LEADERSHIP
How To Know What Kind of Advice To Give
Knowing How to be an Adviser Is Important in Giving Effective Advice
“Hey, I just wanted to get your opinion about…”
Conventional wisdom tells us to seek advice from people when we have problems. For leaders, giving advice is part and parcel of the management process. Yet, many leaders view it as an innate skill: you either have it or you don’t.
Giving advice is a competency that can be honed with practice and thought. It is through empathy and understanding that leaders can deliver their advice effectively.
The effectiveness of the advice is predicated on myriad factors. For instance, the personality of the recipient and the delivery method all come into play.
One huge factor is in determining what sort of advice to give. While we may have a lot of different opinions about an issue, people are often looking for a certain type of expert. To deliver effectively, leaders need to understand what type of expert he is supposed to be at that moment.
Every request for advice is unique. It reflects a combination of circumstances, personalities, and events. Yet, time is often of the essence: people will often not search for more potential advisers in every situation.
The reality is that people don’t only take one piece of advice. Rather, they combine many pieces and modify them. They internalize them differently. Sometimes, they may reject certain pieces altogether.
When the recipient has fewer advisers, it also means that they fewer perspectives. While not getting a multifaceted view of the problem will hinder the problem-solving process, not getting the right adviser is an even bigger problem.
As Harvard Business School professor C. Roland Christensen once said, “When you pick your advisors, you pick your advice.”
“When you pick your advisors, you pick your advice.” — C. Roland Christensen
Leaders need to understand what an advice-seeker is looking for before diving in.
For leaders to be effective, there are five main roles that a leader can play when being the adviser.
Being a Sounding Board
Suppose a sales executive at a medical device company is thinking of a sales plan for the next quarter. After much research and collaboration with other executives, he compiled a list of high-priority and low-priority tasks that he needs to do. Yet, with so much information in his head, the plan only appears to be concrete. When asked to explain his plan, he fails to get to the heart of it, which leads to a lot of tergiversation.
Rather than go ahead with his plan, he decided to sit down with a senior leader. He drew charts and timelines on the whiteboard, explaining each step and the action he will take at that moment. The senior leader starts to question every single step. With every question, the executive begins to sharpen his thoughts. By the end of the meeting, he was able to explain his plan succinctly. He walked away with a clearer mental picture as well.
A sounding board is meant to help the recipient clarify and sharpen their thoughts. A leader’s opinions are not injected here — rather, the leader is focused on turning the recipient’s opinions into high-quality action plans.
This calls for careful listening and empathy: why is the recipient choosing to take this action?
Leaders need to dig deep into the facets that the recipient had considered before without being intrusive. Yet, it is also difficult to be good sounding boards. Often, our biases can interject. If we have a negative bias, we are more likely to dismiss a person’s thoughts. We may also give unnecessary affirmation to the recipient.
Instead of being a listener, leaders need to ask well-chosen questions to probe the seeker’s underlying rationale. What are the reasons behind those thoughts? What is the knowledge that the recipient based those thoughts on? Are they backed by logic or is it made with assumptions?
It is imperative that leaders also offer differing points of view to the recipient. Many might confuse that with being opinionated, choosing to take on a “convince me” stance. Instead, it is about being rational and having constructive debates. Leaders need to help them create a clearer picture of their conclusions.
Scrutinizing Their Thoughts
Suppose the following scenario: a managing partner in a venture capital firm has decided to invest a copious sum of money into a tech startup. Yet, she is unsure of the actual sum as there are more investment opportunities out there. Though she wanted to give the fund more room to invest in the future, she believed that the investment opportunity is too great.
She submits the investment plan to the general partners, seeking their opinion on it.
In the meeting, the partners questioned her — not because they doubt her foresight, but about the course of action. They asked about the potential of the startup. They asked about external factors such as other potential startups. They asked about the sum of money, debating whether there are alternative financing methods.
At the end of the meeting, the managing partner is clear about her action plan: she will balance the portfolio and invest slightly less than before. The rationale: the firm rather earn less on a single investment opportunity than to lose other likely investment opportunities in the future.
Often, an advice seeker already has a concrete opinion on what they want to do. It is during this moment that a leader can offer scrutiny: is their course of action the best choice?
This differs from being a sounding board: less affirmation, more criticism.
Scrutinizing their thoughts requires the leader to deploy critical questions. It is meant to assess their choice of action: why did they select this, and what can they do to adjust it? Most of the time, when our thoughts are sharpened and we are clear of what to do, we also lack quality in the action plan.
