How to tame your Advice Monster | Michael Bungay Stanier | TEDxUniversityofNevada

In this funny and provocative talk, Michael Bungay Stanier explains how advice-giving goes bad, the three personas of your Advice Monster, and why the powerful act of staying curious a little longer is the secret to taming your Advice Monster.

Michael Bungay Stanier’s most recent book is The Advice Trap, a follow-up to 2016's Coaching Habit which has become the best-selling book on coaching of the century with more than ¾ million copies sold. He is the founder of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations transform from advice-driven to curiosity-led.

He is Australian, was a Rhodes Scholar, and lives in Toronto. He can be found at MBS.works.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

So I caught up with a friend
of mine the other day.

I love her.

She's smart, she's brilliant,
she's talented.

And after we grabbed our coffees
and we did the usual warm-up chitchat,

Shannon looked at me and said,

"Michael, you're a good guy.

I need your help.

I need your advice."

And my Monster was delighted.

(Laughter)

She started telling me what was going on,

and I started to pretend to listen,

because quite frankly

my Advice Monster already knew exactly
what it wanted to tell her.

(Laughter)

But I'm pretty good
at the fake active listening.

You know, you tip your head on the side,

you nod, you look engaged,
yet caring, yet concerned,

small, meaningless words of encouragement,

"Mm-hm. Yeah, sure. Mm, yeah, right.
Oh, you go, girlfriend."

and "Exactly."

But honestly my Advice Monster's like,

"Could we just hurry this up, please?

'Cause time is short."

Finally, Shannon finished,

so finally, I was able
to share my brilliant advice.

And make no mistake, it was brilliant.

Shannon tipped her head on the side,

looked engaged, yet caring, yet concerned.

(Laughter)

Started nodding, making small,
meaningless words of encouragement,

"Mm-hm. Yeah, maybe. OK. Yeah. Nice idea."

Honestly, my advice, my help
was going nowhere.

My Advice Monster had sabotaged
the conversation - again!

Now, this isn't just a Michael thing.

It's not even a mansplaining thing.

You! All of you!
You know your Advice Monster.

Somebody starts telling you
about something.

You don't really know the situation,
you don't really know the people involved,

you certainly don't have the full context,

you definitely don't have
the technical specifications,

and after about 10 seconds,
your Advice Monster's like,

"Oh! I've got something to say here!"

(Laughter)

You know, research tells us
that medical doctors' Advice Monsters

tend to interrupt their patients
after about 11 seconds.

But that's not really a medical thing,

it's a human thing.

Now, I can see some of you
are looking at me

and you're thinking to yourself,
"Michael, it's true.

Other people's Advice Monsters?

Very annoying, really pretty irritating.

(Laughter)

But my advice? My advice
is honestly pretty fantastic!

And what's wrong with advice anyway?"

Well, look, there is nothing
wrong with advice.

Advice is a key part of civilization.

I mean TED, TEDx,
it is one large forum for advice.

The problem isn't with advice.

The problem is when giving advice
becomes our default response.

And we all have this ingrained
way of behaving.

For most of us, it's become a habit.

It's become an advice-giving habit.

Or -

"Agh!" for short.

(Laughter)

And it turns out there are three ways
that advice-giving goes bad.

The first two are kind of connected.

Here's the first challenge
with advice-giving:

you're busy solving the wrong problem.

This happens all the time.

We get seduced into thinking

that the first challenge that shows up
is the real challenge.

It almost never is.

It's people's best guess;
it's their first hypothesis;

it's a stab in the dark.

But it's really rare

that the first challenge
is the real challenge.

But let's just say
for the sake of argument

that somehow miraculously

you are finding and working
on the real challenge.

Here's the second issue
with advice-giving:

your advice is not nearly as good
as you think it is.

(Laughter)

And if you're thinking to yourself,

"Oh no, Michael, no, no,
my advice is magnificent."

