PDF Summary:The Advice Trap, by Michael Bungay Stanier

When someone’s dealing with a problem at work, is your first instinct to give them advice? In The Advice Trap, coaching expert Michael Bungay Stanier explains that advice-giving can lead to more problems than solutions and encourages you, instead, to adopt a coaching style of leadership. Stanier argues that when you learn to approach difficult conversations with questions instead of suggestions, you’ll unlock the full potential of your team and relieve yourself of unnecessary burdens.

In this guide, we’ll look at three ways of thinking that drive people to give advice and why Stanier believes it to be a counterproductive leadership approach. We’ll also explore how to subdue that compulsion and how adopting a questions-first approach can foster a more confident, effective, and growth-driven team. Along the way, we’ll explore insights from other experts and compare them with Stanier’s arguments.

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• Cue—A cue resides at the very root of a habit: It’s a specific thing in the environment that alerts your brain to do something. This cue (say, a stressed coworker) then triggers a craving.

• Craving—When Stanier talks about the short-term benefits you seek when you give advice, he’s likely referring to a craving set off by the cue. You start anticipating a rewarding feeling even before you perform any actions. For example: Seeing your coworker stressed sets off your desire to be helpful and save the day.

• Response—Clear points out that you perform the response in order to obtain the feeling that you’re craving (feeling valuable or heroic). So, when you’re identifying the bad behaviors you have when giving advice, you’re also identifying the responses you have to your emotional cravings.

• Reward—According to Clear, a habit perpetuates because you get the emotional reward for your behavior. You learn to associate the cue with the reward. For example: When you feel good after “saving the day” by giving advice, you see stressed coworkers as opportunities to achieve that feeling again.

Think Like a Coach

Now that we’ve learned the drawbacks of wielding advice, what habits should we develop instead? According to Stanier, the key to thinking like a coach is to shift our focus away from ourselves and onto others.

To be a good coach, you should:

1. Be supportive
2. Ask questions
3. Focus on the main challenge

Be Supportive

Stanier writes that a conversation can only be productive if the people involved feel safe. He offers four suggestions to make people less defensive:

1) Be on their team—be with them, not against them. Validate their feelings with encouraging words and body language such as: “That’s a very smart point,” or a simple, “Great thought!”

2) Be communicative—talk about what’s next in your conversation so that people know what to expect. Transition between topics so that people can follow comfortably.

3) Help them feel important—ask, praise, and affirm their opinions. Lower your authority so that communication can be open and effective.

4) Help them make choices—ask them for their thoughts so they can help direct the conversation. Instead of giving advice, ask: “What options are you considering?”

Conversational Intelligence: Cultivating Good Conversations With Trust

In many ways, Stanier’s suggestions on reducing defensive instincts in conversations relate to what Judith Glaser defines as “conversational intelligence.” Glaser agrees that trust is a fundamental cornerstone of high-quality conversations. In Conversational Intelligence, she explains that our brains react differently to people we trust versus people we distrust. When someone trusts you, their brain produces positive hormones that improve the desire to collaborate and connect. On the other hand, distrust results in the production of stress hormones, which may make people more defensive and reluctant to talk to you.

By adopting Stanier’s four recommendations when communicating, you can break down these walls of distrust and ensure that your conversations reach their fullest potential.

Ask Questions, Part I: Techniques

Stanier identifies being curious as a coach’s defining trait—to pause, take a back seat, and ask questions, as opposed to jumping to give advice. Once you help others lower their defenses, you can have an open and productive discussion led by questions instead of commands. Asking questions helps you remain focused and your team members feel supported. Stanier offers several tips on how to effectively ask questions:

Tip #1: Just start asking. Don't waste time introducing or justifying your question, just ask the question to get the conversation started. However, only ask one at a time.

(Shortform note: Experts agree with Stanier’s recommendation of asking a single question at a time, reasoning that asking too many questions at once can make a conversation feel like an interrogation. Even if you’re just trying to understand the situation, firing off multiple questions before waiting for an answer can overwhelm the other person, preventing them from giving deep and thoughtful answers.)