Through a leader’s scrutiny, flaws in the action plan can be identified and zoomed into. While all action plans have inherent flaws and thus, are imperfect, scrutinizing is one of the ways leaders can shine a spotlight and acknowledge the weaknesses. Knowing where a problem can arise and acknowledging it helps to create a multifaceted view of any issue.
Expanding Frames of Reference
Suppose a business development manager realized that he could innovate on the current business processes using an app. With that in mind, he started drafting user interfaces. He begins to research how much it will cost to develop the app. He starts to speak to stakeholders about it, asking them if they would use the app.
With all the information at hand, he decided to consult some of the senior leaders, which include the VP of Technology, the VP of Sales and the CFO.
Questions started pouring in.
Due to a data protection act, he is only allowed to collect data through law-compliant methods. That hinders the user experience.
The VP of sales doubted the app will do any good: the company always revert to their old ways. The CFO pointed out that there are cheaper developers and that the app can take less time to build.
With all that in mind, the initial app design fell through. The manager decided to create a different product. Once he got enough approval from the users, the senior leaders approved it in the end. As a result, the manager earned credibility.
Like any issue, understanding multiple facets is critical. In this case, having different advisers allowed the manager to gather information and perspectives on various aspects of his problem — that included being compliant with data collection laws, previous experiences with apps and financial concerns.
Leaders can provide greater breadth and depth of understanding by sharing their experiences with similar problems and challenges. It is to flesh out a larger context — which also means bringing out the potential implications that the advice-seeker may not have previously considered.
Guiding the Process
Supposed a regional head for a logistics company is tasked with chasing the government for their payments. For months, the government has delayed their payments, which resulted in the company losing out on a huge chunk of their revenue. The payments were huge, and the company is in dire need of them. The regional head decides to take a hard stance and he approaches his senior leaders for advice.
Though the hard stance seems to work on paper (i.e. choosing not to do any of the government work and forcing them to finally pay), his senior leaders posed alternatives. Playing hardball in such a high-stakes situation will be counterintuitive. By contesting the regional head’s stance and providing different solutions, he ultimately decided against his initial decision. Instead, he chose to negotiate with a firmer stance. The government eventually conceded and settled their debt with the company months later.
Many times, we come across high-stakes situations. It is complicated and delicate, which demands more scrutiny. This differs from a leader scrutinizing an advice-seekers course of action — rather, it is about guiding.
Typically, guiding the process involves more than just asking critical questions. Leaders are expected to posit other solutions and discuss alternatives rather than only understanding the rationale behind their choices. While it also involves understanding, there is a greater focus on other possibilities than the current one at hand.
This through examining the situation and the interests of all the stakeholders. What are the implications if we were to go with the current solution? If we chose an alternative, what are the possible consequences? With all the solutions considered, what’s the best choice out of all of them?
Generating Ideas and Brainstorming
The designer is stuck in a rut. Tasked with suggesting different logos and typefaces for a new company, she found herself conflicted with her designs. With all the self-doubt in her head, she approached her team lead to ask for advice.
In that meeting, the team lead brainstormed based on the current information at hand: the new company decided on a ‘friendly’ branding. They decided to go with pastel colors. They wanted to appeal to millennials.
With that, more sketches emerged. The designer, happy with the different ideas, focused on drafting out a few different logos. After presenting to the company, the founder chose one of them.
Being stuck in a rut is commonplace in many facets of our life, be it at work or home. When we are stuck, we lose momentum. Losing momentum negatively affects our creativity. Leaders need to restart that momentum by injecting fresh ideas by working together with the advice-seeker.
Brainstorming is constructive, which differs from the other four roles mentioned. There is no restriction here: the leader has to think of every idea as a good idea, whittling them down later on.
Knowing what kind of advice to give is a skill. Yet, oftentimes, there is not enough time and capacity to figure that out in time. Instead, leaders often give one-sided advice and that does not contribute to the picture of the problem.
Leaders must suspend judgment and avoid giving opinions immediately. Jumping to conclusions closes a lot of doors: it runs the risk of misdiagnosis. When a problem is incorrectly diagnosed, the subsequent advice will also be inaccurate.
Establish a “safe space” and provide psychological security — the advice-seeker must be able to speak his or her mind without feeling afraid. Leaders must be aware that many might not paint a complete picture of the problem. Knowing that there can be biases involved, the eventual judgment can then be precise.
Social research has shown that, while advisers and seekers work together, they have different vantage points:
- Advisers are interested in the overarching purpose. Why is this action chosen? Are there other possibilities?
- Seekers are interested in tactics. How can I get things done? What are the resources I need?
Hence, leaders must create a situation where the seeker thinks both idealistically and pragmatically.
It is only through understanding can there be results: with so little time and so much to be done, cutting straight to what matters is an indicator of whether a leader is effective or not.
