It lurks within, emerging in conversation to share ineffective, premature suggestions … it’s your advice monster, and we all have one, says writer and teacher Michael Bungay Stanier. He shares how giving advice can easily go astray, from solving the wrong problem to disempowering the very person you’re trying to help, and offers a simple question to help you stay curious, strengthen your relationships — and tame that monster. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What is the advice monster and why should we tame it?
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. You know when a loved one comes to you with a problem and you can't help but want to chime in on how to fix it? Listen, you're not alone. I definitely catch myself launching into unsolicited advice sometimes.
According to leadership coach Michael Bungay-Stanier, that's our inner advice monster speaking. And it makes us believe we all have the answers, even if we don't. He lays out why we must tame this inner voice in order to be better humans and better listeners.
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 chit-chat, Shannon looked at me and she said, Michael, you're a good guy. I need your help. I need your advice. And my monster was delighted. She started telling me what was going on, and I started to pretend to listen.
Chapter 2: Why do people often give unsolicited advice?
Because quite frankly, my advice monster already knew exactly what I wanted to tell her. 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-hmm, yeah, sure, yeah, right. Oh, you go, girlfriend, exactly.
But honestly, my advice monster's like, could we just hurry this up, please? The 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, started nodding, made small, meaningless words of encouragement.
Mm-hmm, yeah, maybe, okay, 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 is like, oh, oh, oh, I've got something to say here.
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, really pretty irritating.
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.
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Chapter 3: What are the three ways advice giving goes wrong?
For most of us, it's become a habit. It's become an advice-giving habit. 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.
And if you're thinking to yourself, oh, no, no, Michael, no, no, my advice is magnificent, well, I'd encourage you to go watch all those TED videos on cognitive biases. They will explain just how bad your advice normally is. particularly if you think you give good advice. But those first two are just you kind of wasting people's time and life and resources and money. So, you know, no big deal.
The third issue about giving advice cuts a little deeper, and it 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 confidence 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, you know, and 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, yeah, Michael, point well made. We get this. I get it. I understand. Yeah, fair enough. And I know you do get it. It's straightforward. You get this. In theory.
In practice, 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. 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 as 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.
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Chapter 4: How do the personas of the advice monster affect us?
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. Controller 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 Controller?
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 little talk about the power of empathy and compassion and vulnerability, and then I thought to myself, Brene Brown, Oh, oh, the Dalai Lama. Oh, oh, Jesus. Okay, I think this ground's been pretty much covered. So...
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. 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 wished I'd asked Shannon when we were in that cafe together. The first question is this. What's the real challenge here for you? What's the real challenge here for you? It's a 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 AWE. It's literally an awesome question.
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Chapter 5: How can you tame your advice monster?
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.
So before I give you the third question, which I think you're going to like, let me just show you how these two questions can play really well together. So we're going to do something live right here with us. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to 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, 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 you can 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're like, okay, 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?
Chapter 6: What questions can help you stay curious?
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. This is lovely. But of course, we're not done yet. I've got 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. Now that you've considered all of that and you've done some thinking, what's the real challenge here for you? Exactly, your head explodes. You're like, oh my God, what happened here?
And for some of you, you're like, wow, this is really, in a minute or less, just open 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'd 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 cafe, 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 a foundation for progress. When you know what you want, you get to step towards that autonomy and that confidence and that confidence that we were talking about before. And when that happens, your advice wants that 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 on to 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.
That was Michael Bunge-Stanier at TEDx University of Nevada back in 2020. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.
This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsica Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Fasey-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.
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