Helping by Edgar Schein
- Book Summary
This is my summary of ‘Helping’ by Edgar H. Schein. My notes are informal and tailored to my own interests at the time of reading. They mostly contain quotes from the book as well as some of my own thoughts. I enjoyed this book and would recommend you read it yourself (check it out on Amazon).
What is help?
I have been in therapy, have been coached in tennis, and in many other ways have received help.
As a helper I have been a husband, a parent to three children, a grandparent to seven grandchildren, taught many classes, consulted with individual and organizational clients, and have taken care of my wife during her years with breast cancer.
It is through seeing the similarities in these many different kinds of situations that we can begin to build a more general theory of helping.
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Principles of effective help
To provide effective help, there must be both a degree of understanding and a degree of trust between the helper and the client.
Understanding is needed for the helper to know when to offer help and what would be helpful if asked for help.
Trust is needed for the client to reveal what is the real problem, to be able to accept what is offered, and to implement whatever resolution might come out of the conversation with the helper.
Trusting another person means, in this context, that no matter what we choose to reveal about our thoughts, feelings, or intentions, the other person will not belittle us, make us look bad, or take advantage of what we have said in confidence.
Even in the simplest helping situations, such as being asked for directions, it is useful to take a moment to think about what I don’t know and what the client does not know; once we understand these areas of ignorance, we can select the appropriate roles to deal with them.
Both the helper and the client are ignorant of many things, so to build an effective helping relationship, the helper’s first actions must be geared to removing some of this ignorance.
Will the client understand the information, advice, or questions being asked?
Example: When giving driving directions in Boston, can you assume that the client knows what Mass. Ave., a traffic circle, and the MIT Bridge are?
Will the client have the knowledge and skill necessary to follow the helper’s recommendation?
Example: When the organizational consultant asks a manager whether communications to colleagues and subordinates were clear, there is no way of knowing whether that manager has the necessary skills to be clear.
What is the client’s real motivation?
For organizational consultants, this is their biggest area of ignorance, especially when the contact client wants them to work in some other part of the organization to diagnose what’s wrong there.
Example: When a wife asks her husband, “Do you like me in this dress?” is she really asking, “Do you still like me?”
Example: When a patient comes to the urologist to discuss urinary frequency, is it actually a request to discuss erectile dysfunction?
What is the client’s contextual situation?
The helper does not know enough about the client’s other relationships, group memberships, and cultural constraints.
Example: We frequently train people in organizations to communicate and supervise in new ways, only to discover that the successful trainee reverts to the old style because the norms of the work culture do not support the new one.
Help the client understand their reality, devise a solution, and develop the skills to solve similar problems themselves in the future.
Clients - whether they are managers, friends, colleagues, students, spouses, or children - often do not know what is really wrong and need help in diagnosing what their problems actually are. But only they own and live with the problem.
Clients often do not know what kinds of help consultants can give to them; they need guidance to know what kinds of help to seek.
Most clients have a constructive intent to improve things, but need help in identifying what to improve and how to improve it.
Only clients know what will ultimately work in their situation.
Unless clients learn to see problems for themselves and think through their own remedies, they will be less likely to implement the solution and less likely to learn how to fix such problems should they recur.
The ultimate function of help is to pass on diagnostic skills and intervene constructively so that clients are more able to continue to improve their situations on their own.
Check from time to time whether the client is getting the help that is needed. Be careful not to overhelp by focusing too much on your own need to help instead of the client’s need to get help.
Helping can go wrong in several ways.
Not helping when help was needed.
Trying to help when help was not needed or wanted.
Giving the wrong kind of help.
Example: I remember one of my children asking me for help with her math homework. I interrupted my work, did the problem for her, only to find her sulking off without a thank you. What had I done wrong? On another occasion, a child asked for homework help, and I said, “Let’s talk..” I discovered that she wanted to talk about some serious social problems at school that had nothing to do with homework. We had a good talk and both felt better.
Not sustaining help when it is needed over a period of time.