Tip #2: Ask “What” questions. Asking questions like “What methods have you used?” sound more open and non-accusatory compared to “why” questions that might put people on the defensive like “Why did you do it like that?” Avoid rhetorical questions like “Have you thought about—,” which are only advice in disguise.

(Shortform note: Like Stanier, many experts support asking open-ended questions to foster successful conversations. They explain that asking closed questions like, “Did you try this solution here?” limits the flow of a conversation more than, “What solutions have you tried so far?” The former question prompts for a one-word answer—“yes” or “no,” whereas the latter allows the responder to provide more context and information that they may feel is important to express.)

Tip #3: Embrace silences. Don’t try to fill every break in the conversation. If you pause and actively listen to their answers, you can understand the situation better.

(Shortform note: In Radical Candor, Kim Scott makes a distinction between quiet listening and loud listening, arguing that a good leader adjusts their listening style according to the needs of their team. Stanier’s tip mostly highlights silent listening, which involves deliberately inserting silence during a conversation to give room for people to think and express themselves. However, Scott argues that certain situations can benefit from loud listening, which involves directly stating something to elicit a response. This method can help prevent people from wasting time guessing what you’re thinking.)

Tip #4: Validate their answers. Help others feel heard and understood with phrases like “That makes sense,” or “I see how that can feel frustrating.”

(Shortform note: Therapists define validation as recognizing and understanding another person’s feelings regardless of your personal opinions. Studies have shown that in situations where someone is experiencing negative emotions such as frustration or anger, providing validating comments can help promote flexible thinking, curiosity, and a more positive outlook on the situation. Therefore, validating another person’s answers to your questions helps your conversation continue in an open and productive manner.)

Ask Questions, Part II: Which Questions?

Stanier specifies seven questions that can guide you into having productive and efficient communication with your team. These seven questions can be grouped into four categories, each of which will help you effectively resolve difficult situations where you might be tempted to give advice:

1) Understand the situation: Stanier suggests you begin by asking about the other person’s thoughts—“What are you thinking about?” When you ask someone what’s occupying their mind, you let them take the lead as they express their situation.

Then, ask if there’s anything else. This can prevent key points from slipping through the cracks, and it makes your team member feel supported and valued.

2) Focus your conversation: Try to identify the main issue you’re dealing with and what your team member’s goal is. Asking a question like, ”What’s the main challenge you’re facing?” allows you to eliminate distracting problems and focus on solving the real obstacle.

Then, ask your team member what they want to accomplish—their goal—to get a sense of the progress they’re hoping to make.

3) Consider alternative options: You can help your team member understand the options available to them by asking questions like, “If you go with this idea, what are we saying ‘no’ to?” By asking them to consider possible alternatives, you can instill confidence in the actions they’ll be taking.

4) Reflect on the conversation: According to Stanier, you can encourage long-term insights by thinking about your conversation and the next steps. By asking, “How can I support you?” you can provide support in the way most beneficial for both of you. To help your team grow, end on a positive note by identifying what lessons were learned—“What was helpful about our talk?”

Asking Questions for Negotiation

Asking questions for coaching is in many ways similar to asking questions during a negotiation. In both situations, you’re trying to communicate clearly and effectively to arrive at a solution or an understanding with someone else.

Like Stanier, Christopher Voss in Never Split the Difference advocates letting the other person lead the conversation to help you achieve your negotiation goals. In many ways, Stanier’s seven questions of identifying a focus to resolve a specific issue parallel Voss’s advice:

• Open-Ended Questions—Voss also advocates using open-ended questions so that the responder can provide useful information for you to understand the situation. He argues this is helpful in the negotiation field to give the other person an impression of control as you guide them toward your desired outcome. Like Stanier, he proposes questions that focus the conversation on the other person like, “What are you hoping to accomplish?” This encourages them to come up with solutions.