Well, I'd encourage you to go watch
all those TED videos on cognitive biases

that will explain just how bad
your advice normally is,

particularly if you think
you give good advice.

But with those first two
are just you kind of wasting people's time

and life and resources and money.

So you know, no big deal.

(Laughter)

The third issue about giving advice
cuts a little deeper and cuts both ways.

If you are on the receiving end of advice,

if you're on the receiving end
of somebody's Advice Monster,

you're constantly getting the message

that you can't figure this out yourself.

And that cuts away
at your sense of competence

and your confidence,
and your sense of autonomy.

And if you're on the other side
of the equation,

if you have an Advice Monster -

and if I can be clear,
you all have an Advice Monster -

well, forget about the fact
that you're disempowering people.

Forget about the fact

that you're a bottleneck
to everybody around you,

just that added responsibility
of having to have all the answers,

and to save the person
and to save the day,

it's exhausting, and it's frustrating,
and it's overwhelming.

Now, I can see you looking at me
and going "Yeah, Michael, point well made.

We get this. I get it.
I understand, fair enough."

And I know you do get it.
It's straight-forward.

You get this, in theory.

In practice, this is still
how you're showing up

on an everyday basis.

That.

(Laughter)

So what's going on with that?

Well, it's your Advice Monster.

You keep feeding it and it is insatiable.

Somebody starts talking,

and your Advice Monster
looms up out of the dark and goes,

"Oh, I'm going to add some value
to this conversation! Yes, I am!

Here I go."

(Laughter)

You have to learn to tame
your Advice Monster.

And to tame it, you have to understand it.

And it turns out your Advice Monster
has three different personas,

and if you listen up, you'll hear the one
that resonates most for you.

The first persona
of the Advice Monster is "tell it."

Tell it.

It's the loudest of the three.

It has convinced you
that the only way that you add value

is to have the answers.

To have all the answers.

To have all the answers to all the things.

If you don't have all the answers,

then you fail.

Anybody kind of know this one?

Yeah, I thought as much.

The second Advice Monster,
a little more subtle,

is called "save it."

"Save it" has put its arm
around you and gone,

"Your job, your only job
is to rescue everybody.

Don't let anybody stumble,
struggle, have a difficult time.

Don't let anybody fail.

If anybody struggles at all, you fail."

Anybody know this one?

Any parents in the room, for instance?

Exactly.

The third of the Advice Monsters,
the sneakiest of the three,

is "control it."

"Control it" has convinced you
that the only way you win

is to maintain control at all times.

Don't let go the grip of anything.

If anybody else takes over control,
even a little bit,

then you and they will definitely fail.

Anybody know "control it?"

That's my favorite one personally.

And in fact, there's something
that connects all three of these personas.

And this is an important point:

in that singular moment,
when your Advice Monster is in control,

you are saying that you are better
than the other person.

You are better than the other person.

You're saying that they're not up to it.

You're saying they're not good enough.

You're saying

they're not smart enough, wise enough,

fast enough, moral enough,
experienced enough.

You're basically saying
that they're not good enough.

But it's not only the other person
that is diminished in this moment

when your Advice Monster is in control.

You're diminished as well.

Because when your Advice
Monster is in control,

you lose that connection to your humanity.

You lose that connection to your empathy

and your compassion
and your sense of vulnerability.

You start using
your answers as your armor.

Now, I was going to give you a quick talk
about the power of empathy

and compassion and vulnerability,

and then I thought to myself:

Brené Brown

or the Dalai Lama

or Jesus.

OK, I think this ground's been
pretty much covered.

So -

(Laughter)

Rather than that,
let me give you a quick primer

on how you might go about
taming your Advice Monster.

And what you're looking to do
is replace an old habit,

the advice-giving habit, with a new habit:

Can you stay curious a little bit longer?

It's as simple and as difficult as that.

Can you stay curious a little bit longer?

How do you stay curious?

