People Can't Resist Favors

When Jay Hargis's colleague called in a favor, the former director of client services had a hard time remembering the favor done for him that he was now tapped to return.

'I was shocked that he remembered I asked him to run the list four months earlier,' Mr. Hargis says of the favor done for him, which involved printing out a list of customers.

His colleague needed one of Mr. Hargis's customers to furnish him with some glowing testimonial that he could spin into a marketing brochure. Feeling like he had little choice, Mr. Hargis spent a half day on the phone securing cooperation and approvals. He felt the favor he performed was disproportionately larger than the one he received. But his colleague seemed to think he had bent over backward 'by clicking 'Print,' ' Mr. Hargis recalls.

In any office's underground economy, favors are the currency by which productivity is purchased and goodwill is gained. But the favor exchange rate isn't fixed. Some favors are done with the expectation of nothing returned.

Others are performed in the spirit of getting. Making favors even trickier to grasp -- and thus easier to game -- is research suggesting that the deed itself isn't as valued as much as the atmospherics around it. Someone's gender, their apparent willingness and even time elapsed since the favor was performed, can all change a selfless act into something brazenly transactional or vice versa.

The slipperydefinition of a 'favor' explains why some colleagues view the performance of their simplest job duties as an act of heroism. Karen Markin, a college administrator, has run into colleagues whose job includes easy access to information. But it doesn't seem easy when she asks for it.

'They can act like it's moving a mountain,' says Ms. Markin. 'People think they're doing this enormous favor.'

In his study of customer-service agents, Frank Flynn, an associate professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business who studies favor exchange, found that soon after the completion of a favor, its recipient thought it was more valuable than the person who granted it. Over time, however, they reversed roles: 'The person who received it didn't think it was that big a deal, but the person who granted the favor thought it was a bigger deal.'

Understanding the shelf life of a favor granted, some colleagues require immediate favor redemption. Richard Vandagriff occasionally worked with a contractor who was one of those favor accountants. 'He doesn't keep a book, but might as well,' he says. Once, the man even counterfeited a favor -- resetting furnace controls that didn't need resetting.

'Now I need a favor from you,' he told Mr. Vandagriff.

'It was a setup to get me to get one of my people to help him.'

It worked.

The mere mention of the word 'favor' can stun us into compliance, which answers a question staffers often ask themselves: How did I get roped into this?

Stanford's Prof. Flynn found that simply asking people to fill out a questionnaire in New York's Penn Station resulted in 57% compliance. But prefacing that question with the phrase, 'Can you do me a favor?' followed by a pause pushed the level of compliance to 84%.

'People have a modal, rote response' to a favor request, says Prof. Flynn, which is: 'Yeah, sure, what is it?'

(It should be noted here that research also shows that people appreciate favors more from men than they do from women, because they don't expect favors as much from men.)

Another study shows how easy it can be to get collared into favors that seem too big to grant. In his famous study, Robert Cialdini, professor of psychology at Arizona State University, asked passersby if they would commit to doing one of the most nerve-racking activities he could dream up: Would you volunteer to chaperone juvenile-detention-center inmates on a day trip to the zoo? (Fun!)

Only 17% agreed.

But bartering would change that. When researchers asked another set of people for much more -- if they'd serve as an unpaid counselor for two hours per week for two years -- they all said no. But when they then went back to the original question of chaperoning the inmates to the zoo, compliance tripled to 50%.

The most common favor-gaming is the repeatedly requested favor. At some point -- obvious to everyone but the serial requester -- that will cease to be a favor and become a dependency. Mary Powell, who fills the favor-rich posts of both HR and receptionist, has noticed that the people who ask her repeatedly to help fill out their insurance forms 'get disappointed if I say I can't do it.'

But sometimes it's just easier to do the serial favor than to resist it. Scott McIntyre, a director at a hospital association, often requests favors of a colleague who understands the company's database much more than he does. She can't be bothered trying to teach him anymore.

'In a lot of cases,' Mr. McIntyre says, 'it's quicker to catch the fish and give it to a person than show him how to fish.'

