Disrupting ‘Advice Giving’ - Blog by Bop Murdoch

Bop, Practice Lead at Bloom, designed the Bloomer Community of Practice sessions based on the desire to disrupt the automatic tendencies of ‘advice giving’ that are so habitual in our personal and professional relationships.  So we asked Bop.. 

What’s your beef with Advice Giving? 

Here’s her take: 

“I’ve come to accept that when I’ve got a complex challenge in front of me, my confidence is probably more involved in it than I would first think. 

So when I go to someone I trust and ask for their advice, am I actually giving my power away? 

For me, advice usually feels safe at the time, but when I reflect later, I can see that seeking advice can mean inviting someone else’s thinking into the picture without risking having to share any of my own vulnerability. It’s the wobbly-confidence part of me covering over my own emerging instincts for what to do next, leaning on the sure signposts of someone else’s experience. 

Sometimes, asking for advice is wonderful - knowing what someone else would do in my shoes can bring perspective and feel connective, helping me clarify my thinking or locate my approach within a range of options. 

But the problem is that advice is inseparable from everyone’s own paradigm, personal values, lens, priorities, methodologies.  How likely is all of that to match up exactly to my own? How committed is the advice giver to seeking to understand the aspects of the situation that may not be immediately visible to them? How much of a picture of my situation do they need before their own experiences take over their view and they’re operating from the ego of thinking they can see ‘exactly how this ends’? 

I like seeking advice from people who I know will have conflicting perspectives- because the more explicit the contrast, the more likely I am to remember that it’s up to me to decide what to take on board. The conflict centres me. The invisible ink of my own idea for a way forward emerges in the little gaps where I’ve lined one person’s map up next to another’s. 

At worst, if I’m giving advice, I can become unknowingly attached to the way I think that person should proceed. So how does my rapport with that person suffer when they decide not to follow the advice I’ve given them? And how do we repair the relationship when our egos are offended? 

I know there are downsides to the advice-seeking habit. And yet, somehow, I also fall into advice giving territory automatically if I’m not paying attention! 

My take is that we habitually ask for advice because collectively we’re not experienced enough at asking for what we really want, which is support to navigate our own thinking and come to our own conclusions.

 What if instead of ‘Can I get your thoughts on this’, we could ask  ‘I’ve got a tricky situation at work, I know you’re good with interpersonal dynamics - could you host me in some thinking about this?’  or ‘I’m not feeling good about a challenge I’m facing, if I tell you about it, could you reflect back what you’re hearing?’ or even, ‘Can you coach me through my thinking so far on this? It’s not clear to me how I want to respond’. 

Talking something through certainly helps me to understand my situation, identify complex paradoxes and understand where my influence lies. I probably can’t recall any advice that’s stayed with me to this day, but the pertinent questions that people have asked to helpfully challenge my thinking are always nearby - and seem to be far more transferrable to future challenges too! 

Here are just a couple of my favourite pertinent questions: 

What does success look like for you? What does the world look like when this is resolved? 
How willing are you for this to be successful? 
What is the opportunity here?
What can you bring to this? 
What can you step into here? 
How might you.. 

I’ll finish with a shout out to the many people in my life who I come to to ask for advice. Thanks especially for the moments when you consent-check and clarify my request, so that I can ‘come to’ and recognize what I’m actually asking for - a story about a time this went well for you, a check of my blindspots- what might you be seeing that I’m not? Or, more often than not, a re-contracting of this conversation. The moments when you withhold your advice and ask me questions about what I think I should do next are the moments of true service that lead to turning points in my trajectory. These moments are vulnerable, and golden. Relationships deepen. Confidence, whether I’ve clocked it or not, expands.