By Jack Hoey

Several years ago, my oldest son was about to look for a job for the first time. As we discussed the subject at the dinner table, I offered some helpful advice about how to apply for a job successfully.

He sighed deeply and rolled his eyes at my advice.

My immediate reaction was to think: This kid has never held a job in his life while I’ve been a manager for 20 years. I think I know more about what managers are looking for than he does.

At the same time, his reaction told me I’d been off base. While it’s frustrating to see someone make a mistake that could have been prevented, experience has taught me that it’s usually an even bigger mistake to offer unsolicited advice.

Human beings appear to learn certain things only by experience. I know I learned that fire was hot by reaching out and touching a flame, and this was not for lack of adult voices providing counsel on the consequences.

Almost all children sooner or later develop a strong need to break free of their elders. My son’s impatience with my job-hunting advice may have stemmed less from contempt for the quality of my information than from a desire to be left alone so he could figure things out himself. By trying to provide answers for him, I was robbing him of the magic of discovering things on his own.

For this reason, wise managers allow scope for young employees to learn by making their own mistakes. Obviously you need to set some boundaries to protect both the employee and the organization, but within those boundaries people grow faster, and enjoy themselves more.

On the other hand, in peer-to-peer relationships, lack of trust is the greatest ­barrier to well-meant advice.

When I moved to Chicago some years ago, I had broad experience in a certain type of charitable work. I soon met the leader of a local organization that did that kind of work, and though we became friendly, he kept me at arm’s length professionally. This bothered me, particularly when I saw him make mistakes that I felt I could have helped him avoid.

As I got to know him better, I learned that he had been burned in the past by people whose helpfulness masked a hidden agenda. I realized that he was guarded with me because he wanted to be sure he could trust me, not because he lacked interest in my input.

All of us retain barriers of one kind or another to protect parts of our lives from people we’re not sure we can trust. Advice at the right time and in the right place is golden, but even the best advice at the wrong time is wasted. And if forcing unwanted advice on someone causes enough offense or triggers questions about your motives, it may damage the relationship permanently.

What it takes for good advice to be useful goes far beyond the advice itself. It takes the kind of relationship that enables people to seek help without fear of exposure or of being judged.

For what you say to be useful, you must first be a good listener. You must understand not only the problem itself, but the context in which the other person views the problem, and the context in which he views you. You must be able to listen without any need to advise if that’s not what the other person needs. But if you show yourself to be understanding, he may open the door for you to share your thoughts about his dilemma.

Never give advice unless someone asks for it. But if you seek to be the kind of person that someone would want to ask, you’ll have many opportunities to be helpful.

Jack Hoey is president of Coastal Glass Distributors, a leading glass fabricator based in North Charleston. He can be reached at jhoey@coastalglassdist.com.

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