This document discusses the concept of helping and how it relates to cooperation, collaboration, and altruism. It notes that helping is intrinsic to organizations and work, but can be complicated and does not always succeed. For helping relationships to be effective, both the helper and helpee must work to establish trust and an equitable relationship where both parties feel they are helping each other. The helper must resist asserting power and instead focus on balancing the status of both individuals so the helpee feels comfortable sharing problems without losing face. Through active listening, the helper can demonstrate their trustworthiness and understanding of the situation.

1. Helping
More than meets the eye

2. What is “help”?
The process that underlies
cooperation, collaboration, and
altruistic behavior

3. Comments from Schein ..
What’s Your Experience?
 Help is an important but complicated human
process that often does not succeed
 Good teamwork = Successful reciprocal help
 Helping is intrinsic to all forms of organization
and work
 A key feature is that a request for help cannot
be ignored without violating the norms of
polite behavior

4. Words associated with helping
 Assisting
 Aiding
 Advising
 Care-giving
 Catalyzing
 Coaching
 Consulting
 Counseling
 Doing for
 Doing for
 Enabling
 Explaining
 Facilitating
 Giving
 Guiding
 Handing
 Improving
 Mentoring
 Ministering
 Offering
 Prescribing
 Recommending
 Showing
 Steering
 Supplying
 Supporting
 Teaching
 Telling

5. What do effective, trained and
licensed helpers do that makes
them more or less successful?
(formal helping situations)

6. What can the trained helper
learn from a closer
examination of the dynamics
of informal and semi-formal
help?

7. The concept of “face”
Growing up is a process of knowing when to
be frank, when to be diplomatic, and when to
pretend that you did not see or hear
something that might be difficult to respond to
Sincerity, congruence, and trustworthiness
reflect the degree of consistency across roles,
and how much our public “face” matches our
inner values

8. Human Exchange as Drama
We learn to play a variety of
“roles” in life
The “helping role” is defined
by perceptions of the receiver

9. Rules of Reciprocity and
Equity
In deeper relationships, we are
willing to make ourselves more
vulnerable;
When a conversation has not been
equitable, we often feel offended

10. Cultural assumptions assert
that all relationships depend
upon mutual cooperation

11. Human dramas must
functional “equitably” in terms
of the status that each person
has according to culturally
sanctioned social roles

12. If people claim more status
than they are due, we say that
they are “putting on airs” or
“presuming too much”

13. Humiliation results when
others indicate that we have
less value in a situation than
we claim for ourselves – and
usually evokes a strong
emotional response from the
other person

14. Face Work in Helping Relationships
When we approach a helpee with a problem,
we risk destroying “face”
Thus, many helpees are reluctant to reveal their
true problems
They will “test” our trustworthiness
Only after much listening and being supportive
can be expect to surface the real problem

15. The Dilemma of
Creating a
Workable
Helping
Relationship

16. Both helper and helpee
must learn whether there is
trust in the relationship
The helpee is initially more vulnerable
Both parties must learn about each
other while creating a safe
environment for the helpee

17. The helper must resist the initial impulse
to move into the power vacuum that
helpees create by admitting a problem
Instead, helpers need to focus on
equilibrating the status relationship
between themselves and the helpee
The relationship works best when both
parties feel that are helping each other,
even as they focus on the helpee’s
issues

18. Accessing Your Ignorance
It is crucial for helpers to engage in the
process of inquiry in such a way that the
helpee does not lose face
The relationship begins to be productive
when both parties begin to feel
comfortable with each other’s status
and roles

19. To access your ignorance of the
situation, the helper must always
begin in a listening stance
What is the situation?
Can you tell me what’s going on?
What is happening?
Describe the situation
Tell me more…
Go on.

20. An Exercise in
Giving and
Receiving
Help