Much of what goes wrong in the helping process is the failure to acknowledge and deal with the fact that at the beginning, every helping relationship is in a state of imbalance.
After help has been asked for, the client takes on the passive, dependent audience role and puts the helper-to-be into the actor role.
The client is one down and therefore vulnerable, the helper is one up and therefore powerful.
The initial power imbalance - the implied dependency of the client on the helper and the ambiguity about what each should expect of the other - creates anxiety and tension in both that must be dealt with.
The “one downness” of needing help: Emotionally and socially, when you ask for help you are putting yourself “one down”.
It is a temporary loss of status and self-esteem not to know what to do next or to be unable to do it. It is a loss of independence to have someone else advise you, heal you, minister to you, help you up, support you, even serve you.
Example: Someone stumbling or falling down on the street, the first thing out of their mouth is invariably “I’m OK.” Even when we are clearly hurt we are reluctant to accept the suddenly imposed state of dependency.
The “one upness” of being asked to help: Being thrust into the role of helper is immediately a gain in status and power.
The person who asks for help is defining the situation as one in which power and value has been bestowed on the potential helper, whether or not that person can actually help.
This bestowing of power creates an imbalance in the relationship.
One of the goals is to enable the client to solve the problem if it recurs.
In any helping relationship, what is crucial is not the content of the client’s problem or the helper’s expertise, but the communication process that will enable both to figure out what is actually needed.
Don’t stereotype the situation even if it looks like something familiar.
In many organizational projects the client needs to build up self-confidence and realize that help may actually be available.
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Common toxic client behaviors & how to navigate them as a helper
Initial mistrust.
Will the helper be willing and able to help? Such caution is normal and appropriate but may cause the client to hide the real problem at first. Instead, the cautious client may float some hypothetical dilemma to determine how responsive or sympathetic the helper will be.
The trap for the helper is to move too rapidly to solutions, to provide advice or guidance on the hypothetical problem and, thereby, cutting off the opportunity to learn what the real problem might be. Working the hypothetical problem does little to equilibrate the relationship.
Examples:
“Dad, can you help me with this math problem?” asks a son who really wants to talk about some deeper personal concerns but does not know how to ask for time with his father.
A manager says to a management consultant, “I would like you to help me with some team building for my group” when the problem is that the manager has lost faith in one of their subordinates but does not know how to deal with it.
A sense of dependency and subordination to the helper.
Having finally shared the problem with someone else who may be able to help, the client certainly feels relieved. Along with that often comes a welcome sense of dependency and subordination to the helper, which can become a trap if the solution to the problem requires effort from the client.
The trap for the helper is that even if the immediate problem could be solved without the client’s involvement, eventually the client will have to take charge of the situation. If the helper reinforces the dependency, it may be harder to get the client to become proactive later. The relationship must allow and stimulate a gradual reduction of the client’s dependency.
Examples:
“I’m really glad to be able to share this problem. What should I do now?”
“It feels great to know that someone else might be able to help.”
Looking for attention, reassurance and/or validation instead of help.
Not everyone who asks for help is actually seeking it, but “help” may be a convenient word for whatever is being sought. Since it is not socially appropriate to say, “Pay attention to me,” we can force someone to give us attention by asking for help because that request imposes an obligation to respond.
Sometimes the potential client has already defined the problem and worked out a solution, but wants confirmation, positive evaluation, maybe even praise. This often happens in organizations where the consultant is hired to develop a program only to discover that the client already has one and wants the consultant to bless it.
Traps for the helper:
The client has chosen this presentation to avoid feeling “one down” and has concealed the real problem that requires help. The helper must find a way of reassuring the client without giving tacit approval to a solution that may not be relevant to the real situation.
The helper may approve the solution being mentioned when it is not really the way to solve the problem that prompted it. If the helper senses that this is not the answer, or that the wrong problem is being addressed, the issue must be reopened. If that does not work, it becomes necessary to withdraw from the situation with an apology.
Examples:
“What I’m planning is _____. Isn’t this the right course to pursue?”
“I’d like you to evaluate what I have done here.”
