Should One Give Advice?

I like other answers that suggest “don’t do it.” I first encountered the dangers of advice in the doctoral program at Harvard Business School. We read and studied Carl Rogers’ book, On Becoming a Person. Therein I learned a variety of “kinds of Responses” in conversation and how they help or don’t help. Rogers’ view was, and I agree, that people usually have the answers within them and that if we could help them see that, they would be much better and more likely to follow through.

So, I learned about “active listening.” And wrote a note about that, a note that became a best seller at Darden. Active Listening

We can array response types on a continuum from Directive to Non-Directive. And then discuss how Directiveness affects listeners. Usually it triggers their defensiveness. To become a good active listener one needs to learn to

1. Suspend fast thinking judgments based on one’s own VABEs
2. Focus on emotions (and their visible signals) as well as content.
3. Follow, not lead, the conversation.
4. Reflect accurately and appropriately what you understand about content and emotion in what the Other is saying.

These are very difficult for most people. People tend to see the world from their own point of view and to give advice based on that. And that advice could be exactly the wrong thing for the Other.

At some point AFTER one has listening actively, the Other may ask what you would do. Even then, be sure to describe what you would do, NOT what the Other should do. Do not attempt consciously or otherwise to impose your VABEs and conclusions on the other. The arrogance of “I know what’s right for you” goes way back to the basic VABEs that most parents used to teach their defenseless, young children:

1. I know what’s right for you, child.
2. I have a parental right to tell you what’s right for you, child.
3. I have a right to punish you if you don’t do what’s right for you, child. (See William Glasser, Choice Theory)

In this, we teach children to obey and conform. And the world’s dysfunctional VABEs are perpetuated generation after generation. There’s more. See my website, www.nadobimakoba.com, or my book A Song of Humanity. A Song of Humanity

Here’s the scale I created in Exhibit 1 in the note (above). From MORE DIRECTIVE at the top to LESS DIRECTIVE at the bottom.

ACTIVE LISTENING

Response Types

DIRECTIVE

Commands and threats

Telling a person what to do. Giving orders.

Persuasion

Selling, urging, entreating, building “logical” arguments to persuade the other to your point of view. Arguing is a heated form of persuasion.

Advice

Offering what you think should be done, based usually on your own view and values.

Questioning and focusing

Establishing a focus on what you will talk about next. Can be done through statements or questions.

Giving feedback

Telling the other person your judgments—both positive and negative. Extremely volatile, i.e., can be constructive or destructive to the individual and to the relationship. Can be solicited or unsolicited.

Directive probing

Asking leading questions to reach specific conclusions. Effective, if used skillfully, in getting a person to “personalize” joint conclusions.

Role playing

Building skills by allowing the other person to practice saying and behaving in situations that are likely to appear.

Summarizing

Attempting to outline the major points of the discussion.

Self-disclosing

Giving information about yourself. Very powerful in building trust and credibility. Can be overdone.

Exchanging

Undirected exchanges of greeting, social comments. Builds rapport and pleasantries and establishes a socially acceptable base for the conversation.

Problem-solving

Open-ended exploration of alternatives without preconceived notions about how to solve the problem. Brainstorming, or “dialogue” techniques, then evaluating alternatives.

Continuances

“Umm,” “Uh-huh,” “Yeah,” and other means of encouraging the other person to carry on.

Silence

Can be somewhat directive depending on the situation.

Reflective listening

Setting aside personal views and listening to another’s content and emotion and then reflecting that understanding back to the speaker. Related to empathy. Extremely useful in building support.

NON-DIRECTIVE