Nobody Asked for Your Opinion

Every time you offer unsolicited advice, you're telling the other person: I know your situation better than you do.

You don't. And they know you don't.

Yet we do it constantly. A colleague mentions a problem and before they've finished the sentence, we're already formulating our solution. A friend shares a frustration and we leap to fix mode. A direct report brings up a challenge and we download our entire playbook on them.

We think we're helping. We're not. We're satisfying our own need to be useful, to be the expert, to feel valued. And in the process, we're shutting down the very conversation that could have led somewhere meaningful.

David and the car

My friend David called me about a disagreement he had with his wife about finances. She wanted to buy a new car. He wasn't comfortable adding another loan. After some argument, they were at an impasse.

I wanted to step in and give advice. Every fiber of my consulting brain was screaming solutions. But David stopped me.

"I'm not expecting you to fix the problem," he said.

"But why not?" I asked.

"I want you to listen."

Those four words — "I want you to listen" — were a better lesson in influence than anything I'd learned in 25 years of consulting.

"Tell me more," I blurted out. And then something happened that wouldn't have happened if I'd jumped to solutions: he started to open up about what was really going on.

He wasn't against a new car — the current one was getting old. He didn't like the amount of debt his family was already carrying. Plus, he wanted to take his family on a nice vacation. He wasn't sure how to bring this up with his wife again.

Then suddenly, he started laughing.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"A few months ago, she talked about a vacation. She didn't seem happy because we haven't taken one in over three years. But it sounds like what she really wanted was to buy a new car to use for a driving vacation — the kind she used to do growing up. I got caught up in the argument over the car, but what she really wants is for us to go on a vacation together. It's not about the car at all."

After an hour of talking, David could see what was really going on. He decided to talk to his wife about taking a vacation first, and they could discuss the car once they had an agreement about the trip. He called me back in a week to let me know it worked.

None of that would have happened if I'd given him my advice.

The uncomfortable truth about giving advice

When you give advice without being asked, three things happen — and none of them are good:

You signal that you're not listening. The person hasn't finished explaining, and you're already solving. They feel unheard, which is usually the opposite of what they need.

You rob them of their own insight. David figured out the real issue on his own — the vacation, not the car. If I'd jumped in with financial planning advice, he'd never have made that connection. The best solutions come from the person living the problem, not the person observing it.

You make it about you. Your advice comes from your experience, your assumptions, your worldview. The moment you start advising, the conversation shifts from their problem to your expertise. That feels good for you. It does nothing for them.

What to do instead

When someone comes to you with a problem, ask one question first: "Are you looking for advice, or do you want me to listen?"

If they want advice, great — give it. But most of the time, people want to be heard first. And when they feel heard, they often solve their own problems better than you ever could.

If you're not sure, default to: "Tell me more."

Three words. No expertise required. No solution necessary. Just genuine curiosity about what the other person is actually going through.

That's not passivity. That's the hardest form of influence there is — the discipline to shut up and trust that the person in front of you has more answers than you do.

Try it this week. The next time someone brings you a problem, resist the urge to solve it. Ask "tell me more" and see what happens.

You might be surprised by what you learn — about them, and about yourself.