Resentment and defensiveness.
The client may look for opportunities to make the helper look inept. This reaction is most likely if the helper has already fallen into the trap of giving premature or irrelevant guidance, which may lead the client to belittle the advice, point out how immaterial it is, note that it has already been tried and did not work, or in other ways pull the helper down to regain a sense of parity.
The trap for the helper is to get defensive and argumentative.
Examples:
“Your idea isn’t doable because of _____”
“I’ve already thought of that and it won’t work.”
“You don’t really understand. The situation is much more complex.”
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Common helper mistakes
Needing help and having to ask for it creates an uncomfortable and anxious situation that will produce emotional responses. A helper unaware of these responses may react inappropriately and make it harder to build a balanced relationship in which roles are clear.
The common helper mistakes all are behaviors and emotional reactions that derive from this feeling of being one up, of having some wisdom that someone else needs and wants.
Helpers often feel frustration because they perceive themselves to be capable of so much more than the client seems to want, leading to disappointment when the help they feel they have given is not accepted as helpful.
It is both puzzling and frustrating that what you regard as your most brilliant insight, advice, or intervention is hardly noticed, while some of your most routine questions or observations turn out to be crucial interventions highly touted by the client as being the most helpful.
Dispensing wisdom prematurely.
Giving advice too soon puts the client even further down. This response also implies that the helper assumes the problem presented is indeed the real problem, ignoring the possibility that the client is just testing the helper by floating a substitute.
Examples:
“Ok, I’ve got it… Here is what you should do…”
“Simple, just do the following things…”
“Let me tell you what I did in a situation just like that.”
In formal and semi-formal helping situations we are usually aware that we should take some time to find out what is truly going on if we want to be helpful.
It is in the informal situation with friends, spouses, and strangers that we are most likely to fall into this trap by leaping in with advice before we know what is really being asked for.
Be careful not to get too interested in the content of the client’s story until you have built the relationship. One of the most dangerous traps for helpers is content seduction, and this is especially true if the helper happens to be an expert on the matter at hand. This makes it very difficult to remain in the process-consultant role, to focus on pure inquiry, and to access areas of ignorance.
Meeting defensiveness with more pressure.
The helper often assumes that the client has revealed the actual problem and has the skills and abilities to follow through with the offered solution. Once the helper has fallen into this trap, it is very tempting to try to convince the client that whatever advice or recommendation has been given is likely to be correct and, therefore, needs to be argued and explained until it is understood.
Examples:
“I don’t think you understood my suggestion, let me explain again.”
“I understand your reluctance, but this is why my suggestion will work…”
“You aren’t hearing me. Trust me. Try it out.”
The most common version of this is when management consultants give their recommendations, find that they are not implemented, and try to convince clients to rethink their positions. If unsuccessful, they walk away with negative thoughts about the client. It never occurs to them that they may have been working on the wrong problem or may have failed to build an equitable helping relationship at the outset.
Once this response has been given, it is harder to back off because it will feel like a loss of face to the helper, who will then reason that the client is indeed incapable of understanding, doesn’t want help, or does not deserve to have more energy invested in the relationship.
Accepting the problem and overreacting to the dependence.
When someone rapidly agrees to take on the helper role and exudes confidence, it encourages the client to be dependent before really knowing whether the helper will be of assistance.
Examples:
“I hear you and I can indeed help you. Let’s go to work…”
“I can help you, if you can do the following things…”
Reinforcing initial dependency can be dysfunctional because many kinds of problems require the active participation of the client in developing a solution.
It is when working with groups and organizations that consultants and facilitators fall into the trap of taking over, not only making recommendations, but actually dictating next steps before knowing enough about what is possible, emotionally and/or culturally.
If a client insists on getting a recommendation from you, always give him at least two alternatives so that they still have to make a choice.
Don’t be offended when your efforts to help are not well received.
Instead of being offended, take a moment to ask yourself whether you fell into one of the many traps. Maybe you didn’t check whether the person you wanted to help to help was ready or able to receive help. Maybe you assumed that the person needed help instead of asking.
