Don’t “Try It and See” on People: Why casual advice can become an experiment and what ethical, evidence-based guidance looks like

In many professional conversations, the most dangerous phrase isn’t “I don’t know.”It’s: “Just try this - what’s the worst that can happen?”

That sentence sounds supportive. It can even feel empowering. But underneath it, something subtle happens: a person seeking help becomes the testing ground for someone else’s assumptions.

In HR, career coaching, leadership, therapy-adjacent mentoring, consulting, and even managerial feedback, poorly grounded advice often functions like an experiment—except the “data” is a real person’s time, confidence, reputation, and livelihood. The cost isn’t theoretical. It’s emotional energy, opportunity loss, and sometimes real career damage.

This article explores why this occurs, how to identify it, and how professionals can replace “trial on the client” with evidence-informed, ethical guidance.

When advice becomes an experiment (without anyone saying so)

Not every suggestion is dangerous. But advice becomes an “experiment on the person” when it meets three conditions:

1. Low diagnosis, high prescription

   A solution is offered quickly before a thorough understanding of the person’s context—industry, constraints, goals, identity, risk tolerance, and real alternatives is achieved. Cognitive shortcuts often drive this: we match a new situation to a familiar pattern and respond with whatever worked last time (Kahneman, 2011).

   
   

2. Confidence substitutes for evidence

   Some advice feels convincing because it’s delivered with certainty, not because data support it. Research on judgment and decision-making repeatedly shows that confidence and accuracy are not the same thing—especially in complex domains (Kahneman, 2011).

   
   

3. The downside is transferred to the receiver

   If the suggestion fails, the person seeking help bears the cost. The advisor often loses nothing. That imbalance matters ethically. In professional settings, this can violate the spirit of “not harm,” even when intentions are good.

   
   

In workplaces, this pattern shows up as:

• “Send a bold message to the CEO.”

• “Quit — you’ll find something better.”

• “Change your LinkedIn headline to something provocative.”

• “Just negotiate hard; if they say no, walk.”

• “Take the role; you’ll figure it out.”

  
  

Each can be appropriate in some contexts. The risk is giving them as a default, without analysis.

This is where evidence-based practice matters. Evidence-based management argues that good decisions are made by integrating the best available evidence with context, stakeholder values, and professional judgment—not by preference or habit (Rousseau, 2006; Briner & Denyer, 2012).

Why people follow risky advice - even when it doesn’t fit

If risky advice is so common, why does it spread?

1) People seek certainty when they feel exposed

When someone is stuck or anxious, a decisive prescription can feel like relief. Certainty is soothing. Unfortunately, certainty can be manufactured. The person seeking guidance may conflate a confident tone with a reliable method (Kahneman, 2011).

2) Advisors suffer from “generalizing from self.”

A frequent hidden logic is: “This worked for me, so it should work for you.”But career and organizational outcomes are shaped by systems—power dynamics, labor markets, biases, timing, networks—many of which are invisible to a single personal story. That’s why the same action can produce very different outcomes for different people.

3) The “experiment” is complex to evaluate afterward

When advice fails, the person might assume it failed because they executed it poorly—not because the advice was wrong. This is especially common when the advisor didn’t define success criteria in advance. Evidence-based approaches insist on clarity: what are we trying to change, how will we measure it, and what would count as “working”? (Rousseau, 2006; Briner & Denyer, 2012).

4) Overconfidence increases with complexity

The more complex the situation, the easier it is to tell a simple story about it. In organizational life, simple stories travel faster than nuanced ones. That’s one reason “try it and see” spreads: it’s cognitively cheap and socially easy.

What ethical, evidence-informed guidance looks like

If we want to stop experimenting on people, we need a higher standard than “good intentions.” A professional standard includes a process.

A) Informed choice, not “blind try.”

A responsible advisor makes the trade-offs explicit:

• What are the plausible benefits?

• What are the realistic risks?

• What alternatives exist?

• What assumptions must be valid for this to work?

  
  

This resembles ethical practice in many applied fields: even outside clinical contexts, professionals should avoid pressuring individuals into risky actions without clarifying the consequences.

