Stay Clear of the Advice Trap.

By Gry Tomte

The first time I came across Michael Bungay Stainer’s book “The Advice Trap” I felt like I’d stepped right into one of those IKEA ball room - where we used to immerse ourselves in little rubber balls - full of winning lottery tickets.

Like I’d been included into some secret sorority of leaders who just magically had their shit together…Leaders who had the answers to top level leadership habits no one else was privy to.

A sorority that only seemed to belong to people who worked at Google or Apple and Twitter….well, maybe not Twitter so much these days…

The premise of the book is simple - stay curious a little longer and rush to advice giving a little slower.

If you didn’t already get the hint - I really do believe that curiosity is a superpower! And this article is all about sharing the reason why with you and ways you can think about staying curious a little longer - and rush to advice giving a little slower.

I’ll share some real leadership situations that you’ll more than likely recognise yourself in (if you’re honest with yourself…)

Why is the ability to stay curious longer a superpower?

There are 3 pretty compelling reasons;

1. You’ll learn more!

2. More freedom for you baby!

3. Your people love their jobs more…

Sound like a good thing? Of course, it does! But how does it actually work?

1. YOU LEARN MORE.

Let’s explore.

A client walks into your clinic with a severe rash on their face.

You, the owner jump to conclusions within 0.2 seconds - after a quick glance in the books, you notice that the client had a treatment with your newest staff member - assuming that the rash is caused by an allergic reaction to a product, or their treatment gone wrong.

“Argh…I should have never let them start treating so soon. I KNEW they didn’t do enough training…. They probably forgot to neutralise”.

But what if the patient had recently been on a trip to the tropics and the rash was actually a symptom of a tropical disease… Ummm…humble pie! Not to mention the unnecessary conflict with the new therapist who by the way had done everything by the book.

How handy would it have been if you just asked more questions and gathered a whole heap of facts before jumping to conclusions.

Now, let’s explore another common scenario:

You’re a manager or owner. You’re having your 1-1 with a usually high performing therapist and you’ve noticed their performance has really dropped the past 2 weeks. Especially rebooking and revenue figures. The books are starting to slow down and you’re on a bit of a frantic war path to figure out what’s going on.

You start off the conversation with “Your rebooking has dropped, and you’ve got big gaps in your column. What is going on with you?? I really need you to start working on your rebooking and retention. You know it’s expensive to run a business and if you can’t contribute, we have to give you less hours”.

The therapist starts welling up and mutters “I try really hard”.

You chalk it up in your mind to the therapist really not trying hard at all - and probably making up a story in your mind that they don’t care about you or your business - and in fact, they probably had a job interview last week when they were sick that day…

You might as well just start looking for a replacement…

What did you actually figure out?

Imagine if:

This particular therapist specialised in 70% of the highest revenue services on the menu. As the interest rates have doubled, a lot of her high performing treatments have dried up. “I’ll book later when things have settled a bit - my mortgage payments have gone through the roof, and I just can’t afford it”.

If you’d taken the time to ask questions you could have found this out, and you could have gone through conversion tactics together - or maybe you could have introduced a treatment with a different time and price point for these clients as an alternative.

If you’d asked more curious questions such as “What do you think is causing the high drop in rebooking’s?” or “What feedback have you been getting from clients?” You might have gotten a much clearer picture of what’s actually going on.

By jumping to conclusions, you not only put unnecessary pressure on the therapist, but also missed an opportunity to address a real problem that was impacting the clinic’s revenue and reputation.

As you can see, it’s important for you as a leader to stay curious and ask questions to gain a deeper understanding of the situation so you make more informed decisions.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “if you don’t ask, you’ll never know”. I don’t have to explain why that phrase is so timeless…

Some questions you might consider asking on a regular basis:

“What do you think?”

“What’s on your mind?”

“What’s your perspective on this?”

“What’s the real challenge here for you?”

“What do you need from me to be successful?”

“What’s one thing we should start doing?”

“What’s one thing we should stop doing?”

“What’s one thing we should keep doing?”

“What did you learn?”

“What’s one thing we should change?”

It’s important to remember that the best questions are open-ended and allow the person to reflect and share their thoughts and feelings.

Your job is to take notes, never dismiss - and create a culture where people feel safe to come to you with solutions and ideas - even if they might feel “stupid”.

2. MORE FREEDOM FOR YOU BABY!

I’m not sure about you but this used to be me to a tee… (see if you recognise yourself):

You’re swamped with tasks to do. You’re running between covering for a sick therapist doing clients, doing bookwork, and the million other things that needs your attention in the day to day running of any business. A staff member walks quickly towards you, and you know that’s coming - “Questions! They need me again” …Ugh, is there anywhere to hide??

So, to get it over with so you can quickly go back to a list longer than your arm, you give them the answer and move on. Feeling kinda smug that you also know the answer and feel like the expert.

Next week (or next day is probably more likely), a similar situation arises and it’s the same thing all over again…

And then you get annoyed. “Why don’t they ever learn?? I gave them an answer so many times! Why do they always need me to do everything?”

We recently did a team day at HÜD and had an external facilitator in (Andrew Leitch, Evolutionary Intelligence) and he highlighted 3 personas we jump to - and between - on a daily basis.

