Carole Robin: evaluation

Transcript context

…There's a few other things I want to touch on that I love. One is a tip that you share. You call it advise hinders relationships. Oh, I'm really glad you asked me about that because two things, a couple of things. First of all, leaders often believe this is another mental model that they have to have all the answers, and that is actually a pretty, it's not a very productive mental model or belief because first of all, puts a huge amount of pressure on the leader. Now suddenly I always have to know and what happens when I don't know. Second of all, I believe a leader's job is to ensure the best answer is found. It doesn't matter whether it comes from me or anywhere else in the organization. It also allows for the possibility that somebody else may have a better answer than me. And a really, really good solution has been squelched and never surfaced because people are afraid to say, well, I see it a little differently. What if we did this? We had a or disaster as a result of that. The other thing about advice is that it creates even bigger power differentials between people. So if you're the leader or you're in the higher power position to start with, then giving me advice is only going to make me feel even lower power as opposed to, well, let's think about this together. Let's be thought partners. Often when we give advice, it's a good thing to stop yourself and ask yourself, "Who am I doing this for? Am I doing this for me so that I can puff myself up with everything I know or am I doing it for you because this is really going to help you and make you better?" Nine times out of 10, being a thought partner as you explore the various options and coming to your own solution is both going to help you develop more, and then you're not going to have to come ask me again if the only time you ever learn is when you come ask me and you don't go through any of the work or figuring out how I got to that answer, well, then I've just made more work for myself. There's this great Harvard Business Review post I just read about monkeys on your back. Have you heard of this?…

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