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As a helper, you can take 3 different roles
The helper can play one of 3 different roles:
Process consultant: focus on building an equitable relationship and clarify what kind of help is needed
Expert resource: provide information or services
Doctor: diagnose & prescribe
Always start out in the process consultant role.
Because both client and helper are initially ignorant of many aspects of what is going on, and because the relationship between them begins unbalanced, starting in the expert or doctor role creates the potential for both the client and the consultant to fall into traps as a result.
Only when some level of trust has been established is it possible to get accurate information that allows the shift to the expert and doctor role. As the helping process proceeds, the helper may shift among the three roles many times as the situation demands.
Process consultant:
Process consultation means that the helper focuses from the very beginning on the communication process. The content of the client’s request cannot be ignored, but the helper can focus primarily on how the interaction is occurring by paying attention to demeanor, tone of voice, setting, body language, and any other cues that would signal a degree of anxiety and/or trust.
The essence of the process consultant role at the beginning of a helping relationship is to engage in humble inquiry.
Depending on the actual situation, this role may take only a few seconds or minutes as relevant information surfaces about what kind of expertise or doctoring is needed.
Your goal is to:
Remove the ignorance inherent in the situation.
Lessen the initial status differential.
Identity what further role may be the most suitable to the problem identified.
Examples:
Effective tech consultants or auto mechanics will take a few minutes to discuss with the client what the situation is, what has been tried already, and the client’s expectations and fears, before they shift into an expert or doctor role.
Lawyers may engage in a lengthy period of process consultation before it is clear how the client wants to handle the divorce proceedings. Only when a comfortable joint decision has been reached does the lawyer or doctor shift more fully into the expert and prescriber role.
Expert resource:
The helper’s power rests on a body of presumed knowledge and skill that can be applied to the client’s problem to make the situation better.
At the very beginning of a helping situation, the expert role is rarely if ever appropriate.
It assumes that clients seek from helpers some information or expert service that they are unable to provide for themselves. Helpers who adopt this role from the beginning are less successful in situations where the problems are more complex.
For this role to be successful, the following should be true:
The client has correctly diagnosed the problem.
The client has clearly communicated this to the helper.
The client has accurately assessed the capabilities of the helper to provide the information or the service.
The client has thought through the consequences of having the helper gather such information and/or implementing the recommended changes.
There is an external reality that can be objectively studied and turned into information the client can use.
Doctor:
The doctor is a kind of extension and enlargement of the expert role. Not only does the client assume that the helper will respond by providing information and service, but also expects a diagnosis and a prescription.
Examples: doctors, counsellors, coaches, and repair people of various sorts.
The ultimate problem in deciding when to go into the doctor role is how to know or sense when enough trust has been built up to permit moving into this more powerful position.
For this role to be successful, the following should be true:
The client is motivated to reveal accurate information.
The client accepts and believes the diagnosis and prescription.
The consequences of doing the diagnostic processes are accurately understood and accepted.
The client is able to make the changes that are recommended.
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The 4 forms of humble enquiry
The goals of humble inquiry:
Keep the client in the driver’s seat to enable them to regain status by becoming active problem solvers on their own behalf.
Give them confidence that they can solve their own dilemma to some degree.
Reveal as much data as possible for both the client and helper to work with.
Pure inquiry
Concentrate solely on the client’s story.
Pure inquiry starts with silence. If silence does not elicit further useful information:
“Go on…”
“Tell me more…”
“Tell me what is going on…”
“How can I help?”
“So…?” (accompanied by an expectant look)
“What brings you here?”
“Can you give me some examples of that?”
“Can you give me some of the details of what went on?”
“When did this last happen?”
“Have you told me everything…?”
Don’t prompt with questions that presuppose a problem, because that is precisely what the client may wish to deny.
Your questions should always work down the abstraction ladder, seeking more detail and examples rather than abstractions or generalizations. Initially the focus should be merely on what is going on so that the client can structure the contact in a way that feels comfortable.
