10 Words of Advice for Advice Givers
The number one complaint of advice givers is people don’t listen.
If you enjoy giving advice, chill out.
You might be qualified to give advice if you’re reluctant to give it.
I’ve never met a great advice giver.
10 words of advice for advice givers:
- Connect with their goals. Never share a single word of advice until you’re completely clear on their goals.
- Who do they aspire to be? Aspiration – theirs, not yours – shapes advice.
- What are they trying to accomplish?
- Say things they need to hear, not what you need to say.
- The goal of advice is helping people become their best, not your best.
- Monitor your emotion.
- Frustration suggests a desire to control. People don’t enjoy feeling controlled.
- Relax and breathe.
- Slow the rate of your speech.
- Lower the volume of your voice.
- Focus on what frustrates them, not you. Poor advice givers are motivated by their own agenda.
- Watch for defensiveness. When people become defensive they’re explaining why things should stay the same. Conversations become adversarial. Defensiveness is resistance.
- Share what works more than what’s wrong.
- Honor their choice. People enjoy making choices and resist being told what to do.
- Make it plural. Suggest option(s) that they might choose. (See #6.)
- Wait to be asked. Unrequested advice feels like criticism. A distant second to waiting to be asked is asking permission. “Do you mind if I offer a suggestion?”
- Affirm effective behaviors. “When you …, it moves you toward your goal. If you tried …, it might take you even further.”
- Don’t attach to specific outcomes.
Warning: “Let me give you some advice,” is often another way of complaining.
The advice we love is the advice we request, even that is iffy.
What advice do you have for giving advice?
What are great advice givers like?
Dan, this is a great companion to your post yesterday. So much of what you share we anchor in Cognitive Coaching training. Your simplicity and brevity is brilliant!
Thanks Diane. I’m a simple guy. 🙂
I have a tendency to blurt out advice but I’m working on it. Everytime I want to start talking I ask questions instead.
A majority of the time people don’t really want/need advice they just need to vent or work their problem out loud.
-Zach
Thanks Zack. I’m with you. It’s easy for me to see the answer. Or, at least I think I see the answer. Questions are a great alternative. Good advice.
Dan, your phrase “wait to be asked” is vital. Like a stewardess who asks “is there a doctor on this flight?”, it is likely that the person asking you for advice recognizes a need and believes you may have a solution. That means they may actually listen to you and even take your advice.
Advice giving puts the advisor in a position of expert power over the recipient. Bad advice, lying, giving advice to dominate and control, or arrogance on the part of the advisor can cause hurt. Advising for profit is fine (that is the business of consulting), so long as it produces real value commensurate with cost.
What should we do if we see a need that we can and should address for the other’s good, but they are either oblivious to it or don’t want to face reality? We can 1) tell a story to illustrate a point (think of Nathan and David or the parable of the good Samaritan) 2) speak of personal lessons learned the hard way, showing humility and empathy with the other 3) demonstrate competence and compassion.
Thanks Marc. Your advice on what to do when someone needs advice but doesn’t ask is profound. KaPow!
Thanks, Dan.
One more thing…Plain-speaking advice can appear judgmental or confrontational, may cause hurt. We need to be humbly assertive and truthful, nevertheless, because if advice is needed enough to be given, it must be forthright. There is no reason to judge people personally when giving advice, because we all have faults. However, it is just as wrong to avoid speaking truth in kindness when advising. Paul encouraged a shy Timothy to “reprove, censure, exhort, with kindness”. Proverbs speaks in a number of places of how to give counsel.
I guess I should consider myself fortunate in that I have known several great advice-givers. The fact remains that rarely do folks bother to learn enough about their “advisee” and his or her goals, etc. to give even good advice. A lot of it is just, as Dr. Covey said, “Prescribing from your own autobiography.” Great post, as usual!
Thanks Jim. The great advisers I’ve know, waited for me to ask for advice.
Very helpful. Number 2 I follow a lot. I am an office manager & father, and giving advice plays a big role in my daily life. I also don’t give advice unless i know what i’m saying can actually help the person in that certain aspect. I also to make sure to speak the truth.
Very nice post.
Thanks Temporal. Glad you brought family to the conversation. I’ve learned to monitor my emotion when I’m talking with my wife. When I start to heat up, I must confess that I’m trying to control.
Your welcome Dan. I can absolutely relate to that. To monitor, be aware, and control emotions is very hard to do and takes a lot of practice.
I too deal with control when I feel myself getting heated. I’ve learned deep breaths and patience are a virtue. Thank you for your feedback!
Great to read this, thank you. I like how you frame “their best,” not “your best;” “their goals” not “your goals.” Was reminded of the old saw “Take my advice, I’m not using it right now.”
Thanks Garrett. I wrote those ideas because it’s so easy to impose our hopes and dreams on others. It doesn’t feel good when someone does that to me. Why should I do it for others.
Good mornin my friend;
‘My’ No.# 1 guidline line in regard to ‘Giving Advice’ is “be reluctant to GIVE your advice if no one has ASKED for your advice.” Of cource there will be times when a Leader must give advice, or, direction. (Example), New employees who are not familiar with protocal and process, Intervening before circumstances cause set-backs, injuries, or, unesassary exspence. This is the time when it’s important to remember No.#3 of your list of, “10 Words of Advice for Advice Givers”, – Focus on what frustrates THEM, ‘Not’ you.
