Stay curious and listen

What's the best advice you have ever received?

Lacey Yeomans, my Business Manager-Executive Assistant, asked me this recently.

I admit I was stumped. It's an excellent question, and I have taken some time to trawl back through my memory bank of advice to pan for the gold.

In the 38 years since I landed my first full-time job, I've had a myriad of diverse advice. But the best? That's tough.

Advice is a compelling subject. So, it's my word of the month.

Michael Bungay Stanier, coaching expert, renowned speaker, and bestselling author, has written about the perils of succumbing to three main traps when giving advice. People expect they should:

1. have the answer (tell it);
2. take responsibility for fixing the problem (save it); and
3. manage the outcome (control it).

Avoiding these traps is possible if people can stay curious for longer and ask more questions - and Bungay Stanier outlines seven critical questions in his book The Coaching Habit.

Oscar Trimboli, the author of How to Listen, host of the Apple award-winning podcast Deep Listening, and sought-after speaker, suggests these three strategies to help people listen more effectively. Rather than offer advice, you might say:

1. "Tell me more".
2. "And what else?
3. ....(silence)

Reflecting on Michael's and Oscar's suggestions, I know the best advice I ever got.

It happened on a day when I met with a group of Year 11 students in an Australian secondary school. We were in conversation about how adults could assist young people more effectively.?

Here's what they said, collated, in my words.

"Most of the time, adults don't listen to us. They want to tell us all their experiences and ideas to help us solve a problem when all we want to is to talk it over and for them to help us think about stuff so we can work out a solution ourselves. It would be better if they would just listen - not offer advice."

And there we have it—the gold - from the mouths of 16 and 17-year-olds. Precisely what most of us prefer - space to think and resolve issues ourselves.

The best advice I ever heard was not to offer advice at all but to stay curious, ask short, simple questions, and then shut up and listen.

How about you?

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