#100: How to give and get better advice
I love Sacha’s piece on… advice.
Long ago I got behind the idea of never giving advice under the condition that I have enough trouble figuring out my own life let alone trying to figure out what other people should do!
I do share my experiences as much as they might be interested and I aim to listen very very closely but I don’t advise.
One of the most meaningful meetings of my life was breakfast with my older brother Ted when I was 25 years old and considering going to business school. It was a hard decision. I loved my work trading and it was going pretty well but I was also drawn to something about business school too. Especially Stanford but they wouldn’t let me in. Anyway, we had breakfast. And good gosh did he listen and demonstrated absolutely zero judgment about this decision I would make. The truth is I wanted perspective but not bias. I wanted a companion not an advisor.
Thank you, Ted, all these awesome years later… it was perfect.
pip
Sasha Dichter sdichter@acumen.org
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."
Sasha's first-person bio:
As Acumen’s Chief Innovation Officer, I oversee Acumen’s three fastest-growing verticals: Lean Data, which brings customer voice into impact measurement; the Acumen Fellows Programs, with more than 400 Fellows globally; and +Acumen, the World’s School for Social change. I’ve also been blogging since 2008 and have written more than 1,000 blog posts on generosity, philanthropy and social change. I was the instigator behind Generosity Day and, frustrated with how nonprofits approach fundraising, I wrote the Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs, a free resource that has been shared with thousands of nonprofit CEOs and Boards who care about making a difference. I find I get the most joy from my work when I see someone around me change and grow.