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Why doesn't advice work?

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Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#241

Post by bawolff »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #10

It sounds like the author is coming from a places of intellect and might be missing more of the emotional reasons people don't follow advice. Intellectual-emotional dissonance is one of the biggest reasons people don't do things they know they should [1] be doing. We often have the mistaken approach that if we pile on more intellectual reasons why we should take the advice that the logic will outweigh our emotions an…

I've never been convinced of the idea that emotions and intellect have a gulf between them like this.

I'm more of the opinion that when something like that happens, it is usually due to misunderstanding the underlying problem, and all the intellectual reasons are simply trying to address the wrong reasons and thus are ineffective.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#242

Post by tbrownaw »

efitz wrote: post #183

Hard lessons I've learned: 1. It doesn't matter what your title is, how much expert education, training, or experience you have, or even what hard lessons that you have learned: you are not an "expert" in an area unless you are invited in as an "expert". Put another way, unsolicited advice is unwelcome. 2. Smart people want to solve their own problems. Don't offer solutions. No one will feel empowered or much of a se…

> 2. Smart people want to solve their own problems. Don't offer solutions. No one will feel empowered or much of a sense of accomplishment implementing your solution. Instead tell them the challenges that they will face for various options and let them draw their own conclusions.

Boss: so, why are you recommending ?

Me: someone in the Internet said it was a good idea. No, I don't know what criteria they were using to evaluate it. Or what else they considered. Or how well they understood what we're going to use it for.

---

But sure, say it's just about feelings and self-actualization and status games and nothing to do with trust and explainability.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#243

Post by wakaru44 »

tbrownaw wrote: post #242
efitz wrote: post #183

Hard lessons I've learned: 1. It doesn't matter what your title is, how much expert education, training, or experience you have, or even what hard lessons that you have learned: you are not an "expert" in an area unless you are invited in as an "expert". Put another way, unsolicited advice is unwelcome. 2. Smart people want to solve their own problems. Don't offer solutions. No one will feel empowered or much of a se…

> 2. Smart people want to solve their own problems. Don't offer solutions. No one will feel empowered or much of a sense of accomplishment implementing your solution. Instead tell them the challenges that they will face for various options and let them draw their own conclusions. Boss: so, why are you recommending ? Me: someone in the Internet said it was a good idea. No, I don't know what criteria they were using to…

You seem to have missed the point there. Your boss has already invited you as the expert ( hence the pay and responsibilities), and your boss does not want to solve his problem, he wants you to do it.

But sure, you can can take any random line of any text, make up a situation with a different context and ensure a different result than the author.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#245

Post by _0ffh »

It works if it is given the right way, even if unsolcited, I think: Help the advisee to make the crucial deductions themselves. If you don't have the time for that, just leave them be, or you'll probably do more harm than good.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#246

Post by XorNot »

hamasho wrote: post #179
ryanmcbride wrote: post #98

The rules I have for myself when giving advice are: 1. Unsolicited advice is always criticism. 2. LISTEN TO THEIR ACTUAL PROBLEM ALL THE WAY. 3. Never tell someone what they should do, tell them what you would do in that situation. 4. Remember that the purpose of giving advice is just to illuminate options, not to have someone follow what you recommend to the letter. 5. As the advice giver understand that you could b…

> 1. Unsolicited advice is always criticism. This is important to me. Especially when I become a senior, my opinion without much thought can be taken as a criticism and make others irritated or insecure.

Also this is what all advice sounds like to new parents. If you want to be an ally to someone who's just had a baby, don't give unsolicited advice - they're hearing enough of it from the numerous people who want to talk all about "future problems you definitely need to avoid now" to someone who hasn't had more then 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#247

Post by tbrownaw »

asdfman123 wrote: post #175
ryanmcbride wrote: post #98

The rules I have for myself when giving advice are: 1. Unsolicited advice is always criticism. 2. LISTEN TO THEIR ACTUAL PROBLEM ALL THE WAY. 3. Never tell someone what they should do, tell them what you would do in that situation. 4. Remember that the purpose of giving advice is just to illuminate options, not to have someone follow what you recommend to the letter. 5. As the advice giver understand that you could b…

The most common problem with advice is that people give it before what they understand the real problem. If someone tells you their car is broken, it's not helpful to tell them that they should get it fixed, because maybe the REAL problem is they don't have the money for it and are ashamed to tell you. (And maybe the solution to that is more complicated than you think, too.) For advice to be remotely useful, you have…

> If someone tells you their car is broken, it's not helpful to tell them that they should get it fixed, because maybe the REAL problem is they don't have the money for it and are ashamed to tell you. (And maybe the solution to that is more complicated than you think, too.)

Maybe they feel that skipping the social event you're pushing because their car is broken is more socially acceptable than skipping because they, er, really need to shampoo their cat that evening.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#248

Post by shiroiushi »

makeitdouble wrote: post #236
wdh505 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of the 6 geniuses? It is a book that proposes that there are 6 areas of "managing" one's self and others, and some are areas of genius and some are areas of frustration and some are competencies. The book also proposes that spouses who are compatible tend to have complimentary areas of genius and frustration. More to your point: if someone has an area of frustration to discern what course of action wil…

I haven't read the book, but can empathize with the complementary angle. Yet it's just complex, and it's also a moving target. In particular, there will be areas where there's no way out of both being at least competent and self sufficient. For instance if you live in the middle of nowhere with only a road connecting you to civilization, your partner giving up on driving can't just be a "frustration" area you cover w…

>For instance if you live in the middle of nowhere with only a road connecting you to civilization, your partner giving up on driving can't just be a "frustration" area you cover with your "genius".

Different people are different. And not all people are reasonable. Some partners might really be like this, so if your partner is like this, you can either put up with it and do all the driving, or move someplace else. But the other thing to keep in mind is: you picked this partner. If your partner frustrates you this much, maybe you made a bad choice and should pick a different partner.

As someone who's had different partners in life, I highly encourage single people to be very careful about who they pick for their partner.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#249

Post by shiroiushi »

efitz wrote: post #189
ryanmcbride wrote: post #98

The rules I have for myself when giving advice are: 1. Unsolicited advice is always criticism. 2. LISTEN TO THEIR ACTUAL PROBLEM ALL THE WAY. 3. Never tell someone what they should do, tell them what you would do in that situation. 4. Remember that the purpose of giving advice is just to illuminate options, not to have someone follow what you recommend to the letter. 5. As the advice giver understand that you could b…

> LISTEN TO THEIR ACTUAL PROBLEM ALL THE WAY. This is the key. People want to be heard, and also people don't necessarily divulge detail in the order you expect. The very last thing that they say may completely invalidate the solution you've been building in your mind as they've been speaking. Back in the mid 90's I was working support for Windows NT Server. In my area we had our heavy hitters- the issues that came u…

The problem here is that different people have different expectations. If you can fix my problem in 30 seconds and I don't have to waste 5+ minutes of my time describing the problem when you've already seen it and know the fix, I would prefer that you just stop me and fix it. However, that other guy obviously doesn't care about saving time, and wants to waste your time and his by venting and a known issue. Unfortunately, there's no way to know which type of service a customer wants unless you already know that customer well.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#250

Post by tbrownaw »

graybeardhacker wrote: post #142
crngefest wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone tells me what to do I instinctively do the exact opposite or at least have the overwhelming urge to

Don't go read about Oppositional Defiance Disorder.

Ah yes, let's medicalize "because fuck you, that's why" so that we can address it better.
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