Chapter 12Influencing Skills

Microskills Hierarchy

Personal style and theorySkill Integration

Influencing skills and strategiesReflection of meaning

FocusingConfrontation

Five-stage interview structureReflection of feeling

Encouraging, paraphrasing, and summarizingClient observation skills

Open and closed questionsAttending behavior

Ethics and multicultural competence

Influencing Skills• Designed to change way helpee

thinks and acts

• Proactive approach to change

• Specific alternatives for action and restorying

• Used sparingly

• Ethical use mandates understanding of power differential between helpee and helper

Determining Impact of Influencing on Helpee

• Confrontation Impact Scale– Denial– Partial examination– Acceptance and recognition but no

change– Generation of a new solution– Development of new, larger, and more

inclusive constructs, patterns, or behaviors--transcendence

Interpersonal Influence ContinuumEncouraging/restating

Paraphrasing

Reflection of feelings

Reflection of Meaning

Open Questions

Closed Questions

Focusing

Inform/instruct/advice/etc.

Self-disclosure

Feedback

Interpretation/reframe

Logical consequences

Directive

Confrontation

Low

Moderate

Triad

High

Interpretation• Presents helpees with hypotheses

about relationships or meanings among their behaviors

• Interpretation differs from listening responses in that it deals with the implicit part of a message—the part the helpee does not talk about explicitly or directly

Reframing• Explore how an incident or situation

is typically perceived (by helpee) and to offer another view or frame from helper

• Assists helpee by providing alternative ways to view a problem behavior without directly challenging the behavior itself.

Logical Consequences• Assist helpee to think through

outcomes of a possible action

• Steps– Use listening to understand situation– Seek positive and negative

consequences of decision/action– Provide data – Summarize both positive and negative– Helpees decide on course of action

Self-Disclosure• Use cautiously

• Be brief

• Steps:– Personal pronoun– Verb for content, feeling, or both– Object coupled with adverb and

adjective descriptors– Feeling words and expression of feeling

Feedback• Providing helpees with data on how

you view them– Helpees are in charge (you can ask)– Focus on strengths or something that

helpee can do something about– Concrete and specific– Relatively nonjudgmental– Lean and precise– Check out how feedback was received

Information/Advice/Opinion/Suggestion

• Helpers have something to offer helpees (where to find career help, how to relax, etc.)– Be sure helpee is ready to hear

information or advice– Be clear, specific, concrete, and timely– Check with helpee that ideas have been

understood

Directives• A broad array of strategies where you

tell the helpee what to do– Involve helpee as co-participant– Use appropriate visual, vocal tone,

verbal following, and body language– Be clear and concrete– Check out what helpee heard