Understanding How to Help People More Effectively.
At work most people deal daily with others who need their help, support, advice or expertise. Precisely how one delivers that help determines its success and also impacts the relationship with the person being helped.
Heron’s model has two basic styles – “authoritative” and “facilitative.” The two styles are then broken down into a six categories to describe how people intervene when helping.
Authoritative Interventions are:
- “Prescriptive” – The intervener explicitly directs the person being helped by giving advice and direction.
- “Informative” – The intervener provides information to instruct and guide the other person.
- “Confronting” – The intervener challenges the other person’s behavior or attitude. Not to be confused with aggressive confrontation, “confronting” is positive and constructive. It helps the other person consider behavior and attitudes they would otherwise be unaware of.
Facilitative Interventions are:
- “Cathartic” – The other person is helped to express and overcome thoughts or emotions they have not previously confronted.
- “Catalytic” – The other person is helped to reflect, discover, and learn for him or herself. This helps the person become more self-directed in making decisions, solving problems, and so on.
- “Supportive” – The intervener builds the confidence of the other person by focusing competences, qualities, and achievements.
Figure 1: Heron Model: What to Say and Ask
The following table can help an intervener analyze and plan communications by indicating what to say and what to ask when using each of the categories of the Heron model.
| Authoritative |
Prescriptive |
- Give advice and guidance
- Tell the other person how they should behave
- Tell them what to do
|
| Informative |
- Give your view and experience
- Explain the background and principles
- Help the other person get a better understanding
|
| Confronting |
- Challenge the other person’s thinking
- Play back exactly what the person has said or done
- Tell them what you think is holding them back
- Help them avoid making the same mistake again
|
| Facilitative |
Cathartic |
- Help the other person express their feelings or fears
- Empathize with them
|
| Catalytic |
- Ask questions to encourage fresh thinking
- Encourage the other person to generate new options and solutions
- Listen and summarize, and listen some more
|
| Supportive |
- Tell the other person they are valued (their contribution, good intention or achievements)
- Praise them
- Show them they have your support and commitment
|
Key points:
Heron’s Six Client Categories of Intervention can be used as a framework to help an intervener understand and improve necessary business communication skills.
Whether helping a team member, employee, client, or customer, the model can help one develop greater awareness their “helping” style and its impact, and can help an intervener adapt the way they help improve the outcome of the “helping” relationships.
|
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A typical intervention might include these steps:
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