Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

by Edgar H. Schein and H. Schein Edgar H. Schein

Book Overview

A Strategy+Business Best Leadership Book of the Year: An "uncommonly wise" analysis of the psychological and social dynamics of helping relationships (Warren Bennis, author of On Becoming a Leader).

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1605098566
• ISBN13: 9781605098562
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Toward a Deeper Understanding of Helping

Almost all of us have encountered the confusing situation where we offer someone help, but our offer of help is refused. Edgar Schein has written a new book entitled "Helping: How to offer, give and receive help." The book analyzes the difference between effective and ineffective helping across a whole range of human situations. In simple language, Schein explains why it is that help is refused. For example, it could be due to communication problems or the status differentials that helping creates. Schein's points are illustrated with numerous examples. Edgar Schein is widely known for his seminal academic work on organizational development and corporate culture. He is a Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. The book should be helpful to anyone interested in the psychology of change and helping others. Given how ingrained helping is in our daily lives, it can really be though of as guide to living. I highly recommend his book. It should be mandatory reading for every Graduate Psychology program.

A helpful book

Being in a profession where I am employed to "Help" others, (Personal Trainer) it is easy to fall into the trap of just telling people what to do without really helping them. This book dissects our relationships with others, both professional and personal, in order to better understand how to approach them in a more productive way.

"Helping" helped me to understand, at last.

Having read Edgar Schein's "Organizational Culture and Leadership", I assumed that "Helping" would follow that influential and enduring work. So,it was with pleasure that I discovered that "Helping" resembles a fascinating conversation with this thoughtful and compassionate scholar. For anyone who has been a "helper", this book lays out the dynamics of the giving and receiving aspects of relationships on different levels. At a time when courtesy in our society is becoming something of a lost art, I urge you to read Dr. Schein's latest contribution and share it with others.

Good Helping Improves Life for Us All

I picked up Helping following the suggestion of a neighbor with the intent of gaining insight to better help my aging in-laws. I've come away from the read with more ideas and confidence in situations where I find myself providing assistance. In addition, I now realize how more effectively to request and receive help myself. This is a book I will be quick to reference to improve my helping skills when approaching particular situations in the future. Dr. Schein's insights can assist each of us to become more graceful and effective at this valuable social skill in whatever arena of life's experience you might find yourself (I'm a beef cattle rancher by livelihood; wife, mother and family manager by choice). Helping is easy to read and provides opportunity for improved helping endeavors allowing the reader to cultivate and maintain strong relationships in a most positive fashion. As Dr. Schein implies in his closing, good helping will improve life for us all.

Advice for all

I am reviewing my own book to let future readers know that this is advice and analysis for the general audience because we are all in the position of offering and receiving help of all kinds all the time. Giving directions, helping kids with homework, getting advice from a friend, taking care of a loved one all have to be understood and managed to insure that the help will be helpful.