The Advice Process Starts With a Question


By Hans Bool


Obviously, the advice process starts with a question? But who will pose the question. Is it the advisor or the one, let’s say the manager, who is asking for an advice?

First the advisor. This can be nearly anyone; from the official advisor or management consultant to someone in the office, a colleague ... But to trigger the advice process and to open the road to a satisfied advice, the advisor doesn’t necessary have to ask the first question. Of course, the professional advisor would always want to pose questions. This is part of his job. “Which marketing campaign made the sales volume increase most?” Or, “Do you want to increase your sales with ten percent?” Yeah, who wouldn’t, but why would you care? That is the top confusion in the advice process; the advisor wants to solve (question) a topic he dominates best. So (don’t) let him or her ask the first question.

Even if you are not a professional advisor but an experienced colleague, your advice will not easily be accepted if it something that is not asked for at the moment.

During our work we are troubled by an enormous amount of questions and uncertainties. And all these questions could be answered. But answering those costs valuable time and involves some dedication and probably follow-up actions and resources.

From this amount of possible questions you need to select the one that you think is urgent and the right one to focus on. And you -– whether you are a manager or a specialist -– know best which question this is. Than you are free to consult someone, an official advisor and you will be able to control the advice process.

If you do not know the question to ask, you’re not dealing with an advice process, but you are informing. These are quite different areas, which you should keep separated if possible.

© 2006 Hans Bool

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days. You can apply for a free demo account


More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Management Information:

Related Articles

Workplace Security Plan: Does Your Company Have One?
Consultant's Perspective..
25 Great Ways to Find the Right People and Not Break the Bank
Are you trying to hire dozens of hourly workers or a senior executive? Where do you look and how do you get the word out? There are many ways to find the right people besides placing want ads.Here are 30 innovative and inexpensive ways to expand the pool of potential applicants.
The Thick Line Between Buddy and Boss
Q: One of my key employees is giving me trouble. He has started showing up late for work and has developed a bad attitude in general.
Morale Boosters: Feed the Troops First
When economic conditions turn tough or when the heavy work load seems never-ending, leaders tend to forget the "basics"-building commitment beyond the paycheck. It's the small things everyday that can bring down morale and it's the small things everyday that can raise performance.
Growing Profits is Easy!
Everyone involved in running a business from the smallest start-up to a major corporate dreams about how to achieve sustained profitable growth. I'm a great believer that business is simple - it's only us human beings that make it complex.
Innovation Management - IBM Opens Lid On Its Treasure Chest
IBM, which registered 3248 patents last year, has decided that sharing technology can sometimes be more profitable than jealously guarding its property rights on patents, copyrights and trade secrets (Herald Tribune, April 11 2005).International Business Machines have come to the above conclusion 205 years after the invention of electric light - thus clearly illustrating that even the 19th largest company in the world (fortune.
Communicating When A Crisis Strikes
How would you handle communication if your business or practice got into a crisis situation?I was pleasantly surprised when my Internet service provider responded competently and quickly to a technical crisis. And, we can learn to communicate more effectively by studying its response.
Dealing with Marginal Performers: The Therapeutic Approach
--PREPARATION: The purpose of the therapeutic approach is to spark an employee toward improved performance through counseling. The manager's goal is to help the employee recognize the existence of a problem, accept the need for change, and formulate his or her own program for improvement.
The Seven Cs: Partnership Danger Signs - The 4th C: Cumulative Money Problems
A series of articles exploring the seven critical areas that can indicate a partnership is in trouble.The 4th C: CUMULATIVE MONEY PROBLEMSConflicts over money are very high on the list of reasons that 70% of business partnerships fail.
4 Tips on How to Avoid Communication Lines Breakdown
For example, in a small, two-person company, there is often the greatest opportunity for direct conversation and discussion throughout the day. There are only two possibilities for verbal communication and it's usually quick, easy and descriptive.
Innovation Management: The Quality and Quantity of the Idea Pool
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation.
The Art of Motivation and Need Fulfillment
Industrial/clinical psychology and applied psychiatry have made tremendous strides in understanding human behavior. New discoveries and applications toward understanding human behavior are being announced with increasing frequency in these inexact sciences.
Leading Bad Actors To Be Good Performers
A successful leader told me, "The biggest challenge I've had in my career is dealing with bad actors. Brent, do you have tips on how to do it?"First, before we can deal with "bad actors", we must define the term bad actors.
Employee Orientation: Get New Hires Off To a Great Start
The good news is that a new hire orientation program offers an opportunity to build a lasting impression of the new company. The bad news is that that is going to happen whether you plan it or not.
25 Super-Practical Steps to Build Your Business!
For the past several weeks, we have focused on some wonderful but (to my way of thinking) rather fancy ideas about life. I wrote about motivation (I don't believe in it).
Hows Your HUB?
Marketing gurus are always coming up with new lingo but oftentimes they are restating the old tried and true concepts in new terms. Marketing students from the 70's and 80's will be familiar with the acronym USP.
1000 Managers Turned Their Plans Into Energy!
I bet you can't tell me how leadership training andstrategic planning work together to boost business resultsand energize performance improvements.A recent survey of 1000 managers conducted by the UK-basedChartered Management Institute, revealed that organizationsexperienced, "improved business performance when [theirleadership] development [programs were] linked to [their]business [strategic planning process].
Communicating with Offsite Workers
How do you, or would you, communicate with employees who work offsite?Perhaps you have telecommuters reporting to you, or sales reps who work out of offices in other cities. How do you communicate with them?Let's start with the strategic issues: what do you want to accomplish by communicating with them? And, why would they want to communicate with you?Strategic means you'll probably want to deal with issues like productivity, accountability, and predictability.
Power of Pinpointing Accountability
I have always said that if I were to write a book on effective management principles, the first chapter in that book would be about the importance of pinpointing responsibility among an owner's or a general manager's reporting units. After all, one of the most popular definitions of management is getting work done through others.
Innovation Management - idea selection, development and commercialisation, what are the differences?
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation.