Explicit ask vs. implicit/inference culture

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If you want something from your team or family, do you ask for it explicitly, or do you “make it clear that’s what you want”? (And is it actually clear, or is it a shared dance?)

Ditto in the other direction. How do you feel when someone makes a direct ask, either of you or in front of you? What about when someone makes strongly implicit they want something of you, but won’t make the ask? What feels comfortable, polite, or downright rude?

This isn’t just a rhetorical question—different people from different backgrounds, even within the same culture, will have dramatically differing answers, and the style opposite our own feels unnatural.

Note that both of these are learnable, but only one scales.

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