Use this when you want to empower someone to manage their own problems.
Gerard Egan’s Skilled Helper model is a three-stage coaching model in which the objective is to achieve lasting change and empower people to manage their own problems more effectively. The model can be depicted as:
The three stages can be summarised as:
Exploration: The purpose here is to build a non-threatening relationship with the other person and help them to explore their current situation by identifying and clarifying problems and opportunities and assessing their ability to deal with these.
Challenge: The purpose here is to help support the other person in developing a more in-depth and objective understanding of their situation by encouraging them to question what their real needs and wants are and what other possibilities they could consider.
Action: The purpose here is to help the other person to turn good intentions into actual results by helping them to set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic objectives with a timescale for achieving them.
Egan argues that the Skilled Helper approach encourages people to become active interpreters of the world by giving meaning to actions, events and situations. He also stresses the importance of people facing up to, and overcoming, challenges and problems and seeking out new opportunities.
Now think about two issues where you had to help someone to handle change. Choose one that had a positive result and one that had a negative result. Now answer the two questions below.