The Art of Saying (and Listening To) “I Want”
Imagine, for a minute, walking up to your boss right now and saying “I want a new laptop (or bigger workspace, or raise).”
Imagine drawing up a contract between you and your dream client, taking it to them, and saying “I want you to sign this.”
How does the thought of doing either of those things make you feel?
Did you feel a knife suddenly twisting into your gut? A wave of cold sweat coating your palms?
Or did you think, “Uh…yeah, why not?” And wonder how this question could possibly be worth writing an entire article about.
Your answer to the above questions puts you into one of two groups: people who have no problem asking for what they want, and people who are terrified at the mere hypothetical idea of it. The thing that sucks is that people in Group 1, our easy wanters, are usually totally clueless that Group 2, our anxious wanters, exist.
What the hell does this have to do with business? Why is an article about saying “I want” on a business website? Because understanding that the other group exists — the one you’re not in — can completely change the way you interact with the people in your workplace. And you might think this is an economic article in disguise, but the divide isn’t between rich and poor. I know plenty of wealthy individuals who struggle to articulate their wants, and low-income individuals with strong backbones and no problem clearly stating them.
Group 1: You’ll know what I want
This group of people have been asked what they want since birth. Their parents, teachers, and probably even random strangers ask them “What do you want?” on a regular basis. This teaches them three things: People care about what they want, it’s okay to ask for what they want, and (in many cases) it’s expected that they’ll get whatever they asked for.
Over the years, this repeated behavior pattern has taught them that the world is there to cater to them, so they get very comfortable requesting things. And they do it in the form of a statement: I want you to sign this contract. I want new monitors. I want a treadmill desk. I want a company car. I want a promotion.
Saying those words is as easy as breathing to them and they can’t comprehend what the big deal is when people can’t.
The upside is a level of confidence that many others wish they had. The downside is that this group was also taught that not getting what they ask for is bad. And if the initial answer is “no,” a tantrum and some tears can quickly change that. They did it as toddlers and many of them still do it as adults. It’s ingrained behavior — and most of them are completely unaware that others learned very different lessons growing up.
(If you can’t relate to a single word of what you just read, you’re in Group 2.)
Group 2: You’ll never know what I want
This group encompasses most of the rest of humanity: those who are taught not to want. Instead, they were taught that their responsibility is to fulfill the wants of others. And they don’t just avoid saying “I want”; some of them are downright scared of those two words in combination. In the most extreme cases, they can’t even get the phrase out in a hypothetical situation.
Group 2 people are unable to conceive of a world in which what they want matters. So if I ask the question, “What do you want right now?” to people in this group, they aren’t able to answer. If I push a little and say “What do you want from your employees?”, the response is not what they actually want, but a vague, couched aspiration for what they hope will happen.
Instead of telling me what they want, they’ll say something like: “Well, I would hope that if I share with them some of the challenges we’re facing that they will make some changes on their own.”
That’s a lot different than “I want them to show up to meetings on time.”
What I’ve discovered is that they answer this way because most of them can’t process the question. They draw a blank. They can’t wrap their brains around the idea of saying “I want my employees to stop wearing flip flops to work.” The closest they can get is “Well, I’m hoping that if we have a talk about it, and I talk about the value of looking professional when clients come into the office, and if I demonstrate that myself by not wearing flip flops, they’ll model my behavior.”
It’s like wishful thinking with an asterisk, just in case the employees don’t listen.
Why are we talking about this?
The gap between these two groups is so wide that most people in Group 1 aren’t even aware that Group 2 exists. This means that an oblivious supervisor in Group 1 has no idea just how difficult and gut wrenching and anxiety inducing it is for their employee to come to them and ask for something, even if it was just a long lunch. The supervisor’s response could be anything from condescension to bewilderment that they seem apprehensive about such a small request.
If the supervisor did understand, however, imagine how that would change the dynamic of the conversation. The response might be gentle and reassuring, and not send the employee off with a heaping dose of anxiety — even if the answer is yes. Imagine if Group 1 understood that the people in Group 2 aren’t passive by choice, but rather fighting against a lifetime of systemic conditioning that goes against what society teaches is the way we get ahead in work and life.
The psychology of wanting
When kids in Group 1 voiced a want, they got a yes, or some version of maybe — negotiations, explanations, or alternatives. “We can’t do that today, but how about next week?” “That’s a great idea, let’s see how we can make it happen.” Over time, this reinforced a key lesson: Asking for what they wanted wasn’t just allowed, it was expected. It was how things got done.
