Ask for Advice, Not Permission (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Ask for Advice, Not Permission (2015)

boz.com

44 pointsadmp9 comments

>The problem with permission is that you are implicitly asking someone else to take some responsibility for your decision.

That’s a good observation. There are times when permission is truly required, but in most cases asking for advice should be a smart way to at least start the conversation.

Conversely, give advice not permission.

If someone comes to you asking if you’ll be on board with their plan, you can turn it around and say “ultimately you need to make the call on this, but here’s my advise”.

Similarly, when I'm giving advice, I usually phrase it like "if I were doing this, I'd do X" rather than "you should do X", to make it clear I'm just presenting a point of view rather than telling someone what to do.

I'm not crazy about either. Asking advice assumes they know enough to advise. If possible, I want constructive feedback. Maybe they see something I completely missed. But people giving advice often are trying to tell you how to do the whole thing rather than saying "I know nothing about 90 percent of that. But this 10 percent here, I can talk about that for the next hour and you would probably learn a few things."

I’d ask for neither. I’d ask for help instead.

I’d say: “This is what I have done towards goal X. Will you be willing to do that towards the same goal.”

The other approach, which was popular in some parts of Europe during the mid 20th century, is a practice that grew out of various Socialist and Communist movements and which is often given the umbrella term "democratic centralism". That term covers a wide variety of practices, but in places like Germany and Sweden it was understood to consist of "Get everyone together and allow them to argue an idea as fiercely as they can, but then once a decision is made, everyone needs to commit to it and take full responsibility for it."

And that method had various successes, especially in industrial settings.

I had a manager try to do this. After we all argued, he would make the decision of which idea we all had to commit fully to.

This is a great read, even if he did quote Pitbull.

Pitbull, surprisingly enough, seems to be quite the business person. If you'd like evidence of this, and you, like me, think his music is aweful and his voice grating, take a look at how well he's done. He is more of an entertainer by trade, and he has performed in front of some very illustrious bodies, and invested his time in lucrative ventures. He's overcome a lack of musical talent with really good business moves... In some ways it reminds of Taylor Swift, who, going against her public image, seems to be incredibly shrewd and activistic in business matters, and has repeatedly given big tech companies the bird.

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