Advice

In How to Change, Dr. Katy Milkman tells us:

“Lauren began to suspect that this failure to act wasn’t related to a lack of knowledge, but rather to self-doubt—what the legendary Stanford psychologist Al Bandura has called “a lack of self-efficacy.” Self-efficacy is a person’s confidence in their ability to control their own behavior, motivation, and social circumstances… problem: goal strivers are sometimes plagued by insecurity. In fact, a lack of self-efficacy can prevent us from setting goals in the first place.”

“Too often, we assume that the obstacle to change in others is ignorance, and so we offer advice to mend that gap. But what if the problem isn’t ignorance but confidence—and our unsolicited wisdom isn’t making things better but worse?”

“Prompting goal seekers to offer advice led them to feel more motivated than when they were given the very same caliber of advice… The students who had given just a few minutes of advice performed better in these classes than other students… The more Lauren reflected on her research on the power of advice giving, the more it made sense. She recognized that being asked to give advice conveyed to people that more was expected of them, boosting their confidence… In psychology, there’s something called the “saying-is-believing effect.” Thanks to cognitive dissonance, after you say something to someone else, you’re more likely to believe it yourself.”

“If you’re a manager, it might seem counterintuitive to place underperforming employees into mentoring roles. But it could boost their lagging performance.”

“Consider forming advice clubs with friends or colleagues attempting to achieve similar goals or consider becoming a mentor to someone. By giving (solicited) feedback to others, you can boost your confidence and unearth helpful ideas for making progress in your own life.”

I don’t know about you, but I tend to want to give advice, which is fine when solicited. After learning about this research, I plan to dial back my unsolicited advice and consider asking others for more.