The Reason Why I Avoid Giving Personal Advice
And why it’s better to share your personal experience instead
As an Agile Coach, as much as possible I try to not be prescriptive about the approach I give to teams. The reason for this is because when I give out suggestions, they would always take it as it is without really understanding why. Later on when this so-called suggestion is applied to the organization, most of the time it doesn’t go out as effectively. They would come back asking why or worse not even question sometimes even if it seems to not apply to their current situation. The snowball effect would then be that they question the effectiveness of the Agile Coach, blame the entire system, and eventually dump the benefits of adopting a methodology in the first place.
Although I reference my experience as an Agile Coach, in life I believe this also applies to all. I made it a point always to mainly focus on training people to actually think for themselves. The coaching part of the job is really harder than just memorizing all the values and principles in any methodology. If you are familiar with the Agile Manifesto and its Principles, the original authors themselves deliberately avoided providing explicit steps in achieving it. They instead focused mainly on the core values so that when organizations plan out how they implement things, they can always go back to the basics.
There is no one pill for all
When I started out coaching teams about Agile, I really was very biblical about how it should be implemented. I would correct a person each time I think their mindset is not right. It worked for a time but later on, I became someone they looked to for answers and solutions. There’s nothing wrong with it entirely but I realized that when I gave out advice to one group it wasn’t always the same thing for others. I was being prescriptive without completely understanding the background and overall situation of the team. I prevented them from understanding how to think better and cultivated a culture where I was the only one who knew better.
This is very dangerous especially when we think a certain approach is the only way through a situation. We fall into a trap of not reflecting why this approach was taken in the first place. We feel as if we helped solve their problems now but in the long run, the symptoms will keep coming back.
Coaching vs Mentoring vs Dictating
When it comes to these different hats, I know coaching is the best approach but I don’t discriminate against using mentoring or even dictating sometimes. It really all depends on the situation. When there are times that people really have no clue yet then maybe mentoring is a good place to start. If they are very stubborn and resistant to accepting change then maybe dictating things really helps push things along. Knowing really when to switch between each approach really takes experience and empathy that most people lack. I know a lot of older folks who think they have the wisdom to know what is best for someone without actually listening to the real predicament. They stop short by saying I know this better, take my advice, I’ve been there, I’ve done that.
We were taught to take instructions
I’m not trying to say we are victims of an education system that somewhat made us just take instructions as they are. In a way, it is unfortunate especially for those who have been trained to just be followers. Setting our own minds on things is really not something we can learn right off the bat. It really is a lifetime process. For me at least, I got my awakening in college when I met atheists and political activists. I began to question my faith, my beliefs from how they passionately express their own beliefs. I started out taking in their advice myself but later on, I made a stand on my own choices. Looking back now I felt good about it since I was able to establish my own views and opinions rather than just taking in beliefs that I didn’t understand at all.
Final Thoughts
I know the urge to just give off advice is easy and the pride of knowing they got that advice from you feels good. But teaching people how to think for themselves is even more timeless advice you can ever give to anyone.
