Rob and I both do some advising, are invited to advise various companies, and lead workshops. The conversation in this episode grew out of self-reflection we’ve both done about our advising, our readiness to be advisors, and what organizations seeking advice should consider when seeking out advisors.
How do we know, how do we check ourselves to know if we’re really prepared to give people advice (in our cases, about product management)? And if you’re looking for advice, what can you do to ensure the advice you get – and the advisor you choose – delivers the results you are hoping for?
Rob suggests a useful concept called the What You Know versus What You Think You Know curve. It will help you assess your own readiness to be an advisor. It’s a graphical way to illustrate the well-known cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
We also discuss a few ways in which experts can be fooled into thinking they have a useful theory about how to achieve some results when perhaps their results came about from another cause.
Three Things You Can Do Today
In our usual “actionable takeaways” section of the podcast we have advice for:
- People considering becoming advisors.
- People who are currently in an advising role.
- For organizations seeking advisors.
(You’ll have to listen to the podcast to get these pointers.)
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:42 — 25.4MB)
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