Ask Before You Tell
What do you think? Always ask before I tell.
Before offering your solution, ask the other person: "What have you already considered?" or "What do you think we should do?" Listen to their full answer. Then build on it — incorporating their thinking into your response. If their solution is good enough, use it instead of yours.
Someone brings you a problem and you feel the pull to immediately offer your answer.
The situation is genuinely urgent and the person needs a directive, not a coaching moment.
Why it works
People commit to solutions they helped shape. Asking first surfaces thinking you might miss, builds ownership, and often produces better answers than yours — because they're closer to the problem.
The instinct to answer immediately feels efficient, but it costs you in three ways. First, you miss information — the person closest to the problem often has better context than you. Second, you kill ownership — when you provide the answer, they execute your plan instead of their own, reducing commitment. Third, you train dependency — every time you solve their problem, they bring the next one straight to you instead of thinking first. Asking reverses all three: better information, stronger buy-in, and a team that develops its own judgment. Leaders who do this well ask more questions than they give answers.