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MANY HUMBLEDOLLAR readers are the financial experts that friends and family members rely on. But how can you best help those around you? Below is an edited excerpt from the 10th anniversary edition of “A More Beautiful Question.”
We all like to give advice—it feels good. “When you’re giving advice, you’re in control of the conversation,” notes the author and executive coach Michael Bungay Stanier. “You’re the one with the answers.”
But people who are experts at using questions to build rapport will tell you: resist the urge to dole out advice. You may be trying to be helpful. But the truth is, people’s advice often isn’t as good as they think it is.
The advice giver may not know enough about what’s going on in a situation—the history, the context—and may be trying to solve a problem that isn’t the real problem. And advice givers have their own biases, experiences and beliefs about how to deal with a given situation—which means the advice might make sense for them, but not necessarily for the recipients.
What’s the alternative? Rather than handing people what you think is “the answer,” it’s preferable to help them find their own answer—and one way to do that is through a combination of listening and asking questions that gently probe and guide. The model for this type of interaction is used by many therapists, life coaches, consultants and more thoughtful financial planners. Good therapists, in particular, don’t tell you what to do. Instead, they lead you on a path to figuring it out for yourself.
If you can help folks to think about a problem more clearly and gently guide them in the direction of possible solutions, you’re leaving room for them to arrive at their own insights and make their own decisions, so that they have more “ownership” of potential solutions. Think about it: Which portfolio are investors more likely to stick with during a bear market, the one they picked themselves—or the one they were told they ought to buy?
What follows is an example of how to gently guide others, as shared by Hal Mayer, executive pastor and leadership trainer at the Springs Church in Ocala, Florida. Mayer was coaching a woman who needed to attract more volunteers to help in her parish. He started by asking her what she hoped to achieve. Her goal: attracting 10 new volunteers.
Mayer next asked, “What have you tried?” She mentioned past efforts to recruit volunteers that hadn’t worked. He then asked this question: “If you could try anything and money was not an object, what would you do to find new volunteers?”
The woman came up with the idea of offering people $100 to volunteer. Mayer made note of that and asked, “And what else?” With each subsequent idea she shared, he followed up by asking for another idea, and then another.
By the way, “and what else”—the AWE question, as Bungay Stanier calls it—is one of the simplest and most effective follow-up questions you can ask. It nudges people to go beyond top-of-mind answers and elicits more, and usually better, ideas and insights. It encourages the process of “thinking out loud” about a challenging subject.
After drawing out a few ideas and jotting them down, Mayer then showed the list to the woman and asked: “Which one of these most interests you—which one would you like to discuss further?” She chose an idea about setting up a lemonade stand at which kids could hand out applications to volunteer.
Mayer then asked several practical questions about that idea: “How would you set it up? What would you need to get started? What problems might get in the way of this idea? What are the first steps you can take, right away?” By the time he was finished with the conversation—which took less than 20 minutes—the woman had a plan of action and was ready to begin in a few days.
As Mayer points out, he didn’t pass judgment on any of her ideas or try to tell her how to proceed. “All I did,” he says, “was ask her questions to help her draw focus.”
While Mayer’s conversation was about finding volunteers, it’s easy to imagine a similar line of questioning if you were talking to a friend about getting out of debt, finding more money to save each month or getting his or her financial affairs organized.
One of the important things Mayer did midway through the conversation was to solicit multiple ideas using the AWE question. The favorite idea, about the lemonade stand, wasn’t the first or even the second idea mentioned by the woman. It had to be drawn out with follow-up questioning.
The approach Mayer took here is similar to an established technique used by psychologists called “motivational interviewing.” It was initially used to help people struggling with alcohol abuse. Today, psychologists use variations of it to help patients deal with all kinds of issues. The technique is based around asking open-ended questions to identify why and how someone might wish to make a difficult change in his or her life.
Then, the questioner uses “reflective listening” (similar to paraphrasing) to move the conversation forward, clarify the person’s thoughts, and provide affirmation. It ends with summarizing the conversation and asking about possible next steps the person could take to begin to make actual changes.
