Five disciplines that make the difference between a useful conversation and an expensive opinion.
Context before content. Seek first to understand. Offer an off-the-shelf solution to a problem you have not understood and you are selling, not advising.
Root causes, not symptoms. Do not get distracted by the symptoms. Understand what caused the problem, or you will fix the same thing repeatedly.
Accountability. Giving advice does not create action. Ask where and when accountability sits, and follow up — an idea nobody owns is a conversation, not a change.
Empower others rather than creating dependency. The measure of good advice is that they need you less for that thing next time. Advice that makes you indispensable is a business model, not a service.
Synergise. One plus one equals three. The combination of both parties' thinking beats the better of the two on their own — which is the argument for asking rather than telling.
The dependency point is the uncomfortable one, because dependency is profitable in the short run and corrosive over any longer period.