Seeking advice in startups – a framework built on mastery and method

Seeking advice in startups – a framework built on mastery and method(nuances.substack.com)

51 points by tmatthewj 4 years ago | 10 comments

kfarr 4 years ago |

This is excellent advice (am I being too prescriptive?). Don't be fooled by the simplicity of this post, it's very easy to get lost in personalities and other red herrings but an expert who is willing to take the time to reflect on a problem with you is rare and golden.

tmatthewj 4 years ago | |

Agree with you. Very few expert advisors can fight the urge to impose their solutions (prescribe), and give time to reflect on the problem with you.

tmatthewj 4 years ago |

This is built on the notion of wicked environment defined by psychologist Robin Hogarth, and which was popularised by David Epstein in his book Range.

tibbetts 4 years ago |

I would tend to flip the value of reflective novices and prescriptive masters. Or rather, I’m often successful with advice from reflective people who have minimal mastery. Like, I’ll take reflective advice from an entrepreneur who has only ever sold one company over prescriptive advice from a banker who has sold dozens. In particular, the prescriptive advisor often not only makes flawed assumptions about your situation, but also about your goals. Someone who is good at reflective advice can be good at it even in unfamiliar situations.

I try to be a reflective advisor, and it’s interesting how often people coming to me for advice want prescriptive and push in that direction. In fact this article just made me realize i mad that mistake just last week, giving prescriptive advice without really understanding the situation, because they leaned on areas where I identify as having deep expertise.

tmatthewj 4 years ago | |

I hear your rationale to flip the rating for novice-reflective and expert-prescriptive advisors. In fact that’s how I started putting the framework together.

However after talking to a few founders and reflecting on my own experiences I felt there is more value in having an expert in the domain - considering the benefit of contextual stories you get to hear from them on how they handled similar situations. I just feel the merit of this experience though from a prescriptive advisor wins narrowly over the merits of being with a novice advisor even if the person has a reflective method. But I can imagine situations that warrant a scoring like what you suggested. I just hope people who read this note can try and be aware of these aspects to enrich their intuition when choosing advisors.

the_arun 4 years ago |

Do these prescriptive advisors know what they are doing wrong and improve their style? OR do they often think they are doing great?

tmatthewj 4 years ago | |

I think one way for them to realise is through situations that put them in a position to seek advice and when prescriptive advice goes wrong for them. This need not be in startups but in any wicked environment. I think that could force many prescriptive advisors to reflect on what they dole out in the form of advice.

saleheen 4 years ago |

Great advice. Thanks for sharing

tmatthewj 4 years ago | |

Glad you liked it.

loneranger_11x 4 years ago |

tl;dr: order by mastery desc, method desc - when looking for advisors