Beware Your Advice Monster

In hospitality, leaders are often rewarded for being quick with answers. A team member comes to you with a problem. You fix it. Service moves on. Job done. But over time, this approach means people stop thinking for themselves. They stop taking ownership. And you become the person everyone relies on for every decision, every issue, every awkward conversation. And you find yourself away on holiday responding to messages when you should be switching off.

In The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier calls this instinct the “Advice Monster” - the voice in your head desperate to jump in, solve, rescue, and tell people what to do. Advice feels helpful in the moment, but it often creates dependency in the long run.

A coaching approach offers a better alternative.

Coaching on-the-job is not about formal sit-down sessions or asking deep life questions. At its simplest, coaching means asking better questions before giving answers. It works from the belief that most people are capable of finding solutions when given space to think and the right prompts to guide them. So instead of immediately saying: “Here’s what you should do.” try “What do you think might work?”

The goal isn’t to stop giving solutions entirely. It’s to notice when your Advice Monster is taking over and ask one more question before jumping in.

Ask more. Tell less.

You’ll build a team that thinks more clearly, takes greater ownership, and solves problems without needing you at the centre of every decision.