doug smith training

What happens with unsolicited advice?  Probably nothing. If you didn't ask for a piece of advice, why would you take it? Well, then what happens to advice that you do ask for? Isn't that a whole different matter? Different, yes, and yet often the outcome is the same: advice given and then ignored. It's easy to give advice because we all have opinions on everything, even stuff we don't know anything about. Taking advice is harder because A) the advice we get is often wrong, B) the advice we get is usually hard, and C) the advice we get often doesn't work. As someone who is sometimes paid to give advice I've had to learn the primary consultant's rule of advice giving: first ask the questions and then let the client determine the best advice. It takes longer. It can take much longer. It's not immediately satisfying, but it works much better. I'm working on slowing down my approach to giving advice and yet I still go too fast sometimes. How about you? He...

Is feedback painful? Do you hate both giving AND receiving feedback? Most people, in my experience, tend to avoid feedback because there is pain and even emotional trauma attached. Critical feedback hurts. Positive feedback, when it comes at all, isn't always enough to counter the trauma of the critical feedback. We do need critical feedback. We need to be able to benefit from observations and experiences to improve our performance going forward. As leaders, we have a responsibility to provide our team members with both support and challenge. Feedback should be part of that challenge. But it's not really "feedback" unless it's flipped upside down. On my Fender amplifier, if I play my guitar too loud and too close to the speaker the sound feeds-back. I like that sound (it reminds me of Jimi Hendrix) but many people don't and it certainly would not fit in most worship services or orchestra pits. The feedback is essentially telling me to turn it down. But I don...

  I'm facilitating a training session this week on feedback and coaching so of course my research never stops. No matter how many times I've delivered a program, there's always more to learn. I found this video and recommend it. If you'd like to take some of the "sting" out of feedback, don't even think of it as feedback. Think of it as advice. Here's the ten minute video. If you don't have ten minutes, the first three minutes are golden. Three key points that I got from the video: Focus on the task, not the person Ask for advice, not feedback Your "second score" is how you take and process your first score. If someone says that your performance was a three on a scale of ten (ouch!) you can still get a ten on how you use that information.  -- doug smith

How are you at taking advice? Do you respond quickly and decisively when someone offers you sound and well considered advice? Do you respond favorably to consultations? To tell the truth, I'm not so good at it. As a recovering know-it-all I struggle to consider an idea that wasn't my own. I'm better at it than before (that's the recovering part) and yet sometimes I just resist. It's good to take good advice. Sometimes, though that good advice has an expiration date. What makes sense today may not make sense a year from now, or two years from now. Once we move toward taking good advice we still have the duty of due diligence to watch out for change, to stay alert for expiration. Because once we have bought in, it feels like a mistake to let go. But, sometimes we do need to let go. What advice are your holding onto that does not make sense today? -- doug smith  

  Ever hear a piece of advice and think "yeah, that's a hard no..."? Or how about this -- ever offer someone a piece of excellent advice and watch them completely ignore it? Advice is funny like that. It's not good advice if nobody takes it. -- doug smith

Have you ever been given bad advice? No matter how much someone insists that they know what they're talking about, maybe they do and maybe they don't. Have you ever given advice that might not have been the best? If you have, it probably wasn't intentional and you might not even remember it now. We sometimes give advice with the best of intentions but that advice is not exactly what is needed. Before taking the advice of someone else, here are some of the things I look and listen for: Do they understand my situation? Do they have my best interests in mind? Have they asked enough questions to determine what is needed? Have they ever experienced the same kind of situation - and if so, how did that turn out for them? Will they be there to help with the implementation of their advice? Ask these questions first before jumping to that advice. Giving advice is often the first sign that a person is not qualified to give advice. Everyone's got an opinion...