Wouldn’t it be nice if every time you asked somebody for a favor, they did it without hesitation? Wouldn’t it also be nice if you didn’t hesitate to ask?

Many people, no matter what their rank in an organization, hesitate to ask for help, even from long-time colleagues and friends. They don’t want to be bothersome or give the impression that they can’t take care of things on their own. Who wants that?

If I’m describing you, you’re probably doing yourself and your colleagues a disservice.

Led by social psychology professor Yu Niiya, associate editor of the Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, researchers at Tokyo’s Hosei University have found that co-workers like to be asked to help. It increases their sense of self-worth and creates a bond between the person who offers the help and the individual asking for it. There are risks involved, of course—asking a favor obviously places a burden on someone else and if you’re turned down it can create resentment as well. But the benefits, “providing opportunities … to build and promote relationships,” appear to outweigh the risks, the study found. So, lesson number one:

• If you need a second-opinion or a helping hand, ask someone.

Perhaps more important than whether or not you should ask for a favor (You should!) is the best way to ask. How best to ask a favor is something we’ve studied closely. The Japanese researchers answered the question broadly: when asked by a colleague for help, study participants indicated that receiving a “direct request” for assistance not only led them to respond, but increased their affinity for the colleague who asked. The lesson:

• If you want to be liked at work, consider asking colleagues for favors on occasion. Don’t beat around the bush; ask directly. [Hint: But don’t make a habit of it. Then you become a burden, a pest. Also, be realistic.]

With the exception of the company curmudgeon, most of us would rather be liked by our work colleagues than unliked. But that’s not why we typically ask colleagues to help us out. We ask for help because we need it. We need them to say “Sure, glad to …”