You don’t have to be a psychologist to use motivational interviewing. William R. Miller, one of the pioneers of the practice and co-author of the book Motivational Interviewing, offers a simplified version you can try with a friend, family member or co-worker. If folks you know are considering making a change in their life—perhaps buying a larger home, purchasing a vacation property or changing jobs—try asking the questions below and “just listen carefully to their answers,” Miller says.
“Listen well without interrupting or giving any opinion or advice,” Miller says. “Then give the person a summary of what they said. Finally, ask, ‘So what do you think you’ll do?’ And again, just listen.”
Motivational interviewing has proven very successful over the years—and the key to its success may come down to one basic concept, an idea expressed several centuries ago by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal: “People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”
Warren Berger is the author of a handful of books, including the bestseller “A More Beautiful Question.” His wife Laura E. Kelly also writes occasionally for HumbleDollar. They live in Mount Kisco, New York.
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My biggest issue has been dealing with a friend who has enthusiastically plunged into several investments and purchases, mindless of the terrible misfortune he’s about to endure, despite my laying out the facts. How does one avert another persons passion to commit to something toxic when there isn’t time for a long series of passive questions?
When I was employed by a wonderful organization, Nurse Family Partnership, Motivational Interviewing was the bedrock of our program to help first-time mothers. The nurses were trained in this technique, then had follow up training. I’ve kept the book, Motivational Interviewing for Health Change Behavior and have read it several times. I use the techniques in my daily life and appreciate your summary. Thanks, Warren for your concise description.
interesting article
AWE – similar to 5W & 1H (Who, What, Where, When, Why & How)
“free advice” is usually worth what you paid for it
One reason I avoid giving advice is similar to –> If I help someone with a computer issue it results in me getting blamed/responsible for every unrelated issue for years.
I’d like to hear ideas about how to do this kind of problem-solving with elders. My 103-year-old mother is mentally sharp but has been scammed twice. She almost gave a “US Treasury official” $32k in cash. I’ve taken steps to protect her while leaving her a sense of financial independence – but am I doing everything I should?
This was very interesting. I think I’ve experienced this in a different form. I spent several years with a psychologist, discussing my depression over the breakup of my first marriage. She (the psychologist) never once told me what to do. She asked a ton of questions that resulted in discussions rather than yes or no responses. It was those discussions, and the thoughts provoked by them, that directed my future.
Psychologists tend to use questions very effectively. What’s interesting to me is that we can all borrow techniques from them — though I do think one has to be careful not to end up sounding like you’re imitating a therapist!
Warren thanks for an interesting article. Often people ask me specific, possibly technical, questions. After some discussions I find there is a deeper question that they are trying to formulate and answer. They limit the question because they don’t want to “take up too much of my time”, or “bother” me. But many questions needs context, and more information. It would be interesting to try to tailor a set of motivational interviewing questions around a complicated question like “What is the best age to claim Social Security?”.
Absolutely, I think that would be a great exercise to try.
While totally untrained in this area, this seems an extension of the Socratic method which I first learned about and long used in coaching activities. I later applied this in the workplace, but I’m sure my kids will attest I didn’t use it enough in parenting. If only we all learned at an early age that ‘asking’ always wins over ‘telling’.
Yes, there is definitely some Socratic influence in this approach. We’re all still learning from Socrates!
That’s what I was thinking
Warren, I’m definitely an advice-giver. It fits with my profession and my personality. But I know I’m most effective at helping others when I resist the urge to offer a quick solution and instead involve the other party in a conversation about finding the answer. Thanks for sharing this excerpt from your book. What spurred your interest to write about this topic?
Edmund, I became interested in questioning years ago, while working as a journalist. I realized that I had not been trained well in question formulation or usage (in my journalism school classes, there wasn’t much specific teaching on this, which seems odd!). I’ve stayed focused on it ever since, and now I call myself a “questionologist!”