Especially when giving advice that was not asked for, or, is unwanted Leaders must ingage in dialogue that clearly conveys your message (in a positive way). It’s important thus worth repeating, “be sure to emphasize the advantage (TO THE EMPLOYEE) your un-sequestered advice will impact.”
Lastly, empower your people with decision making authority ‘especially’ when it’s THIER personal skills and talents that are required to perform the task, or take charge of a project. ” A N D , dish out the ‘Atta-Boys’ like theres no tomorrow.”
People simply want to know YOU care about what THEY DO…
Cheers Dan & ‘Happy-Friday to ya’
SGT Steve
Thanks SGT. Love the idea that giving advice isn’t about making decisions for someone! KaPow!!
Great to listen in and learn from great dialogue between encouraging friends!!
Thank you both for making my Friday even better!!
Frame your advice in the form of a question (similar to make it plural) … what would it feel like to …. [advice] ….
Great stuff Dan … so easy to sip into an advice giving role as we so often feel we have been there done that and get excited to share …. but so often it also is irrelevant to the needs of the client, employee, family member (at least our kids will tell us 🙂
Thanks Perspectcoach. Man I love that approach.
I tend to offer my perspective more than my advice. I am well aware that everyone views a situation from a different perspective and, wholeheartedly, only want to share my point of view. In order to gain ground it is important to hear different perspectives. I feel I am only one portion of that puzzle for someone else.
Thanks Dianna. That feels humble and open. Something advice givers might struggle with. 🙂
Change happens when the rewards out weighs the pain. I see this with my kids, colleagues, and myself looking back on my past. No matter how many times the advice is given, how it is packaged or when it is given, I find it comes down to this one principle.
Thanks Mike. I start to get the feeling of how much benefit do people receive. If I’m going to give advice, it better make life better. 🙂
The Key is to be a great listener. About 10 years ago a friend that was going thru a bad part in their life. Said to me Just Listen Rick. I still today work very hard on perfecting this.
Thanks Rick. Great advice springs from great listening. It seems that talking is easy, but listening takes work.
Great parenting guide. I saw my need to control written all over your post today. Especially, “Say things they need to hear, not what you need to say.”
Great words to live by. I am sometimes bad at overly giving advice. I work at not doing it until they ask or I ask if they want a suggestion. This is a great reminder that most people do not want advice when they are venting their frustrations, no matter how I may see it the other person’s perspective is not the same as mine. Good writing Dan, enjoyed it.
-John
As often happens, a suggestion from the late Stephen Covey comes to mind: “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” As I recall, he was talking about their understanding you – and that can include your coaching suggestions. Love the idea of multiple suggestions!!!
Often I find that advice is offered even though I’m not seeking it. This drives me crazy and makes me feel like my thinking is lacking. Then when I don’t follow the unsolicited advice those same people get frustrated. Thanks for the clarification on advice versus control, because now it all makes sense.
Myself, I when a problem is posed to me by an associate or a friend, I let them vent and then ask, “Can I offer a suggestion?” and try to remain unattached to their outcome. It’s their situation after all, not mine.
Hi everyone, my name is Marc and I am an advice giver…
I’ve been aware of my condition for a little more than a year now. It happened when someone I trusted told me I was defensive of my ideas. I just thought they were good, sometimes better that those of others! I must have thought I deserved to be heard until I’d convinced everyone…
It’s difficult to always have things under control. I still have relapses now and then, I just had one with a colleague this week. I wanted to help him out… only I did not care about what he wanted to hear as much as what I wanted to say.
Thanks for reading 🙂
What do we live for if not to make life a bit less difficult for others? Why should others burn their hands if WE can simply tell them the water is hot? This is why most of us offer advice to others. At the same time with regard to advice, if we are truly humble and sincere—we will always be ready to help and accept help from others, as well as accept the fact that others do not want our advice.
The meaning of advice ranges from guidance, instruction and counsel–to news, opinion and warning. There’s advice personally to family, friends, and acquaintances; there’s advice professionally to staff members and colleagues; and then there’s the “advice” we receive therapeutically from a psychiatrist, psychologist or therapist.
Ultimately, there’s the best advice…which is “never to give advice.” Instead listen long and hard, give “silent charity” (like in the biblical story of Job), and be a mirror so others can see and hear themselves and answer their own problems, find their own solutions, and reason their own way to enlightenment and fulfillment.
Has anyone ever noticed we can tell our staff members over and over, again and again, year after year about creative ways to enhance fulfillment, in context, on purpose, and in ways that encourage high standards. Our “advice” often seems to fall on deaf ears. Yet, along comes someone from a hundred miles away—a coach consultant—who seems to say the-same-thing-only-different—and all of the sudden (Voila!) our staff members “get it.”
Advice—like discontent and disruption–can be the source of trouble, but also of good.
Dear Dan,
Succinct list of suggestions. I appreciate your point that we should focus on what works rather than what is wrong. It makes great sense as it provides momentum. When we find mistakes, it stops the momentum. And people can become cautious. Though it has its own relevance but the better way is to ensure momentum. Many times, we do not focus on wrong direction, it gets directed automatically with the flow. Leaders need to provide direction and encourage people to flow in the direction. Rest will find its own shape.
Great advice givers could be those who have created impact by their own. While giving advices, politeness, smile and humility add fuel to ensure influence.