Ask for examples.
Diagnostic inquiry
In this form of inquiry the helper begins to influence the client’s mental process by deliberately focusing on issues other than the ones the client chose to report.
Four different versions of this redirection are available:
Feelings and reactions.
Example: “How do you feel about that?”
Such questions not only do little to equilibrate the relationship, but they may arouse anxiety in clients who may feel bad about their reactions or may not have any. Asking for feelings may be pushing deeper than the client is willing to go.
Causes and motives.
Examples:
“How did you get here?” (to the lost driver)
“Why do you think you are having this problem? Why now?”
“Why did you do that?” (after the client has revealed some action)
“Why do you think you reacted that way?” (after the client has revealed a reaction)
By asking the client what may be going on the helper is enhancing the client’s status and building the client’s diagnostic skill.
Actions taken or contemplated.
Examples:
“What did you do about that?”
“What have you tried so far?”
“What are you going to do next?”
“What did they do then?”
Action-oriented questions push clients into thinking about things that they may not have noticed or thought important, or wanted to suppress because they might have been embarrassed about what they or others did or did not do.
Such questions also imply that maybe some action was appropriate, and if the client did nothing, this could produce guilt or shame.
Systemic questions.
Examples:
“Well, here is one thing you could do. How do you think this would work out with the others in your group?”
Being asked by your spouse for help in choosing clothing for a visit with the boss: “How will your colleagues react to the outfit you are thinking about?”
Counseling a manager about how to manage a difficult subordinate: “If you become more forceful, how will the others in your group react?”
If the presented problem involves other people, each of the above questions can be elaborated by asking the client to think about what particular others are feeling, thinking about, or doing in relation to what the client is talking about.
Confrontational inquiry
The essence of confrontational inquiry is that the helper now interjects into the conversation their own ideas about the process or content of the story. Instead of merely encouraging the client to elaborate, the helper now makes suggestions or offers options that may not have occurred to the client.
Such interventions represent taking on more of an expert or doctor role and must therefore only be used when the helper feels that enough trust and equity in the relationship has been established to make valid communication possible.
Process-oriented inquiry
Shift the focus from the client’s process or content to a focus on the here and now interaction occurring between client and helper.
Examples:
“How do you think our conversation is going so far?”
“Are you satisfied that your problem is being addressed?”
“Are we getting anywhere?”
“Are my questions helping you?”
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Case study: how consultants can approach a CEO
Consultants who understand the helping process as defined here [the book ‘Helping’] would not accept the initial assignment as given, and would instead begin an inquiry process designed to build a helping relationship with the CEO.
The consultant must find out what is really troubling the CEO, why that department is being defined as the problem, why the CEO can’t fix the problem, and most importantly, the CEO’s possible role in creating the problem.
All this must be done up front without threatening the face of the CEO. The consultant must suspend the expert/doctor role and become a process consultant until the information surfaces and uncovers what is actually going on and who really needs help.
This inquiry may take fifteen minutes or many hours. The point is not to rush in with expert diagnostics tools before a relationship with the CEO has been established.
The reason why this is so important is that the consultant knows that just the interviewing and observing of people in an organization is already a big intervention with unknown consequences.
The CEO who proposes to launch such an intervention must understand what the consequences might be both for the department and for the CEO. It must be made clear that evidence might come back that the CEO is, in fact, the problem.
They must also realize that once people have been interviewed, they will expect the CEO to act on what they have revealed.
They will talk to each other, which will change opinions and perceptions in unknown directions, and they will judge senior management on how well they respond to the information that has surfaced.
Helping the CEO understand all of these consequences puts the consultant into an expert role as well, but it is expertise about dynamic organizational processes, not about the actual problem that may be bothering the CEO.
Providing process expertise of this sort is in the same category as when I pointed out to the overloaded group that they should go off site to do their important strategy work.
Such process insights about group and organizational dynamics are legitimate items of information that must not be held back by the helper, yet must be presented in such a way that the client does not feel further down for not having such process expertise
In my own experience the most difficult part of working with organizational clients is how to remain in an inquiry role while providing process expertise and advice.