As they grew older, this habit turned into a skill. They learned that the direct approach, “I want a raise” or “I want this project” was efficient and often successful. And because they never experienced real social consequences for saying “I want,” they don’t hesitate to use it in the workplace.
Just like Group 1 has been taught to make “I want” statements from birth, Group 2 has been taught that you never utter those words. This is especially true for people who were raised in low-income households. I’ve worked on this with people who grew up in households where mom would break down in tears if you asked for a second glass of milk. That’s a powerful reinforcement to resist saying, “I want.” If you know there is nothing, if you know you won’t get anything even if there is, then it’s completely pointless to ask.
It’s also true for people who were raised in abusive households or by narcissistic parents, but for a different reason. In those situations, any form of wanting was used against the child as a weakness and something to hold over their heads. Their wants — and deigning to have them — were twisted and used as punishment!
In either case, wanting equals bad.
Heavy stuff, I know. And it’s no one’s business to dig into anyone else’s past life. But if you observe and get to know people, you can tell pretty quickly which group they fall into. And a little awareness can go such a long way toward both more empathy on one side and more assertiveness on the other.
That’s why this article matters. Because understanding this divide — why it exists and how it plays out in professional settings — can be the key to better communication, stronger leadership, and a more empathetic workplace.
You can grow into this concept, but it won’t be fun.
I’m not pretending that changing this mindset is easy, I’ve seen these types of exercises bring grown adults to tears. And yet, once the switch flips, I’ve also seen the same people transform their confidence.
This is how you do it.
Next steps for Group 1
If you had no idea that Group 2 existed until you read this article, you have some work to do. There are billions of people in that group, and a lot of them work at your company. Here’s what I recommend to my clients:
- Your homework is to observe the people around you with an awareness that they may be operating from a place of fear when they approach you about something. Try a little experiment and ask employees what they want for their desks. The way they respond can be very telling.
- Understand that the point of saying “I want” is not to actually get what you want. It’s to find out if the other person agrees with you. You express what you want and then you learn how the other person feels and thinks about what you want. Even if the answer is no, it’s valuable data that you can incorporate into your future dealing with that person.
- As a manager, this translates to learning to ask your employees and your bosses what they want and using that information to inform future decisions. If you disagree with what they want, it’s not about changing their minds or telling them why they’re wrong. It’s about learning about what they want so that you can be a better manager, employee, coworker, and all of the rest.
- As a boss, you must be receptive to people asking for what they want. That doesn’t mean you have to give them what they want — but rather understanding how difficult it might be for them to ask and not shutting them down. “Thank you for bringing that up; I don’t think we have the budget for it this quarter, but I really value you asking for it. Will you please check in about it when we set the next budget, so we can include it?”
Next steps for Group 2
If you’re in Group 2, you’re already well aware that Group 1 exists. You’re also aware that becoming paralyzed every time you want something could hamstring your career. If you’re a supervisor in this group, you’ve probably already had problems telling your employees what you want (and vice versa.)
The homework in this case is to work on not only building the confidence to say “I want,” but to prepare for the pushback that you’ll get (in certain environments, there will be a lot.) Here are some fundamentals:
- Take a look back to your childhood and think about all the ways you were taught — verbally or otherwise — that saying “I want” is wrong. It’s okay to do it only privately, only in your own head, only on a piece of flash paper that you then burn. It needs to start somewhere, the act of articulating wants, without defensiveness or explanation. Once you see that ingrained behavior for what it is, it’s easier to start separating yourself from those notions.
- It’s best to start small and let little victories build you up. Ask for something directly and then expect that you’re going to get a positive response. If you get a negative response — not as in “no,” but as in “why are you asking” — understand that that person is in the wrong. Asking for what you want is a core skill of being a living, breathing human who’s trying to live life and accomplish things.
- You are not doing anything wrong by saying “I want.” The people who push back on you — saying that you’re too direct, you’re asking for too much, etc. — they’re wrong. Saying “I want” is a perfectly normal thing. (I’d even go so far as to say that if you constantly receive this type of feedback from your supervisors, you should find new ones.)
As a coach, I want you to take a lot of perspective away from this article. And I want you to read this article on a related topic — the fine art of listening.
You are not doing anything wrong by saying “I want.” The people who push back on you — say that you’re too direct, you’re asking for too much, etc. — they’re wrong.