Throughout your work life, you get tons of advice and suggestions. It comes from mentors — people you do not work for but who care about your career, from your boss, others up your reporting chain, and your colleagues.
We all cope with life’s problems in different ways. Adaption strategies consider how we respond under adverse conditions to deal with difficult emotionally challenging situations. One of the behavioural traits we measure as part of the adaption strategies is “sensitivity to criticism.” Like golf, a low score is excellent!
Our 85 behavioural traits combine to create 26 competencies. One of the competencies that enhances personal success is “Manages Stress”. We define it as “Performing well under stress without unnecessary worry or sensitivity to criticism.”
Advice and Suggestions Are A Gift, Not A Distraction
Assume someone has given you a gift—a package wrapped in a big bow with your name on it. You feel appreciated that someone cared enough to provide you with a gift. Treat advice and suggestions in the same manner—as a gift.
I have previously provided insight that lucky people stroll along with their eyes wide open. The more attentive you are to your surroundings, the more likely you are to capture a valuable resource or avoid tragedy. Lucky people do not magically attract new opportunities and good fortune. They wander along with their eyes wide open, entirely present in the moment. This awareness means that anything that affects your physical or emotional ability to take in your environment also affects your so-called “luckiness.” Anxiety is an example. Anxiety physically and emotionally closes you off to chance opportunities.
Then think of how a person would feel if you ignore their gift and toss it aside. They think the same when you ignore their advice.
Everyone Likes to Offer Advice and Suggestions
Think of advisors in four categories:
- Platinum Advisor—People who have extracted some best practices and wisdom from patterns. They offer you shortcuts to the insights they have taken years to learn.
- Gold Advisor—People who have pattern-recognition skills. They recognize the project you are working on, or the problem you are trying to solve. They think you may be helped by connecting with a specific person or group or by listening to how it was previously addressed.
- Silver Advisor—People who have a set of contacts or insights that they are willing to share with you because they believe these might be useful to you.
- Bronze Advisor—People who offer advice and suggestions because it makes them feel important.
Remember, anyone who offers advice to help you should be a medal winner in your eyes.
David Garvin and Joshua Margolis offer, “Because these essential skills [giving and receiving advice] are assumed to emerge organically, they're rarely taught, but we’ve found that they can be learned and applied to great effect. So, we’ve drawn on extensive research (ours and others’) to identify the most common obstacles and some practical guidelines for getting past them. Though heavily disguised, the examples in this article are based on interviewees’ real experiences in a range of settings. Of course, advice takes different forms in different circumstances. Coaching and mentoring are covered extensively elsewhere, so here we focus on situations that involve significant, risky, or emotionally charged decisions—those in which you might consult with someone multiple times—because leaders struggle with such decisions and must learn to handle them well.”
Do Not Take It Personally
Constructive criticism is not an insult. Nor is it a reflection on who you are as a person. It is someone’s observations about his or her interactions with you in a business context. Whether the person is well-meaning or just being mean-spirited does not matter. Respond respectfully as though your critic's intentions are good and come from a place of gratitude for the information.
Advisers often frame their guidance as “how I would respond if I were in your shoes.” Most of us find this approach off-putting and ineffective. We feel that the advice giver is not thinking about how we feel, perceive the situation, and understand our choices ahead. It is not the kind of insight that leads to our empathic understanding and useful recommendations. Advisers share personal stories and experiences that fail the “do-ability test.” They do not accord with the level of power, negotiating skill, organizational savvy, or situational constraints.
Dig deep to sort through the noise to find the gem that can be useful to you. It was generously given, like some gifts you receive, after a while you see a use for it. After all, you are smart and savvy enough to determine how valid the feedback is and what to do about it.
Start with Thank You
When you receive a gift—you say thank you even before you open it. You are thanking them for caring enough to make an effort to give you a gift. Advice is the same. Like gifts, rarely are they an item that you would have bought for yourself. However, sometimes the offering may be precisely what you need. It is hard to know whether advice and suggestions are valuable enough to spend time following up, so at least say thank you.
Here are a few examples of quick email—
Thank you for your advice on how I could improve _______. It is apparent that you have thought a lot about it, and I would like to talk to you about it. I set up an appointment. Thanks again for your feedback. Your advice and suggestions are always welcome.
Thank you for your excellent suggestions about _________. I want you to meet with you to explore in more detail. Such thoughtful advice helps me learn and grow. Please feel free to pass along more suggestions. I will let you know how it works out, thank you again.
Ask for Details
Many people are as uncomfortable giving constructive feedback as they are getting it. Thus they dance around the issue, trying to be as gentle and polite as possible. That is fine for easing into the process of sharing personal opinions. However, you will undoubtedly need more details to get to the heart of the matter. Prove with your words and manner that you are sincerely open to feedback, and people will tell you what you need to know.
Do not be defensive and challenge the validity of the advice. Seek to understand better what information was provided, ask:
- Help me understand why this is important?
- Why should I talk to them?
- What should I learn?
Questions will help you determine which category of advice you are getting. If it is a direct boss and others up your reporting chain, ask:
- How should I focus on this?
- Does it need immediate action?” (And it most cases it does not matter what category it is in, do it.)
Always reconnect whoever offered you the advice or suggestion to share what you learned. Thank them.
