MANAGING PEOPLE & TEAMS
How to Give Greater Advice
5 Things To Do Before Giving Advice
“What I think you can do is…”
Conventional wisdom tells us to seek advice when we are in the rut. Yet, advice people can be too vague to work on. It can also be difficult to understand. Other times, it can be biased.
Giving advice is good but it can also create negative consequences if we aren’t skilled in it.
Giving advice is an art. Many factors come into play: from the personality of the recipient to the delivery method.
Though the skill of giving advice is a core tenet in leadership, many leaders do not view it as a practical skill that can be worked on.
Rather, most view it as something that you either have or don’t, not as a competency that you can work on.
Giving advice depends on both sides of the table. Without crossing significant hurdles, the efficacy of the advice plummets. For instance, many people are inclined to their own opinions. We also own many unconscious biases that affect our views.
Even listening actively and carefully is considered hard work for most people.
Hence, giving advice is requires a lot more than technical expertise. It is a culmination of emotional intelligence, self-awareness, diplomacy, patience and careful observation.
If an advice-giving session derails, it has many potentially damaging consequences. You can create misunderstandings. Decisions can come into a gridlock. Relationships can also fray.
Regardless of the consequence, leaders cannot afford to have advice-giving sessions go awry.
Giving advice combines emotional intelligence and technical expertise. That automatically qualifies as a criterion for effective leadership.
For leaders to be effective in their management, there are five things that they can do to ensure that they are competent in giving advice.
Don’t Overstep Boundaries
Nobody likes unsolicited advice: it is intrusive and usually uncalled for. Yet, it is also difficult to judge whether our advice is unsolicited or not.
For the most part, it is due to our misunderstanding of a person’s boundaries and their emotional states.
When we offer baseless advice, we run the risk of losing credibility in the long term. This comes especially hard when we make an instance of giving bad advice.
Rather than throwing advice out liberally, ask if its a good time to talk and solve the problem. Choosing to be empathetic and understanding creates a deeper connection between you and the recipient. It also helps to enhance your credibility.
We don’t listen effectively when we are emotional. Hence, ensuring that the recipient is in the right headspace is important.
Don’t dive straight into giving advice. Rather, choose to take a step back. That way, you can understand where the person is coming from, and thus deliver your advice more effectively.
Understand the Problem First
A huge part of winning a battle lies in the preparation. When you gather insufficient intelligence around the problem, you will most likely misdiagnose.
That means you’re going to give incorrect advice. If the recipient follows, it can mean detrimental consequences.
Often, we define problems prematurely when we see that it is like something that we faced in the past. While most problems may overlap, treat every problem as unique.
Other times, we also trust the information presented to us by the advice-seekers wholeheartedly. Sometimes, for self-interest reasons, these seekers might not be presenting the whole issue. For instance, they might not want to seem incompetent and thus present a partial problem. Other times, they might not want to reveal that the root cause is themselves and choose to attribute it to other people.
Gather as much intelligence as you can. Ask for more opinions and go deep into basic questions. When you’re trying to find out a problem, being objective will help you to understand the problem a lot quicker. Hence, you need to work with facts.
Stop Being Self-Centered
“If I were in your shoes, I would’ve…” It is a self-centered way to give advice and it often fails. It is off-putting and ineffective.
When you give your perspective in that manner, you’re not considering the feelings of the recipient.
Understanding why a person did a certain action first is critical to delivering effective advice. If you’re hell-bent on simply telling them what you would’ve done in their position, you’re not considering that they are also unique individuals with thoughts and opinions of their own.
You are an entirely different individual compared to the recipient and thus, you need to tailor your advice. What works for you may not work for others and some of the reasons that are simply beyond their control.
Communicate Properly and Succinctly
It can be crippling to offer a whole laundry list of options. Without proper guidance, the recipients will remain in the same place. Having too many alternatives, action plans and perspectives can throw people off.
Vague recommendations also fall under this category. For instance, you may say: “The problem is that you’re not aligning with our goals”. Is it the organization’s goals? Is it the department’s? Or is it something that you and the recipient decided a long time ago?
Review your advice before delivering it. Keep in mind: you don’t want to give advice that you don’t want to receive. Always remain concise and succinct: spare the jargon and go straight to the action.
Offer fewer options and more room to ponder about a single perspective. That way, you’re making it easier for the recipient to carve out concrete action plans. When you only have a few options, you are left with no choice but to make those options work.
It’s Okay If Your Advice is Not Taken
Not everyone will follow through with your advice, even if they are listening to you intently.
That is okay.
The reality is that it might be an ego issue: I am an expert in this problem, why are you not following my advice?
In truth, people usually take the advice of many people before deciding on what actions to take next. Most people often combine different advice, modify them and sometimes reject certain ones altogether.
Rather than focusing on your advice, focus on what actions the recipient took. After all, you don’t know everything in the world, even if you are a subject matter expert. Choosing to have a flexible mindset and treating your expertise as fluid is a great opportunity for you to keep learning and improving.
In sum, we need to shift the conversation to empathy. By choosing to dig deep into a person’s feelings, we can decide the next best course of action.
We must also accept that we are not perfect; not every advice given is as valuable as the next. We may offer great advice from time to time, but it might be due to serendipity. While it is difficult to always take time to understand everyone, through practice, we can make it second nature.
After all, giving advice is more than nature: we can nurture our competencies, and that goes the same for our leadership qualities.