1. The Rescuer: I love feeling needed and feel like I’m a good person when I do. I feel in control - that I’m the expert - and I like to “rescue” people from making a mistake or wasting time. It’s also a great side effect that it gets done how I like it…

2. The Persecutor: “Gawwwwd, why can’t they do it themselves??” They really need to get better at problem solving because I can’t always be here to help them” “They really are just lazy and don’t bother finding the solutions themselves” …

3. The Victim: “Poor me. I’m always so busy and everyone always need me. I have to do it ALL - otherwise it never gets done the way I like it. I just never have any time. It all falls on me to solve every problem in this place!” cont’ over page

Recognise any of these?

Ps! It’s a trick question - we ALL do it. The only thing that differs is which one you spend most of your time adopting and the scenarios.

And we tend to go through the whole cycle one after the other.

Rescuer: I’ll book the team in a special team dinner so we can build a better team environment. I haven’t asked them but who wouldn’t want a team dinner right!

Persecutor: I can’t believe they haven’t got back to me with dates they’re available! How ungrateful! I’m trying to do something nice, and they can’t even take the time to let me know!

Victim: Poor me. Nobody cares about me or this place. They’re selfish.

Turns out you never asked them what THEY prefer, and they would actually prefer to do a morning coffee once a week instead. Because everyone has plans and although they love spending time together, they do it daily anyways.

Had you stayed curious a little longer and asked more questions about what they would prefer you may have had a completely different outcome. Not to mention it would have saved you a lot of time in that rabbit hole!

Ps! I did this one year when I booked a real fine dining restaurant for the team Christmas part dinner - turns out fois gras and beef tartare wasn’t their thing, and they’d much rather have a more laid-back dinner at a pub!

When I realised, I wanted to step away from running the day-to-day operations of my 3-story clinic there was one thing that was glaringly obvious; I had to give up control and let someone else make decisions.

I could no longer the “rescuer” of all my team.

So, I made myself a daily commitment. For the next 3 months I would commit to every time someone asked me a question, to ask a question back.

I made a list of questions that were my go-to, and I picked the ones which were applicable.

For example, if someone asked me: “how should I tackle this skin condition?”

I would reply with “what are you thinking so far?” instead of giving them the answer (which of course I could in 5 seconds).

And then a follow-up question: “great, so what would happen if you did that?” Or “what would be another thing you could try?”

Sometimes, when they came to me with a question I’d even sometimes say “I can’t wait to find out the answer!” And smile…

As time went on and this habit was ingrained in me, the magic started to happen. People felt more and more confident in finding their

They asked me less questions. And several hours a week was freed up for me to tackle more important things. And I didn’t have to go through the whole cycle from rescuer to victim. Cos let me tell you, that’s no fun.

When leaders ask questions, they empower their team members to share their thoughts and ideas, which can lead to increased engagement, creativity, and ownership among team members.

I don’t know about you, but could you think of anything worse than having your autonomy taken away from you?

If Covid and lockdowns have taught us one thing it is that having autonomy and owning your own decisions is vastly underrated.

Your team feels the same way.

The people you lead want to feel a part of the solution. Answer their own questions. Learning how to find the answers. They want to know that they can overcome their own challenges. And that if they do need help, they can come to you for it - but they’re expected to have thought about the solution first.

I recently listened to a leadership podcast and the statistic was that one of the number one reasons people leave their jobs is lack of autonomy and not being challenged enough.

If you think about it, it makes sense, right? How good does it feel when you’ve been able to overcome a challenge you didn’t think you could?

Giving people the answers - or rushing to advice giving - is taking away the power of your team being able to overcome a challenge. And it’s robbing them of the ability to feel the winning feeling associated with conquering it.

So, stay curious a little longer. Coach your people rather than tell them.

I promise, your pay off will be bigger than you thought possible!

WHO IS GRY?

Gry Tømte is the Norwegian founder behind the multi award winning skin clinic HÜD, and most recently, The Profit + Purpose Concept - a unique mentoring initiative to help the beauty industry become more purpose driven and people focused whilst still - or rather therefore - optimising profit.

Gry founded HÜD in 2014 with zero business or leadership experience, but with plenty of passion for changing people’s lives by changing their skin.

The transition from being a hands-on therapist to business owner and leader was a steep learning curve.

Somewhere in the middle, after a fast growth spurt and a subsequent near full team walk out, she realised it wasn’t enough for a business simply to make a profit at the cost of the culture.

HÜD is today one of the top clinics in Australia; famous for its purpose driven business model, incredible results, a leading team culture and multiple accolades.

They’ve taken home ABIA Australian Team of the Year, Australian Clinic of the Year, Victorian Clinic of the Year and DMK Clinic of the Year several years in a row.

Gry is now sharing her secrets to her people first, multi 7 figure business success with both international and Australian audiences via 1-1 mentoring and coaching, in the pursuit of making the beauty industry one of the most fulfilling industries to both work in and own a business.

Gry also writes regular magazine features for both business journals and beauty industry magazines.

W: linktr.ee/grytomte

I: @grytomte

E: gry@hud.com.au