Bosses who seek advice are not showing weakness - Sunday Times

If you’re in charge, surround yourself with people who feel able to challenge you, and thicken your skin so that you’re ready to be challenged.

I recently met a friend, a successful chief executive struggling with a familiar dilemma. He wants to ask for some advice from his boss, who founded the company, but fears that doing so will make him look weak. I told him the opposite will happen. He’ll feel more empowered and his boss more valued. That applies to every level of a business, not just a great CEO and chair relationship, because advice strengthens you — both those seeking and giving it.

When direct-report CEOs or entrepreneurs ask me for advice, I’m flattered and only too happy to offer it — perhaps partly due to past mistakes. My first chairman, Lindsay Bury, once described me as “an entrepreneur of genius”. Incredibly kind but inaccurate, because when I most needed his advice and that of the South Staffordshire Water board, I didn’t seek it and nor was it given. HomeServe, then part of South Staffs, was growing so rapidly that everyone thought I had the golden touch. So, no one stopped me from acquiring two ill-fitting companies that were far removed from our core purpose, even though the non-execs knew they were not the right acquisitions to make. The new assets failed to deliver, I ate humble pie for thinking I knew it all, and never again made crucial decisions without first seeking advice. Even today, if I have a new idea, I seek out a range of experts for their opinions.

Entrepreneurs who become CEOs are often conflicted by two competing urges: a fierce determination to make stuff happen, while calmly seeking counsel from the wise heads they’re surrounded with. Too often in my early days, I made up my mind before meeting a board I worried might block me.

Seeking advice was not the natural instinct that it is now. If it had been, I’m convinced the business would have grown faster with fewer mistakes.

It’s what defines a top leader: an insatiable curiosity and authentic humility that means they’ll seek guidance from others. Collegiate and empathetic, they’re rarely seduced by their own self-confidence. I suspect one of the reasons that Greggs is performing so well is because of the advice-based relationship between chair Matt Davies and CEO Roisin Currie. When both help each other, the whole business benefits.

When someone comes to me with an issue, I apply that problem to my own lessons, knowledge and experience. I try to guide the conversation by asking the sort of questions a coach would. “Why do you think that, what are you trying to achieve, what are the full range of options?” Sometimes the most basic questions elicit the most powerful solutions. Set out the choices but don’t force an opinion. Just as important as what you advise is how you advise.

When seeking it, remember that advice is very different from feedback, which is essentially seeking validation for something you’re already convinced about. Advice should be far more constructive and derived from a wide circle of people. Also, try to seek advice from a position of strength, rather than when trouble is brewing. That way it can focus on future opportunities rather than past problems.

Have a concrete plan you want to seek advice about. If you’re the kind of leader who walks into a meeting asking: “So what do you all think we should do?” without having suggested something yourself, I don’t hold out much hope for your prospects. In terms of the CEO and board, remember the latter is there to clarify your ideas and sharpen your thinking, or guide you through a spot of bother, so be as open as possible about what it is you want.

Surround yourself with people who feel able to challenge you, and thicken your skin so you’re ready to be challenged. Don’t stack the deck with those who think like you or have the same backgrounds. Very often, the best advice comes from people who see things differently to you, who have alternative experiences. That is the value of diversity.

If you’re a new CEO, balance your natural confidence with a more collegiate approach. Spend your first 30 days talking to people, seeking guidance from customers, suppliers, colleagues … anyone with a point of view. Then spend the next 60 days devising a strategy you can persuade everyone to back and that you are confident will work. But if things don’t go to plan, have the humility to admit you were wrong — and change things.

It’s not a sign of weakness to change course because of advice or negative test results. If you’re willing and able to pivot when facing new realities, you’re someone the business needs. There are plenty of disasters — Kodak, Nokia, Yellow Pages — where leadership was so overly confident that no one felt able to make a challenge or invite one in order to evolve those business models.

Leave your ego at the door. Sometimes we’re so convinced of our rightness that we view the exchange of advice as a kind of competition that we must win. The more we fight or discount that advice, the greater the tension and trust deficit between you and close colleagues who will feel they’re not being heard or listened to. And don’t always look to the most senior people.

The great joy of today’s trend for reverse mentorship is finding wisdom from younger generations and junior managers with experiences that are just as valuable as your own. And these lessons can apply to you as a manager at any level of your organisation, not just CEOs.

Giving advice is a form of soft influence: you’re helping to get decisions made while empowering people to make those decisions. It’s a skill every leader should be working on. Equally, leaders need to learn the art of receiving advice with patience, self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

Success isn’t simply about hitting targets and maximising growth. It’s about learning — and the best way to do that is to ask for others’ advice. It makes people feel good, makes you look good and ensures that business is good.

Richard Harpin is founder and chairman of HomeServe and Growth Partner, and owner of Business Leader magazine