More Time to Think: The Power of Independent Thinking: Nancy Kline

Nancy Kline’s central proposition is a simple one, which is that the quality of everything that we do depends on the quality of the thinking that we do first. I’m a fan of her first book on this subject: “Time to Think”, and was therefore predisposed towards this follow up. She didn’t disappoint me.

“More Time to Think” is written in the same clear, accessible and engaging style and offers practical tips to help people to get better at thinking and at encouraging independent thinking in others.

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Key themes and ideas

• The first job of a leader is to help him/herself and others to generate the best independent thinking that they possibly can
• How the listener behaves has a huge impact on the quality of thinking that the thinker/talker is able to do
• Kline describes ten key components that shape the thinking environment. Key to these for me are:
  • Attention (really listening as opposed to waiting to talk)
  • Equality (seeing the Thinker as every bit as capable of thinking as we are)
  • Appreciation (people think better when they receive sincere and specific appreciation)

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Neuropsychology for Coaches: Understanding the Basics: Professor Paul Brown & Virginia Brown

The authors aim to set out a framework within which executive coaches can start to use the power of the knowledge that is coming out of neuroscience labs worldwide. The objective is to bridge the gap between executive coaches (who the authors describe as fascinated by the human condition but having little knowledge of the brain) and neuroscientists (who have a great fascination with the brain but who are not very interested professionally in the human condition).

Here’s the bit that drew me in:

“This is, we believe, the first book to attempt to define the practice of coaching from what we know about the brain rather than use what we know about the brain to justify bits of coaching; …”

The idea underpinning what the authors are calling Neurobehavioural Modelling (NBM) is to:

“… understand, catch, use and regulate your client’s emotional energy, whatever it is, in pursuit of the coaching goals.”

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How Coaching Works – The essential guide to the history and practice of effective coaching: Joseph O’Connor and Andrea Lages

The authors set out in this book to:

• Review the present state of coaching
• Provide an overview of how coaching has grown
• Explain some of the main types or schools of coaching
• Bring together in one model the key elements of these different approaches to coaching
• Explore how to measure the results of coaching
• Explore what terms like “transactional” and “transformational” coaching mean
• Speculate about the future of coaching.

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Coaching for Performance – GROWing People, Performance and Purpose, Third edition: John Whitmore

Whitmore says that the purpose of his book is:

“describing and illustrating what coaching really is, what it can be used for, when and how much it can be used, who can use it well and who cannot.”

The book is designed to explain the principles of coaching in lay terms.

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Leadership Coaching – Working with leaders to develop elite performance: edited by Jonathan Passmore

The book is a collection of writings by individual contributors.

The editor has asked each contributor to write about a leadership model; review the research that supports that model; and then set out how that model can be used by a coach working with a coaching client.

As such, it is a good one-stop shop for coaches wanting a quick introduction to some leadership models with which they might be less familiar.

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Executive Coaching – A Psychodynamic Approach: Catherine Sandler

The book is written for coaches who want to know more about psychodynamic psychology and how to use psychodynamic insights to help their clients. The introduction to the book by Jenny Rogers, the Series Editor, says:

“Catherine’s book is a practical, readable guide, written by one of the UK’s most experienced and successful executive coaches. In it she explains, with the help of many case studies drawn from her practice, how to apply psychodynamic ideas.”

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StrengthsFinder 2.0 - a new and upgraded edition of the online test from Gallup's Now Discover Your Strengths

What Gallup says about the StrengthsFinder 2.0

Gallup has researched the relationship between the extent to which people use their strengths at work and the extent to which they feel engaged in that work. Gallup’s research supports the idea that if people have the opportunity at work to do what they are good at, they feel engaged at work. In addition, identifying strengths and then focussing on them offers real potential for personal growth.

Gallup used the data from (at that time) 100,000 talent-based interviews to highlight and describe the 34 most common talent themes. The Gallup proposition is that, having identified your top talents, you can knowingly invest in those natural talents to develop real strengths in those areas.

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Smart Questions - The Essential Strategy for Managers: Dorothy Leeds

Dear to any coach’s heart must be the role that questioning plays in a coaching conversation. In this book, the author uses her consultancy experience to demonstrate the value and the importance of asking good questions. Her contention is that good leaders, and those recognised as having real potential for leadership, are those who know how to ask the best questions. The book isn’t written for coaches – it’s aimed at a much broader management audience.