• Summarizing—As in both the workplace and negotiation situations, you’re looking for a firm commitment. When negotiating, Voss suggests you ask questions that get the other person to say “no,” which will also foster in them a sense of control. This tactic parallels Stanier's suggestion of considering alternative options. After that, Voss also suggests you summarize what was accomplished during the conversation to establish long-term rapport and understanding.

Focus on the Main Challenge

Stanier writes that when we jump in with advice, we often end up brainstorming solutions to unimportant or secondary issues. He advises that you instead take time to properly identify the true issue at the core of the problem. He notes that this can be challenging, and he outlines several obstacles you might run into during a conversation that can make it hard to determine the real issue at hand or that might tempt you into avoiding hard conversations. These obstacles can be grouped into two categories, and you can use the questions above to move past them.

Obstacle 1: Unfocused Start

Stanier notes that the first thing a person identifies as the source of their problem is rarely the true heart of the problem. A person might blame someone who isn’t present (for example, by saying, “This person hasn’t responded to my email”) or might be vague about their struggles (such as by saying, “This email is taking a while” instead of “I’m struggling with how to word this email”). When this happens, you should continue asking questions to get to the underlying problem.

To handle an unfocused start, you can:

1. Acknowledge that you’re off-topic—“I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think we’ve gotten to the real issue yet."
2. Focus the conversation on them— “Let’s focus on what we have in front of us. What’s the main obstacle that you’re facing?”

Obstacle 2: Information Overload

When someone starts listing too many problems at once—such as factoring their financial struggles and long commute into their work problems—or launching into detailed gossip, your conversation loses focus.

To handle a conversation with information overload, you can:

1. Acknowledge that it’s a lot of information—“It looks like we have a lot going on here.”
2. Direct focus to the main problem—“Let’s start with the main challenge. What’s the biggest obstacle you’re facing here?”

Identifying Your Conversational Blind Spots

While Stanier encourages being aware of conversational pitfalls the person you’re speaking with might stumble into, Judith Glaser in Conversational Intelligence adds onto this by describing four blind spots that you should try to avoid during your talk:

• Shared Thinking—Like Stanier, Glaser warns against letting your impressions of the issue lead the conversation. She explains that we tend to believe other people think in the same way we do and suggests that we remind ourselves that others may have different thoughts.

• Distrust—When someone’s being vague about their struggles, they might be fearful of your judgment, causing an “unfocused start.” Similarly, Glaser recommends you take note of any feelings of defensiveness you might have in these situations. Such feelings might prevent you from understanding where the other person’s coming from and hold you back from correctly naming the real problem up front.

• Subjectivity—Another obstacle that Glaser points out is the subjectivity of our memories. She points out that we might have an impression of a conversation that isn’t entirely accurate. As with Stanier’s obstacles, letting these subjective memories affect how we conduct future conversations can get in the way of discovering the real issue.

• Misinterpretation—Like Stanier, Glaser notes that meaning can often get lost during a conversation, especially during moments of “information overload.” Since you won’t always be able to tell if the other person misinterpreted what you said during your talk, Glaser suggests double-checking at the end to clear up any possible confusion.

Turning Habits Into Lifestyle

Stanier encourages you to make coaching a part of your lifestyle—whether you’re communicating in a face-to-face meeting or chatting informally over text message. Now that we’ve learned how to think like a coach, we can explore the three guiding principles that a good coach should follow:

Principle #1: Listen and Communicate More

According to Stanier, a good coach is generous in both their silence and their words. When you’re not speaking, he suggests you embrace long pauses as opportunities to practice active listening. When you are speaking, try to express your thoughts and feelings more, especially when giving out praise.

(Shortform note: While Stanier promotes active listening as an important pillar of a coaching style of management, he doesn’t elaborate on the techniques you can practice to improve this skill. To be a better listener, you should focus on both your body language and speech. Researchers suggest you focus entirely on what the other person’s saying without thinking about how you might respond—make eye contact, nod occasionally, and try to hold back any negative facial reactions until they’re finished speaking.)

Principle #2: Be a Student

Stanier asserts that a good coach seeks feedback and opportunities to learn better management skills. Try to learn how to be coached yourself.

