Make them figure it out themselves. Advice is rarely acted upon, but nudging someone will make it "their idea."
Ask HN: How do you give advice?
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you give advice?
#22I think other commentators made some excellent points about ensuring the receiver is interested in the advice. And you should probably do that.
But in situations where I want to give unsolicited advice I either ask if they’d like some unsolicited advice and respect their response. Or I offer the advice as a story about myself instead of an instruction/order.
For example instead of telling a friend what they are saying is too aggressive I might talk about a time I said something that was a little aggressive and misunderstood and the problems it caused me. So they have the opportunity to learn from my experience without me forcing it on them.
Re: Ask HN: How do you give advice?
#23Unsolicited at 3am in drunk info dump texts
Re: Ask HN: How do you give advice?
#24Separate the advice someone asks of you from the experiences you can share with someone. When you want to give someone awareness of something they haven't asked from you because you think it's worth exposing them to it or sharing it with them, approach it from the point of conveying your experiences to them, not to advise them, but just to mention something of interest that you though might be of interest to them. Then the person you are sharing your experience with can decide if he or she should make anything of it. When someone asks you for advice, then you can inquire further to learn what they are looking to solve so that you can help them with working their way through that specific problem.
Re: Ask HN: How do you give advice?
#251. By not doing so unless asked.
2. When asked, I never say should. I present both sides as best I can, then explain why I’d make the preferred choice.
Re: Ask HN: How do you give advice?
#26Ideally, the person you're giving advice to should come to the conclusion on their own. Your advice just nudges them in the right direction. Dale Carnegie gives a great example of how to do this[1].
Otherwise, the advice can come across as criticism/attack. When attacked, the natural response is to defend. No matter how right/wrong each party is. Usually advice is some form of "you're doing this wrong; you can do this better." So always start from a place of agreement: what are they doing right/well?
[1]: https://www.inc.com/mithu-storoni/the-1-thing-good-bosses-ne...
Re: Ask HN: How do you give advice?
#27Asking questions works wonders in understanding the problem, the job to be done, the incentives, the constraints, the parameters people are trying to tweak to optimize for something, the tradeoffs.
It is an iterative process. Then when you have an "advice", you can phrase it as a question of how would a new set of parameters be computed in their model and their impact on other aspects you may not be aware of. You could see the computation happening, and they'd say something like "Yeah, but it would negatively impact XYZ", which you'll take into account as a new constraint in the subsequent sets of parameters you submit for computation/simulation.
One effect of doing this is that a lot of people will ask for your advice because it works.
Re: Ask HN: How do you give advice?
#28First, understand that you are trying to control them. This might sound odd, but it's true. You're trying to change their behaviour because you'd prefer it another way. Maybe that's because you want to be a good person or it hurts you to see them fail, but ultimately you have selfish motives. Secondly, realise that many people in their life have tried to control them before. They didn't all have pure motives. Many of…
> ultimately you have selfish motives
Uh, I don't believe that. What if you just want to help them?! What you say sounds very close to psychological egoism, the ethical position "that all behaviors are motivated by self-interest," that "all motives are selfish motives".[0]
[0] quick read: https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/ethics_tex...
lengthier read: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/#PsycEgoi