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The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Peter Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard Ross and Bryan Smith

The book provides practical tools and techniques to help people to build learning organisations. It’s a compendium of exercises, methods, tools and reflective pieces. It describes itself as being for people who want to learn, whilst they are working within an organisation. Whilst not written specifically for them, the pragmatic learning focus of the book makes it a rich source of techniques and exercises for executive coaches and their clients.

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Leadership Coaching – from personal insight to organisational performance: Graham Lee

Written by a coach with a background both in psychotherapy and in business, the book focuses on how coaches can help clients to achieve better performance at work by understanding who they are as people. Lee aims to blend psychological and business concepts to help coaches to help clients to achieve sustainable change.

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The Psychology of Executive Coaching – Theory and Application: Bruce Peltier

The book aims to provide a conceptual foundation for an executive coach, translating psychotherapy theory into coaching practice. The book is targeted at both therapists and counsellors who want to expand their practice into the corporate world, and business people who want to enhance their coaching skills. The book takes a number of psychotherapy theories and assesses their applicability to executive coaching.

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DESIRE: the feedback

We presented DESIRE at the EMCC's 2010 Annual Mentoring & Coaching Conference. Here's what people said:

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DESIRE: a mnemonic for setting successful goals

To help clients to develop objectives that are motivating as well as clear, I have read a lot of goal-setting literature and research. From this I have identified a number of factors that successful goals have in common. I have tested these factors with my clients, and, two years ago, I brought them together in a new mnemonic: DESIRE.

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Cognitive-behavioural Counselling in Action: Peter Trower, Andrew Casey & Windy Dryden

The book is aimed at trainee counsellors who are developing the skills of cognitive behavioural counselling (CBC). It introduces the fundamentals of CBC and gives guidance on how to use CBC with a client. Some years ago I was lucky enough to receive training in how to use CBC with coaching clients, and I can see that this book does a superb job of explaining CBC and giving practical guidance in how to use it. Despite the fact that the cognitive-behavioural approach is variously described as cognitive-behavioural therapy or cognitive-behavioural counselling, you do not need to be either a therapist or a counsellor to use these techniques with coaching clients.

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Solution-focused Coaching – managing people in a complex world: Jane Greene and Anthony M Grant

The book is written for the manager who wants to manage and develop his/her people by using coaching techniques. The introduction says “Coaching is about creating positive directed change. It is about helping people to develop their potential. Managers can use coaching to enhance and increase the performance of individuals and teams.”

Of course, the coaching approaches and techniques described in the book are every bit as useful to executive coaches.

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MBTI® Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment

MBTI® Step I is a multiple-choice personality questionnaire that looks at how a person perceives the world and how they prefer to interact with others. The MBTI® framework helps people to improve their working and personal relationships in a positive and constructive way.

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Motivational Interviewing – preparing people for change: William R Miller, Stephen Rollnick

Originally written for clinicians supporting clients who are tackling addictive behaviour, the second edition of this book has broadened out to explore how motivational interviewing can be used to support behaviour change in a wider range of situations.

While not written as a book for coaches, there is a lot here that is interesting and valuable around how people do and don’t motivate themselves to change. Motivational interviewing focuses on helping clients to find their own reasons to nudge themselves towards making a change.

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This is coaching, not confession

... we need to be a bit less precious about confidentiality and a bit more precise. Coaching in an organisational setting is not confession nor is it therapy. A blanket promise of confidentiality is misleading and leads to suboptimal results.

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The coaching sponsor – the secret ingredient in successful executive coaching

... when your coaching client is an employee looking to move forward in a work context, the coaching contract involves three parties: the coaching client; the coach; and the organisation that employs the client and pays the coach.

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Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart: Mary Beth O’Neill

Written by an executive coach for coaches working with leaders of organisations, the book focuses on how a coach should be with the leader that he/she is coaching. O’Neill does not offer specific skills and techniques for the coach to transfer to clients, but focuses instead on the impact of the coach him/herself on the client and the coaching relationship.

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