If this process works well, the CEO will have moved from a perception that there is a problem department that needs to be fixed to wondering what the best intervention would be to help that department become more effective.
With that recognition the CEO will be facing the responsibilities of leadership.
They will have learned to accept some help from the consultant in defining the problem and will take on the role of being a helper to the department.
The CEO and the consultant can then jointly decide whether or not it is a good idea to proceed with the departmental interviews, realizing that together they are not just gathering data, but are launching a major change in the department.
If the joint decision is to go ahead, the next step would be to raise the questions of how this new project would be communicated, how the consultant would be introduced to the department head, and how much freedom would be given to the department head to refuse, accept, or influence the project.
At this point the department head must be made into a client to ensure that whatever information is revealed by the interviews will be seen as helpful to the department.
Otherwise department heads could signal to employees to be careful in what they say, thus undermining the openness of the communication with the consultant.
In the end, the consultant may end up doing exactly the same interviews with the department. But if the CEO has become involved, the CEO and consultant will have made a plan for how to introduce the consultant to the group, and how to build in some rules and norms for what the consultant will do with the data gathered.
A crucial step in this process is the meeting with the department head, who has to accept the role of being both helped and becoming more helpful. That will include consideration of what to do with information that comes back about their management style, much of it possibly negative.
If the goal is to create mutual helping processes among the members of the department to improve overall effectiveness, a further issue that should be considered before the interviews are launched is how to surface information and provide feedback in such a way that it can be acted upon.
Collecting all the data, summarizing it, and giving summary reports to the department head and the CEO is not an effective way to launch remedial activity around the problems that have been identified.
It puts the department head and CEO into the role of fixers, when many of the problems identified can probably be better addressed by the subordinates in the group because they know what will and will not succeed in their work culture.
Instead, the consultant might recommend giving each work unit or team, depending on how the tasks are organized, its own interview results with the instructions to validate the data and sort it into two categories:
Items which the group itself can repair.
Items which must be passed upward to higher levels of management who have the resources and power to fix them.
For example, the interactions in the surgical teams among surgeons, anesthetists, and nurses can be processed by them as a group; but if the equipment is insufficient, or the salaries are not equitable, that information needs to be given to the next level up in the hierarchy.
What this means operationally is that the CEO does not get an overall report of everything brought to light in the interviews, and does not get any information ahead of others in the department. Instead, every group in the department gets its own data first, processes it, and the passes the relevant items up to the department head, who then goes through a similar process of deciding what can be fixed at that level and what needs to be passed up to the CEO.
Thus the CEO may not learn what the consultant has found out for weeks or months, but, in the meantime, multiple problem solving processes have been launched which will improve performance. The CEO has begun a process that permits the department to help itself, which avoids the uncomfortable situation of department members being put in the one down position by the CEO looking at the report first and in effect saying, “These are your problems.”
As the above processes unfold, relationships with the department head and some employees will develop that allow the CEO greater access to the group, which will provide opportunities to observe and communicate as well as becoming more vulnerable and available.
The CEO who then discovers unacceptable work processes or practical drifts is in a better position to launch corrective measures. The key is to develop a climate of mutual helping in the service of greater overall efficiency and effectiveness.
Unfortunately, I have met many CEOs who initially define help as fixing someone else.
They want to see the information first, make their own diagnosis (or accept what the consultant’s diagnosis is), and then use their authority and power to solve the problems.
They use the consultant just to get information without considering that the information-gathering is itself a huge intervention into the system.
They do not understand that in most organizations the level of interdependency is high, and that only by creating multiple helping relationships can they improve organizational performance.
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'Helping’ also covered many more insightful topics. You’ll find them below in alphabetical order.
Change
You can’t change anyone until you can turn them into a client who is seeking help from you.
People don’t mind change; they just don’t want others to change them.
The agent of change must convey both the non-negotiability of the goal and the willingness to help achieve it - “unfreezing” people.
