering the other person at all vs. think for a second about not imposing yourself on other people unnecessarily."
But mostly this article is about the virtues of being a clear communicator and having decent interpersonal skills, which is neither an "ask" nor a "guess" thing.