Yesterday I found myself wondering, “What’s the worst advice I’ve ever given someone?” The answer popped into my head pretty fast. I remembered a few times when my advice, looking back, was more about making fun of so-called ‘good’ advice than actually helping anyone.
Here are a few examples:
- Don’t be afraid to fail.
- Follow your passion!
- Don’t play office politics.
- Pursue that Master’s degree in HR!
- Just keep it to yourself, no one will find out.
See what I’m talking about?! All of the above statements have been shared as good advice, but I tend to think of them as terrible advice.
However, one piece of advice stands out as the worst I’ve ever given:
“Just wait and see what happens…”
I gave this advice to an employee who really wanted a different position within our company. We all knew the current person in that role was about to get promoted. I was new to my HR career and trusted our company’s process, so I told the employee to wait and apply when the position opened up. How naive I was.
The promoted person had his own plan, which didn’t involve our process or the employee I advised. Instead, he planned to put one of his friends in his old position, and everyone seemed to know about this plan—except me. This taught me a big lesson: in HR, you need to know what’s going on behind the scenes and manage expectations early on.
The employee I told to wait felt betrayed and lost trust in me. I couldn’t blame them—I should have known better.
This experience taught me more about HR than almost anything else. As soon as you hear about possible changes, you need to get involved. Waiting to see what happens usually means things will happen without you knowing!
In the end, my bad advice taught me a lot. Being proactive and staying ahead of potential changes is crucial in HR. Waiting to see what happens usually ends up with stuff happening, without you knowing!