I don't need your advice, Thank you!

Recently I was hearing someone delivering a lecture to young managers on how to be good to their people. I saw sense of disbelief and dejection on the face of everyone sitting in the room. After the talk I asked couple of people what happened?? And they were unanimous in their reply.. He is the worst manager himself and his engagement scores are the lowest and turnover in his team is very high and we are still made to hear nuggets on being good manager from him because he holds higher position in the company.

This is not an isolated case. I have come across many instances when the preacher wasn’t practicing his theory but he/she expected everyone to do that. This makes me sad. Why do we have people around us not practice what they preach? How do they expect others to believe in them when they themselves don’t believe in what they are saying?

A young banker came to me and said, I have a history of giving the highest returns to my client on their investment. He was bragging about who’s who in his portfolio and how each one of them have made fortune based on his advice. My only question to him was, show me your portfolio? And he never came back to me.

Someone was trying to sell me the best holiday package of the world and telling me what would I miss if I don’t buy the package he was selling. Hugely impressed I said it sounds good but tell me have you bought this for yourself. He said. No I don’t need it. And I told him the same thing. You know I don’t need too.

Similarly, a car seller from a particular company made me count the benefits of the vehicle he was trying to sell me till the time I asked which car he drives and that car wasn’t the one he was selling.

In consulting world, we see lot of companies promising to do things for their client which in their dreams they haven’t implemented for themselves and still going out and trying to sell their ideas to world. They are not sure about what happens to the client but one thing is sure that they become rich in the process till the time they are found out.

If you are in a situation when someone is giving you advice and making you believe that what he/she is saying the ultimate truth, ask the same question. Do you use it? If the answer is anything but emphatic Yes with solid logic, there is no harm in telling the seller of the idea..

 I don’t need your advice. Thank you!