1. Admit your struggles. This helps both you and your coach work toward building a better relationship.
2. Learn to accept discomfort. Remind yourself that learning good coaching habits takes time and practice.
3. Practice self-reflection. Ask yourself questions that challenge your present habits and ways of thinking.
4. Look for resources to learn, challenge yourself, and grow. Practice asking for feedback both from people you’re comfortable with and from those you’re less comfortable with.

How to Receive Feedback

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen in Thanks for the Feedback agree with Stanier that learning to receive feedback can help you learn and improve, and like Stanier, they recommend that you purposefully seek out feedback from others. To get the most value out of the feedback you receive, they advocate adopting a growth mindset, in which you view your skills and traits as fluid rather than fixed. Their three suggestions for developing a growth mindset provide more detailed actionables to Stanier’s suggestions:

• First, to be more comfortable in admitting your struggles and accepting discomfort as Stanier recommends, the authors suggest reminding yourself that you’re being coached, not evaluated. You’ll be more receptive to feedback if you’re focused on changing your behaviors rather than your identity.

• Second, when you receive feedback, avoid fixating on your fear of being judged. As Stanier points out, feedback is not always comforting, and focusing on what you do instead of how people view you can help you contend with this discomfort.

• Lastly, the authors suggest rating yourself on how well you react to feedback. This can help you practice reflection as Stanier suggests.

Ultimately, like Stanier, Stone and Heen stress that growth is about the process and not the outcome.

Principle #3: Put Quality First

Although Stanier argues that offering advice isn’t always the best solution, he also believes a good leader should know how to give quality advice when it’s needed. He introduces four tips to doing so:

Tip #1: Give simple answers to simple questions—sometimes a straightforward question such as, “What time should I finish this project by?” can be answered with a simple response rather than an in-depth exploration of the situation. In these cases, offering the answer would be the most helpful and supportive thing you can do.

Tip #2: Lessen the pressure—sound less certain about your suggestions or else people might not even question them. Emphasize that your advice isn’t a command, but merely a thought or suggestion, with phrases such as, “This is just one thought I have…” or “I’m not sure if this is something you could consider…”

Tip #3: Be clear—state your advice plainly. Make sure your suggestions are clear and complete.

Tip #4: Summarize—ask questions to gauge how your advice was received, such as, “Did that help you in any way?” Asking for feedback can help you solidify your coaching habits.

Four Categories of Advice

While Stanier’s tips provide suggestions about how to deliver advice, he doesn’t provide much insight into what content your advice should contain for different situations. When someone’s asking for your insights, you can consider the kind of advice they might be looking for. Researchers have identified four different types of advice that can help ensure your advice is valuable and targeted:

• Discrete—This category of advice mirrors Stanier’s first tip of giving a simple answer to a straightforward question. This type of advice is helpful in situations in which someone is looking for recommendations regarding specific options or courses of action. Someone might ask, “How many people should I collaborate with on this project?”

• Counsel—When someone’s uncertain of how to navigate a new and unfamiliar situation, they’re probably looking for counseling. The advice they’re hoping for often involves an explanation of the process or how they should approach the situation. An example might be, “How should I negotiate the terms of this contract?” In such situations, Stanier’s advice to be clear would be especially important.

• Coaching—This “coaching” form of advice differs from Stanier’s broader usage of the term in that it deals more specifically with someone’s personal skills. Since this type of advice is more personal, Stanier’s tip of lowering your authority is more important here. A person looking for coaching advice might ask, “How can I better communicate with my team?”

• Mentoring—Someone looking for mentoring advice is often seeking more long-term guidance for personal opportunities. Questions that solicit mentoring advice might sound like, “Should I accept the promotion?” These situations would also call for clarity, like Stanier’s recommendation, and might also be a good time to summarize—to make sure that the long-term advice relationship you’re forming is healthy.

By understanding that different situations might call for different types of advice and applying Stanier’s tips from above, you can ensure that in times when advice truly is called for, your suggestions are valuable and helpful to your team.