B) Test the idea in a low-risk way first

Instead of “go do it,” you run a safe experiment:

• Draft the message; test it with a trusted peer.

• Role-play the negotiation.

• Pilot the new approach in a lower-stakes setting.

• Collect small signals before going all-in.

  
  

This turns “experiment on the person” into “experiment with the person”—with consent and guardrails.

C) Use evidence hierarchies (even lightly)

You don’t need a randomized controlled trial for every career decision. But you can still ask: What is this advice based on?

• Research evidence (systematic reviews, meta-analyses when possible)

• Organizational data (hiring outcomes, conversion rates, internal mobility stats)

• Practice-based evidence (documented outcomes across multiple clients, not anecdotes)

• Contextual constraints (the individual’s environment, identity, and goals)

  
  

Evidence-based management supports this integration: scientific evidence, local evidence, practitioner expertise, and stakeholder values (Rousseau, 2006; Briner & Denyer, 2012).

D) Define what “success” would look like before acting

If the action is meaningful, define success criteria first:

• A response within 48 hours?

• A recruiter call within 2 weeks?

• A negotiation improvement of X?

• Better alignment with target roles?

  
  

Without criteria, you can’t learn—and you’ll keep “trying things” without understanding why they worked or failed.

איזה שירות אני נותן ואיך

כאן בדיוק נכנס הליווי שאני מציע: ליווי קריירה ונראות בלינקדאין שלא מבוסס על “תנסה ותראה” אלא על אבחון, אסטרטגיה, ותהליך מדיד.

בפועל, אני עובד עם אנשים (ומנהלים) בצורה מאוד מסודרת: קודם כל מיפוי מצב ויעדים, אחר כך בניית סיפור מקצועי חד (כולל פרופיל לינקדאין, מסרים, וחיפוש ממוקד), ואז תכנית פעולה פרקטית שמייצרת תנועה אמיתית: נטוורקינג נכון, פנייה לגורמים הנכונים, ושיפור מתמיד לפי נתונים ותוצאות.

כלומר: פחות רעש, פחות ניסויים עליכם, יותר דיוק עם צעדים קטנים, בטוחים ומדידים שמצטברים להזדמנויות.

References (APA)

Briner, R. B., & Denyer, D. (2012). Systematic review and evidence synthesis as a practice and scholarship tool. In D. M. Rousseau (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of evidence-based management (pp. 112–129). Oxford University Press.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Rousseau, D. M. (2006). Is there such a thing as “evidence-based management”? Academy of Management Review, 31(2), 256–269.

(If you want, I can add 5–8 more peer-reviewed sources specifically on professional ethics, informed consent in advisory relationships, and decision-making under uncertainty—still keeping the article readable and not “academic-heavy.”)

תקצר את הפרק השלישי

בהחלט — הנה גרסה מקוצרת ומדויקת לפרק השלישי, בלי לאבד עומק או סמכות מקצועית. אפשר להחליף בזה ישירות את הפרק הקיים במאמר:

Chapter 3: What ethical, evidence-informed guidance looks like

If we want to stop “trying things” on people, good intentions aren’t enough. Ethical professional guidance is defined by process, not confidence.

First, responsible advice is based on informed choice. Instead of pushing a solution, the professional clarifies trade-offs: what might work, what could fail, and under which conditions. This shifts the interaction from persuasion to partnership.

Second, ethical guidance reduces risk. Rather than “go do it,” ideas are tested in low-stakes ways—drafting, role-playing, piloting, or gathering early signals. This transforms advice from an uncontrolled experiment into a deliberate, safe learning process.

Third, evidence matters, even when used lightly. Sound guidance draws on more than personal experience: it integrates research insights, accumulated practice-based outcomes, and the individual’s specific context. Evidence-based management emphasizes this integration as the foundation of responsible decision-making (Rousseau, 2006; Briner & Denyer, 2012).

Finally, ethical advice defines success before action. Clear criteria make it possible to evaluate outcomes, adjust course, and learn—rather than repeating unexamined “experiments” and hoping for better results next time.