Offering Help

The last few weeks, I was having a little fun with Stephen Potter’s humorous guides on one-upping others. I originally found his work, however, in a serious book by former MIT professor Edgar Schein.  

In Helping, Schein writes, “Though the examples [Potter] cites in Gamesmanship and Oneupmanship are clearly caricatures, they are almost always just minor variations of what we can observe going on around us all the time.”

Schein’s larger point in Helping is that asking for, offering, and providing help to others are all tricky because they put people in a one-up or one-down dynamic, which either disrupts our sense that relationships “must be, or at least must seem to be, fair and equitable.” And they are the scripted roles we’ve learned to play in life.   

For example, it’s appropriate to offer help—putting ourselves in a one-up position—when the other person expects us to play that role. That’s why a boss can provide feedback to a subordinate without much trouble.   

But when someone expects to be treated as an equal or as a superior, an unsolicited offer to help them is an affront because it puts them in a one-down position. Think about how annoyed you get when your spouse or kids offer driving advice from their passenger seats—or maybe that’s just me. :)

There are at least two implications for our lives as leaders. First, leaders often encourage their teams to speak their minds and offer feedback when the boss is on the wrong track. Schein’s framing would make this general invitation moot because those actions run counter to everything we’ve learned about our appropriate roles. 

Hence, when we’re in the one-up position, we have to ask directly for help to give the other person relational permission to do so. Otherwise, we’ll be waiting on feedback that never comes.  

Second, we’re often hesitant to ask others for advice because we think this will put us in a one-down position in their eyes. Schein writes: “It never ceases to amaze me when I observe someone stumbling or falling down on the street how the first thing out of his or her mouth is invariably ‘I’m OK.’ Even when we are clearly hurt we are reluctant to accept the suddenly imposed state of dependency.”

However, when we ask for advice, the other person often hears the request as, “I value your perspective because you’re such a wise and awesome person.” While it may make us feel like it would diminish us, the other person thinks we’re smart enough to ask, which makes them respect us more!