Project management: does asking for advice undermine credibility?
Project managers often have to make decisions on matters they do not fully understand. The useful question is specific: does seeking advice from a knowledgeable person damage a manager’s credibility, or does this fear prevent a useful consultation?
What the literature establishes
Alison Wood Brooks, Francesca Gino and Maurice E. Schweitzer (2015, Management Science) show experimentally that asking for advice can increase, rather than reduce, the advice seeker’s perceived competence. This effect emerges particularly when the task is difficult and the person being asked considers themselves knowledgeable about the subject. It is therefore not an automatic benefit of asking any question, but an effect linked to the relevance of the consultation and to who evaluates it.
Reluctance is not just about image
Francis J. Flynn and Vanessa K. B. Lake (2008, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) show that people underestimate the likelihood that others will agree to a direct request for help. Their research highlights, in particular, insufficient attention to the social cost of refusing a request for the person receiving it. This mechanism differs from the fear of appearing incompetent: a manager may also refrain from seeking advice because they mistakenly anticipate rejection.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that project managers should ask for advice more frequently. Yet these studies establish neither that the advice received is necessarily sound nor that accumulating advice improves project decisions. A consultation may strengthen credibility in the eyes of the person approached while imposing a burden they feel unable to refuse. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot guarantee
These studies do not constitute an evaluation of projects conducted in banks, fashion businesses or family-owned SMEs in Ticino. Nor can they predict the effect of repeated requests within a lasting hierarchical relationship. Everyday practice easily confuses three different outcomes: receiving a response, being considered competent and making a better decision.
A practical check in Lugano
Within SHR’s project management programme, one possible exercise in Lugano is to select a real decision: interpreting a requirement in a bank, approving a fashion collection, choosing a logistics option in a trading business or making an investment in an Italian-speaking family-owned SME. Before making a targeted request for advice, in Italian if that is the working language, the manager records the estimated probability of receiving a response; they then make clear to the recipient that declining or suggesting another time is acceptable. Over a period defined in advance, compare the average estimated probability with the actual response rate, and record separately whether each response changed the decision. This record checks for a possible underestimation of availability without claiming to demonstrate improved credibility or decision quality. To go further: explore the Project Management training in Lugano in the canton of Ticino, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Project Management in Lugano
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