STUDY BOOK The power of language and actions, the basis for

COACHING: El poder del lenguaje y las acciones

It involves risk: Self-esteem and self-worth are based on the acceptance of one's offers. Offering seems to involve risk. If the offer is rejected, one will feel a decrease in self-esteem and self-worth. This is why many people are afraid to make offers, for fear of being rejected, so you frustrate yourself, before you frustrate others.

By not offering, one misses the opportunity to interact with others, to build deeper relationships and to grow through service.

• Petitions.

It is a linguistic act by which the one who asks tries to obtain a promise from the listener. In each case, the one who asks asks for the help of the listener, in order to generate certain conditions that will satisfy his or her concern. They are born out of a lack : Asking implies acknowledging that one wants or needs something that one can obtain more efficiently with the help of others. Making a request implies that one is not able to do something as effectively as the other could. They expose the requester: The admission of lack, which is implicit in the request, makes many people prefer not to ask or ask unclearly, trying to hide their needs. The idea that the most competent person is the one who asks for the least help wreaks havoc in organisations. Not asking for help is a circumstantial palliative to the deep-seated problem of self-esteem. The only way to transcend that difficulty is to recognise that human worth does not depend on being superhuman.

They can be tacit : a request does not need an explicit explanation, it only needs to be heard by the listener. What is important is not how the request is made, but how the request is heard. Although tacit requests are operative, they can lead to confusion when one thinks he or she is asking and the other does not realise that he or she has received a request.

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European Open Business School