当杰伊•哈格里斯(Jay Hargis)接到同事请他帮个忙的电话时，他艰难地回想起对方曾经帮过自己的忙，现在人家来要求回报了。

哈格里斯说对方给他帮的忙就是打印了一份客户名单，他说，"我很吃惊他竟然记得我四个月前请他打过一份名单。"

这位同事需要哈格里斯的一位客户提供一份热情洋溢的推荐信，好放到一个营销宣传册里。哈格里斯别无选择，只得花了半天时间打电话搞定这件事。他觉得自己这份人情远远大过同事帮的那个忙。但哈格里斯记得，他同事当时好似觉得自己是费尽九牛二虎之力才按下了"打印"键。

在职场的潜规则中，"人情"都是买到效率、赢得好感的"硬通货"。但各种人情间的"汇率"并非一成不变。有些帮忙并不期望任何回报。

还有一些则秉承着"欲取先予"的想法。研究表明，帮忙本身的价值不及围绕它的那种氛围重要，这让人情的价值更难把握，从而也更容易换得人家的回报。一个人的性别、他要求别人回报的意愿度，甚至这个人情已经过去了多长时间，这一切都能将一个无私的行动转化为某种厚脸皮的交易，反之亦然。

"帮忙"的涵义难以捉摸，这也解释了为何一些同事会将履行最简单的本职工作视为英雄主义行径。凯伦•马尔金(Karen Markin)是一位大学管理人员，她跟一些工作中可以轻易获取信息的同事打过交道。当她要求他们提供信息时，却好像并不容易。

马尔金说："他们那副样子好像上刀山一样，觉得自己是帮了你天大的忙。"

斯坦福商学院(Stanford's Graduate School of Business)的副教授、研究人情往来的弗兰克•弗林(Frank Flynn)在对客户服务代理进行研究时发现，在接受人家帮忙之后的短时间内，接受者比施与者对之看得更重。不过，随着时间的推移，二者会交换角色：接受帮忙的人不再认为那是什么了不得的事，但施与者却觉得它的意义更重大了。

一些人明白人情也有"有效期"，因而要求人家立即奉还。理查德•万达格里夫(Richard Vandagriff)偶尔会与一位承包商共事，那人就是那种会算人情帐的人。万达格里夫说，"他并没把一切记录在案，但还不如那样呢。"有一次，那人甚至还假装帮了他个忙──重新设定了根本无需重设的炉子调节装置。

然后他对万达格里夫说，"现在我需要你帮个忙。"万达格里夫后来意识到，这是他设计好的说法，为的是让万达格里夫请自己的一位朋友帮助他。

这个办法奏效了。

仅仅提到"帮忙"这个词就能吓得我们乖乖从命了，这也回答了很多人常常问自己的一个问题：我是怎么给套进去的？

弗林发现，在纽约的宾州火车站请人们填一份问卷，只有57%的人会同意。但如果加上"您能帮我个忙吗"这句话，再稍微停顿一下，同意的人就达到了84%。

弗林说，对于帮忙的请求，人们有种典型的反应模式，就是"好的，没问题，要帮什么忙？"（这里应该注意一点，研究还表明，比起女性，男性给人帮忙得到的感激程度更高，因为人们对男性会帮忙的期望值没那么高。）

另一项研究显示出人们很容易被"下套"，从而答应下不好办的事情。亚利桑那州大学(Arizona State University)心理学教授罗伯特•卡尔迪尼(Roderb Ciladini)进行了一项著名的研究，问行人能不能答应一件他能想到的最伤脑筋事：能否志愿随青少年拘留中心的犯人去动物圆参观一天？（太有意思了！）

只有17%的人同意了。

但换个方式就能改变这种情况。研究者对另一组人提出更过份的要求──是否愿意在两年时间里每周做两个小时的义务咨询员──他们说不。但接着回到陪伴犯人去动物圆的问题时，同意去的比例达到了50%，为先前的三倍。

最常见的人情博弈是一再请人家帮忙。在某种程度上──每个人都意识到了，只有不断提出要求的人浑然不觉──这样就不再是帮忙，而成了一种依赖。玛丽•鲍威尔(Mary Powell)担任的是总给人帮忙的人力资源和前台职务，她注意到那些总是请她代填保险单的人遭到拒绝后会很失望。

但有时候，不断地帮忙比抵制帮忙要来得容易一些。斯科特•麦金泰尔(Scott McIntyre)是一个卫生协会的负责人，他常常请比他更了解公司数据库的一位同事帮忙，这样那位同事就不必再费事教他了。

麦金泰尔说："在很多情况下，授人以鱼比授人以渔更快捷。"
关键字:职场英语
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