Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive HelpBy the bestselling author of Career Anchors (over 431,000 copies sold) and Organizational Culture and Leadership (over 153,000 sold) • A penetrating analysis of the psychological and social dynamics of helping relationships • Named one of the best leadership books of 2009 by strategy+business magazine Helping is a fundamental human activity, but it can also be a frustrating one. All too often, to our bewilderment, our sincere offers of help are resented, resisted, or refused—and we often react the same way when people try to help us. Why is it so difficult to provide or accept help? How can we make the whole process easier? Many different words are used for helping: assisting, aiding, advising, caregiving, coaching, consulting, counseling, guiding, mentoring, supporting, teaching, and many more. In this seminal book on the topic, corporate culture and organizational development guru Ed Schein analyzes the social and psychological dynamics common to all types of helping relationships, explains why help is often not helpful, and shows what any would-be helpers must do to ensure that their assistance is both welcomed and genuinely useful. The moment of asking for and offering help is a delicate and complex one, fraught with inequities and ambiguities. Schein helps us navigate that moment so we avoid potential pitfalls, mitigate power imbalances, and establish a solid foundation of trust. He identifies three roles a helper can play, explaining which one is nearly always the best starting point if we are to provide truly effective help. So that readers can determine exactly what kind of help is needed, he describes an inquiry process that puts the helper and the client on an equal footing, encouraging the client to open up and engage and giving the helper much better information to work with. And he shows how these techniques can be applied to teamwork and to organizational leadership. Illustrated with examples from many types of relationships—husbands and wives, doctors and patients, consultants and clients—Helping is a concise, definitive analysis of what it takes to establish successful, mutually satisfying helping relationships. |
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Contents
acknowledgments | |
1What Is Help? | |
2Economics and Theater The Essence of Relationships | |
3The Inequalities and Ambiguities of the Helping Relationship | |
4Helping as TheaterThree Kinds of Helping Roles | |
5Humble InquiryThe Key to Building and Maintaining the Helping Relationship | |
6Applying the Inquiry Process | |
8Helping Leaders and Organizational Clients | |
9Principles and Tips | |
about the author | |
About BerrettKoehler Publishers | |
Be Connected | |
7Teamwork as Perpetual Reciprocal Helping | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
actually advice appropriate areas of ignorance ask for help become behavior boss breast cancer build chemotherapy client and helper coach comfortable communication create crucial define department head dependent diagnostic doctor role dynamics effective equilibrate equitable Erving Goffman example expert or doctor face feedback feel focus formal help give goals going helping process helping relationship helping situation humble inquiry important initially interaction intervention involved issue kind of help leaders mutual helping need help norms nurse oncologist one’s organization organizational consultant organizational culture patient performance person play potential problem process consultant role psychological contract psychotherapist pure inquiry questions reactions receive help request for help requires response revealed Schein sense skills social economics someone spouse staph infection Stephen Potter story subordinates surgeon symbolic interactionism task team members teamwork tell therapist things traps trust understand wife
Bibliographic information
| Title | Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help |
| Author | Edgar Schein |
| Publisher | Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009 |
| ISBN | 1605098809, 9781605098807 |
| Length | 167 pages |
| Subjects | › Business & Economics / Organizational Behavior |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |