The question you help someone write down may matter more than the advice you offer afterward.

Advice lands on a problem someone else has already framed, and the framing is usually where the trouble lives. Helping a person put their situation into one clear question does more work than any answer you could offer, because it separates what they actually want from the noise around it. Often the question, once written, answers itself in front of you both.

When someone comes to you stuck, resist the first solution that occurs to you. Ask what they are really trying to decide, and keep asking until they can say it in a sentence. Then offer your view, if it is still needed.