You're doing the work
Early in my writing this blog, a colleague and friend gave me some feedback. She said that she finds it annoying when I pose questions and don’t answer them in a post. It was valid feedback and well-intentioned. I can see where she was coming from, how my open-ended approach can elicit discomfort from not having answers and concrete advice.
If she was thinking this, I’m sure lots of people are thinking it as well. So I tried to make adjustments. I started writing more posts with lists, such as 5 ways to do this or 4 tips for that. While it was helpful, it wasn’t a perfect fit for me. (It’s not a bad approach at all. I still use it when it feels right for the content.)
I wondered: if answers are what people seem to want, why did this approach not sit completely well with me?
Well, one of the hardest leadership skills that I’m learning is to refrain from giving too much advice. Marshall Goldsmith calls this “giving too much value.” And Michael Bungay Stanier reminds us that “our advice is not as good as we think it is.” (In fact, I'm reading his The Advice Trap right now.) In the Harvard Business Review, Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall call this The Feedback Fallacy (article).
The idea is that any advice I give is presented through my personal lens and lived experience. It is unique. And it is also biased. I don’t know your story. I don’t know your situation. I don’t know what challenges you really have. I don’t know how your brain works. My thoughts evolve too. So six months later, I may end up thinking the advice I gave you was terrible.
Also, I can’t make you do anything, think a certain way, or say anything. It just doesn’t work that way. The best outcome is that you want to do it yourself because you were given a reason, agency, and permission. So, when a leader gives advice too frequently or too quickly, it disempowers the receiver. It results in a decrease in agency and increase in dependency.
You are the receiver here. You are smart. You are thoughtful. You think outside of the box. You can apply a thought, prompt, or question to make it relevant to you and what you need. You can also bear the discomfort of not knowing the answer right away. This actually allows you room to daydream and be creative in your solution-seeking.
If you’re reading this, you are probably the kind of person who does this work. You’re doing the work. Not me. You are capable of that. That’s what I hope for you in the work I do. I don’t want to teach you everything I know, because I am really limited. And I want to celebrate that invisible work that is happening in your head. The hard work that you decided to do for yourself and for the cause you care about.
In fact, you are amazing for doing it. And I'm so glad that you're here.
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