Well, questions
are the kindling of curiosity.

They're the light that holds back
the darkness of the Advice Monster.

So let me share with you
the three questions

I wish I'd asked Shannon
when we were in that café together.

The first question is this:

What's the real challenge here for you?

What's the real challenge here for you?

It's the focus question.

It recognizes that at the start
of a conversation

neither of you really know
what's going on.

You just both think you do.

So not only does "What's the real
challenge here for you?"

keep your Advice Monster at bay,

it repositions you to say,

"The most important thing
I can be doing here

is to help you find
the really important issue,"

not to provide the fast wrong answer,

which is what happens right now.

The second question that I wish
I'd asked Shannon is: And what else?

And what else?

So the acronym is A-W-E.

It's literally an awesome question.

And "And what else?" has it as the insight

that the first answer they give you
is never their only answer,

and it's rarely their best answer.

So when you ask, "And what else?"

not only does it tame your Advice Monster,

but it helps you go deeper and further
on any question that you ask.

Before I give you the third question,
which I think you're going to like,

let me just show you how
these two can play really well together.

We're going to do something live,
right here with us.

So here is what I want you to do:

think of a real challenge
that's going on for you right now.

It can be big; it can be small;

it can be about life;
it can be about work;

it can be about a project;
it can be a person.

I don't mind what it is.

Take your best guess.

This is a real thing,
so actually, think of something.

You can write it down if you want
or just keep it in your head.

And now you've got that challenge in mind,

I'm going to ask you a question.

Here it is.

Thinking of that challenge,

what's the real challenge here for you?

What's the real challenge here for you?

Yeah, I can see people working.

I can hear brains ticking over.

This is great.

Stuff's opening up for you
as you think about that.

You are like, "OK, I think
I've got the real challenge here for me."

That's nice.

But we're not done yet.

Let me ask you another question:

And what else?

What else is a real
challenge here for you?

Because I know there's more
than one thing.

So what else? What else
is a real challenge here for you?

Just notice how that's popping up

and how stuff is opening up for you,

which is lovely.

But, of course, we're not done yet.

I have another question for you:

What else? What else
is a real challenge here for you?

Because there's still more
to be unpacked here.

Some of you are like, "This is amazing!
I didn't know this was all here.

Where is this all coming from?"

Right.

I've got one final question for you.

I'm going to step
to the edge of the red spot here,

just to make it really dramatic.

(Laughter)

Now that you've considered all of that,

and you've done some thinking,

"What's the real challenge here for you?"

(Laughter)

Exactly, your head explodes.

You are like, "Oh my god.
What's happened here?"

And for some of you, you're like, "Wow!"

This is really in a minute or less

just opened up a new way of seeing this.

But actually, here's a really
key part of this.

You'll notice that your answer
to the first "What's the real challenge?"

and your answer
to the final one was different.

And why that matters is if I've been busy
trying to solve that first challenge,

I'd be offering up
my slightly crappy advice

to solve the wrong problem.

And honestly, that's
what's happening all the time.

The third question that I wish
I'd asked Shannon back in that café,

it's a difficult question
but it's so powerful.

The question is: What do you want?

What do you want?

Because when you get clear
on what you want,

it becomes the foundation for action.

It becomes the foundation for progress.

When you know what you want,

you get to step towards
that autonomy and that competence

and that confidence
that we were talking about before.

And when that happens your Advice Monster
really has not much chance.

So that's the challenge in front of us:

to replace an old habit,
the advice-giving habit,

with a brand-new habit:
staying curious a little bit longer.

Because when you do that,
you begin to empower people,

not by giving them the answer

but by helping them find their own answer.

Not by rescuing them,

but by helping them find their own path.

Not by holding onto control on everything

but by giving up some control

and inviting others to step in
and to step up.

And all of that becomes possible
when you tame your Advice Monster.

Thank you.

(Cheering) (Applause)