Nothing wrong with that, it's just that my mind immediately jumps to potential solutions.
But I was severely humbled on that front after I have allowed a super dark period in my life (7-8 years, still ongoing but is now being actively attacked and positive signs are starting to get visible). I began to understand that there are also situations where you can't do almost anything but you still need a kind word.
So I started giving that and only vaguely hinting at the potential of an advice (so subtle that most people missed it which I am very okay with) and lo and behold, the new people in my life love chatting with me.
We have a saying in our country: "You can't force-feed wisdom and shove it down people's throats like you would do for a sick person who still needs food".
That goes both ways, as many of the people I've run into who just want sympathy, can bring a lot of stress on the listeners. E.g. I can't take hearing complaints about abusive partners, etc so that they feel a little better for the moment, then they march right back to them.
Growing up with a serious complainer caused me to instinctively try and fix issues, and to avoid if you don't want that type of help.
My bigger point was that if you consciously chose to sit or take a walk with that person and if you truly care then you should make sure they feel listened to and understood before giving advice -- if you give advice at all.
This presupposes that you care about that person which I'll immediately agree is not a given for most people you'll ever meet.
If someone is the recipient of that kind of complaining as a kid from a parent, it would also explain some ‘don’t even try that towards me’ reactions.
Plenty of their rural friends listened to the difficulties, wished them the best.
Bring in the MBA + Industrial Engineer, and tell them some advice on processes, economics, and as a bonus, I was an Electrical Engineer for a few years so I had some advice on their oven problem.
What is better? The person that says "You look beautiful", or "You have a piece of fuzz in your hair?"
I think that having experience in the business (or not) is important. I think that sometimes giving advice on an area that one doesn't have experience in can be a weird way to put oneself in a 'one up' position. Kind of a "Look, I don't even do your job, but let me tell you how to do it better" kind of statement.
I'm not saying that this was your intention or your effect but I think it's something engineers are prone to - I know I've done this. Wasn't there even a name for this? Something about "dinner party advice"? If this rings a bell for anyone I'd appreciate the help about this.
Sometimes I've found that if I have experience in the area I can suggest a small change with a substantial benefit (because I've actually done this enough times to know that the advice will actually help, actually) but even there I'd be really hesitant to offer unsolicited advice.
And, as an added bonus, consider that they may have already committed to what they're doing. In which case, even if you're right, you're basically telling them that they've done something wrong - maybe they can fix it (with more effort and/or money) maybe they can't, but that's gotta be an extra burden for them.
It apparently affects physicists too, and must be common enough to warrant two xkcds. [1][2]
0. https://web.archive.org/web/20071226220909/http://www.pcmag.... 1. https://xkcd.com/1831/ 2. https://xkcd.com/793/
It makes them great for advice because they arent going to use emotions or hopes.
But also, in this case, me and my wife are 2 business owners that have been doing it for a decade. This person started a few weeks ago.
If someone just needs the emotional energy to get back into the fight then a compliment is often what is needed.
If someone is about to do something imminently that you see a correctable fault with and they don't then pointing it out is likely correct.
So many people up here thinking there is always 1 exactly right course of action! Why?! Why do so many otherwise smart people fall back to the silliest of binary thinking and heuristics?
I was one of those. I know the answer: I wasn't/I'm not that intelligent. I learnt that being technically right is not as important as I thought (and I also learnt to care less about it specially when I'm surrounded by other technical people).
Only in discussions, whenever you do anything being right is the most important thing as doing the wrong thing is just contra productive, being right saves a massive amount of time and work.
I don’t want to be technically right 100% of the time (it’s hard for me because of my background, I tend to think in analytical terms first, and in humane terms second). Obviously this doesn’t apply to every scenario, but I think the audience gets the idea: there are people out there (me in the past) that go 100% of the time the “technically right” way, no matter what and you cannot convince them of doing the opposite because they can prove it to you that they are “right”
Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes doing it the way people expect will be better for future maintenance. Sometimes doing it the way that makes your boss look good will be better for you. All interesting decisions are close and uncertain.
What implied it was binary?
I think that is your own thoughts.
> What is better? The person that says "You look beautiful", or "You have a piece of fuzz in your hair?"
It's like coming onto a new team as a junior software dev thinking you'll introduce whatever hot new build tool or refactor the code that sucks that someone wrote 15 years ago, and then getting fired because you're clueless.
My wife basically never gives people feedback unless its positive. She is a people pleaser, popular, all that stuff. No one asks her for advice.
I am much more controversial. I have to ignore emails and text messages of people asking for advice because it happens too much. (I'm busy with my own life, the people asking for advice are low-mid tier and wont follow it, people are asking for my expertise for free)
I've actually hired other people to be a second brain because my wife cannot give negative feedback.
I had some screening questions.
I think advice is an important part of a community and a support network, and am exceedingly grateful to those who have offered it to me.
In many ways it was similar to rubber duck debugging, as the goal seemed to be to facilitate the person being counseled on finding the solution on their own by seeing the problem with fresh eyes.
If you're struggling with a problem, do you usually need someone to act smarter than you or tell you to be quiet?
Step 0 I think should be "maybe don't give advice". You want to help, you think you're really good, you think it will improve things, but that's not how other people see it. They may seem like they need advice or seem like they are asking for it between the lines, but they just really want to unload or chit chat, or share some difficulty. The answer to that is sometimes to listen and not give advice.
Yes, if someone asks for it, and they seem like they really are interested in it, by all means, give it to them. But in many cases, spraying advice around can be frustrating for both the givers and the (often unwilling) receivers of it.