#151: How to give and get better advice

This week a good friend of mine texted me late at night asking if I could talk with her. She had experienced an unfortunate event recently, and I knew right away it had to do with that. I was in the midst of multi-tasking and was working on getting an assignment done before the 11:59pm deadline, and so with so much on my mind, I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to give her the best advice and share my thoughts/ideas as I would have liked. But I picked up the phone anyway and I just listened to her. She vented for a bit, and I acknowledged her feelings without directing her to think or feel a different way.

I was actually taken by surprise by how impactful the conversation was. By asking questions and not pushing her in any sort of direction or telling her how I thought she should handle it, she was able to navigate through her own emotions and feel better about the situation afterwards. This whole incident reminded me of Sasha's blog on advice that he wrote about a year ago. Sometimes just being there and being active listeners is all someone needs to get unstuck and keep the decision-making in their own hearts and minds. Thanks Sasha!

- Amanda

How to give and get better advice

The problem with most advice is that it’s delivered as “here’s what I think you should do.”

Yet it typically reflects, “here’s what I did in a similar situation.”

That old situation and this new one are never the same: different time, different place, different people.

Plus, upon receiving that kind of advice, we end up stuck again: we’ve turned to someone we trust who has more experience with this type of thing than we have. Hearing their advice, we face a new dilemma: is their wisdom, experience and fresh perspective more valid than what we (closer to the texture and nuance of the situation) see and know?

There’s a better way to approach this conversation, both as advice-seeker and the advice-giver.

If we are asked to give advice, we start by advising less.

Instead, we take a position of inquiry. Our job is to tease out what is going on beneath the surface, the questions that are being balanced, the decision that’s lurking but afraid to show its face. As this picture starts to emerge, we can, gently, begin to engage with what’s been offered up. We can re-frame the options that have been presented and share some new ones. We can question the weight being given to this or that risk (or opportunity). We can inquire about some strongly-held assumptions to see if the could be held more loosely, revealing both their truths and their limitations.

Ultimately, through this engagement, the person who felt stuck doesn’t get a take-it-or-leave-it answer, instead she ends up armed with new criteria, a few better assumptions, and a bit more confidence in her own choice-making ability. So equipped, she’s ready to get herself unstuck and find the path she will choose to walk.

Similarly, as the person seeking advice, we can remind ourselves that a much better opening question than “what do you think I should do?” is “can I talk this through with you?  I’d love your input on whether I’m thinking about this in the right way."