The organizational goals and task requirements dictate the new behavior that is wanted. But once the motivation is there, based on the realization that change is really necessary, it becomes a learning process, which can appropriately be thought of as being helped to make the necessary changes.
The employee now becomes the client, and the agent of change becomes the helper. Framing it in this way is crucial because it then makes the agent of change aware that the most effective way to get the new behavior is to help the client achieve it.
That means one must recognize from the outset that the employee will feel one down in not being able to engage in the new behavior without some guidance and training. The helper must first equilibrate the relationship by inquiring what is inhibiting the new behavior, why the old behavior is being clung to, and what first steps the client could take.
Example from the Checklist manifesto: Efforts of one hospital system to get doctors to wash their hands more frequently. After getting only minimal compliance with various kinds of incentives and rules, the doctors were asked, “Why don’t you wash your hands more frequently?” This humble inquiry revealed many reasons, such as the inconvenience and time it took, leading to a variety of solutions that brought compliance to near 100%. For example, hand cleansers were installed at multiple convenient locations which facilitated hand-washing and saved time. The doctors were now being helped instead of coerced.
Don’t skip levels in the formal or status hierarchy, either upward or downward.
If the contact client is the CEO, then the decision as to how to involve the next level down must be shared by the helper and the CEO.
Any time a level is skipped, the potential is very high that the members of that level will feel out of the loop, will not understand what is going on, and will wittingly or unwittingly subvert the helping process.
Leaders are almost always dealing with groups and organizational units that have had time to evolve their own cultures. New leaders cannot initiate any change until they understand the norms, traditions, and practical drifts of the group or department that is being taken over. The leader must become an inquirer to establish helping relationships with the employees and build trust.
Those at the top of the ladder, in particular, are drawn to the expert and doctor role, whereas effective change management really requires the process consultant role. The dilemma of the organizational consultant is how to get across to clients that they need to learn how to be process consultants and accept the role as a legitimate and necessary part of being an effective leader.
Communication basics
We make conversational errors all the time in what we say, how we say it, or in the timing of when we say it. Instead of being discouraged by such errors, we should recognize that they provide opportunities for learning and should therefore be welcomed.
Feedback
Feedback is generally not helpful if it is not asked for. When a colleague, boss, friend, or spouse unilaterally decides to give advice or feedback, it is likely that not only will the message be misunderstood, but the other person will be offended and insulted.
Feedback works best if it fits into a shared goal context.
Example: Both surgeon and nurse share the common goal of making the operation more successful, effective, timely, safe, or whatever they agree on. Then the analysis, the questions, and the feedback fit into a shared context. For example, it would be pointless for the surgeon to say “You should have done that faster” unless speed was a shared goal.
Feedback works best if it is descriptive rather than evaluative.
Judgment: “You should have been more aggressive when John challenged you at that meeting”
Better: “When I saw John challenge you at the meeting I noticed that you became silent…”
Being descriptive opens the door to the client to explain or absorb the implication. It also focuses on what the giver of feedback observed, which might or might not agree with what others observed.
Influence
All human relationships are about status positioning and what sociologists call “situational properties.”
It is human to want to be granted the status and position that we feel we deserve, no matter how high or low it might be, and we want to do what is situationally appropriate.
We are either trying to get ahead or stay even, and we measure all interactions by how much we have lost or gained.
A successful interaction, one that leaves us with a feeling of accomplishment, results when we have acted appropriately in terms of our goals.
Leadership
A critical aspect of leadership is the ability to accept help and the ability to give help to others in the organization.
One way to define leadership is to say that it is both a process of setting goals and helping others (subordinates) to achieve those goals.
Listening
If you do not pay attention, if you start a side conversation, if you look over the person’s shoulder at someone else who is more interesting to you at the moment, if you yawn, if you interrupt with, “I already knew that,” or use a disinterested tone of voice - these are all behavior that would disrupt the building of that relationship, threaten the speaker’s face, cause potential embarrassment, and lead the speaker to conclude that you are rude, or at least not worth relating to, and should be avoided in the future.
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