Ask for Help
A sure-fire way to show that you are interested in people’s feedback—ask their advice about how you can improve your performance. Say something like, “I’ve been thinking about this myself, and would like to do better in the future. Do you have any suggestions for how I can improve?”
Candidly acknowledge your deficiencies and request advice, you show your strength, and people may well respond with helpful counsel.
If you’re a seeker of advice, don’t hesitate to solicit a second or third opinion—particularly if you remain uncertain. This can offset any biases or conflicts of interest your adviser may have.”— David Garvin and Joshua Margolis
Follow Up
When you are working at full speed trying to get your job done, it is easy to assume that advice and suggestions from others are diversions. That’s a mistake. At times following up on them can boost your career or a relationship—ignoring them may damage a valuable relationship.
The first time you ignore advice and suggestions provided by your . . .
- Boss — He/she will assume you were too busy to follow up.
- Memtor — He/she will assume you were too busy to follow up.
The second time you ignore advice and suggestions provided by your . . .
Boss — He/she will begin to question your judgment
- Mentor — He/she is going to question your willingness to be coached
The third time you ignore advice and suggestions provided by your . . .
- Boss — It is a career-limiting move.
- Mentor — You have damaged or ended the relationship.
Keep Them Posted
When you respect the person who provides you with the constructive criticism, you will consider the advice seriously. You work on improving your performance in that area. Share your progress with the individual who shared the feedback. This shows that you heard his or her concerns and are willing to take steps to improve your performance actively. You can prove this, first, by doing better at whatever was critiqued, but also by updating people on what you’ve done in response to their feedback.
Be A Mirror
If someone shares constructive criticism with you, the person makes themselves vulnerable to criticism. Thus, people are rarely honest about what they think of others. People know they have their faults. However, they may feel exposed having them pointed out. Be a partner in self-improvement by telling others that their feedback is valuable and that you are happy to return the favour.
None of us are perfect. We need other people to advise us when we do not measure up to our potential. Feedback—constructive criticism, negative feedback or whatever you want to call—it is essential to our development. Be an agent of change in this area. You will be rewarded with useful information and better business relations.
Be Open to and Invite Advice and Suggestions
When you open yourself to outside advice, you will find people interested in the long-term development of your career. These folks are your career mentors.
Unlike coaching, there is no specific agenda or goal. The mentor relationships can result in a decades-long dialogue of continual learning. What makes these relationships a mentorship is this: you must give as good as you are getting. While you will be learning from them and their years of experience and expertise; what you need to give back is indispensable. Offer fresh insights into their issues.
If your goal is to be a founder, a network of mentors and advisors will keep you current with technology, markets or trends. They help you to recognize patterns and bring new perspectives that might be the basis for your next startup.
Advice and Suggestions Lead to Wisdom
Wisdom, like fine wine, takes time to age.” – Leon Seltzer, PhD
Your develop and can improve our skills through education, training, professional development, or obtaining coaching and mentoring from someone who understands these skills.
Knowledge is generally factual. You have learned a kind of knowledge, and you know its truth as it applies to a problem. Knowledge gives you a utility; wisdom inspires flexible versatility. It provides a more textured lens for interacting with reality, very much changing how you think.
The distinction between knowing and understanding is what differentiates our talent stack. Wisdom:
- is the art of knowing that you are not wise
- has at least two dimensions
- not only knows, but it also understands.
Can you have wisdom without knowledge?
Wisdom is fluid. You understand that knowledge’s essence. You can see how it relates to everything else, with nuances and contradictions included.
Summing Up
People tend to focus on the content of advice. As advisors, we need to focus as much on how we advise as to what we recommend. It is a mistake to think of information as a one-time transaction. An active advising process is more than the dispensing and accepting of wisdom. It needs to be a creative, collaborative process. It is a matter of striving, on both sides, to better understand problems and craft promising paths forward. This requires an ongoing conversation.
Assume the advice provider is not skilled in the process. However, recognize that their heart is in the right place. As the receiver, doing the above can start a constructive action. As the mentee, you are mentoring your mentor!
Advice and suggestions at work are not distractions that can be ignored. Understand the type of advice and ideas you are getting (noise, contacts, patterns, insights). Understand why the advice is being given. Agree on the priority in following it up.
Not understanding how to respond to advice and suggestions can limit your career.
Advice helps you develop your insights. It leads to wisdom if you are open. It may provide you with a gateway for mentorship. So, always treat advice and suggestions as a gift, not a distraction.
Offering employees career development opportunities is extremely beneficial
We are incredibly passionate about Behavioural DNA and the impact this scientific insight can have on your teams and your business.
Using SuccessFinder, people develop a healthy and deep trust in each other and the team's purpose — they feel free to express feelings and ideas. Everybody is working toward the same goals. Team members are clear on how to work together, how to contribute their unique strengths, and how to accomplish tasks.
Given the changes in the way organizations are operating and the shifting demographic composition of the workforce, offering career development opportunities to employees could be extremely beneficial to employers. Informal and formal learning experiences can provide employees with a more comprehensive skill set and reassurance that their employer recognizes their value. With new knowledge and abilities, employees will be better prepared to handle new technologies and innovations and may be able to contribute to enhancing their organization’s systems and procedures.
