Advice is overrated
Turn off your finely-tuned advice-giving machine. Here’s the deal. As a manager wanting to do more coaching, you’ve got a big challenge.
For years, you’ve been trained, encouraged, nurtured and rewarded to give advice. You’re a font of knowledge, a walking resource, the person to turn to when there’s a question to be answered.
Which is not a bad thing. Because there’s a place for giving on-the-job advice as a manager. Sadly, it’s a much smaller place than the advice-giving mansion in which you currently hang out.
Here’s one way to think about things, which I first heard from David Rock, a leader in embedding internal coaching capacity within organizations:
Think of all the times you get advice on a daily, weekly and yearly basis. Notice how much of that advice isn’t much good, or not quite right – polite words for “kind of sucks”. And then notice that, of the advice you do take, how much of it is not as useful as you’d hoped it turns out to be.
Well – that’s how employees feel about your advice as their manager as well.
Your coaching action
Spend the next week paying attention to how much advice you give (and you get). Notice the rush you’re in to come up with a soution.
See if you can hold back the advice just a bit. Ask three good questions before you give your next piece of advice. See what difference those questions make.
Additional reading
- Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work
by David Rock. Rock’s first book on coaching and with interesting things to say about neuroscience and coaching.
- The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters
by Peter Block. Block is a hero to me, really brilliant at helping people assume responsibility for their own lives at work.
Photo by alancleaver_2000, licensed under CC.
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Wally Bock
Informative article…instead of focusing on giving advice, leaders should focus on leading by (ethical) example and motivating employees and other stakeholders.
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Maxwell Pinto, Business Consultant & Author
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34hB50lv-8
Hi Michael,
Great point. I was just re-reading the book, Masterful Coaching, by Hargrove and in it he makes the point that if someone isn't responsive to your advice, it is very likely that you are telling too much instead of drawing them out and asking questions to tap into their wisdom. It is a great little test for ourselves, I guess.