Coaching : Evoking Excellence in Others by James Flaherty
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Book Reviews of Coaching : Evoking Excellence in Others
Book Review: Excellent book!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book for my girlfriend who is a literacy coach. She then asked me to buy three more so she could give them as presents to other coaches. 'Nuff said!Book Review: Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others
Summary: 5 Stars
The book is extraordinarily concise, clear, comprehensive to deal with the issue of coaching, a concept difficult to explain. It has guidelines for different levels of preparation and competence. Excellent.
In my case, I am an advertising officer, it served the purpose of helping me in communicating at the best of my skills.
Book Review: Very dry reading
Summary: 1 Stars
I must say that I was extremely disappointed by this book. Given all of reviews I saw/read before buying the book, I expected a very helpful tome. Instead, this turned out to be one of the driest books I've ever tried to read.
There are much better, and more helpful, books out there on coaching.
Book Review: Good but hardly definitive
Summary: 3 Stars
Mr. Flaherty's book reveals the wide and disparate meanings we apply to the word "coaching." My primary focus is in the area of managing and coaching professional technology salespeople. I found this book to be uneven and at times even irritating. Too many references to Heidegger and other philosophers, which struck me as irrelevant appeals to authority with little relevance to coaching. I like a good discussion of philosophy, the nature of being, etcetera, but in this context it seemed out of place. At other times, Flaherty's insights were brilliant.
Despite numerous references intended to persuade us of the foundations for the author's positions, Flaherty includes questionable material in this book which he acknowledges will be controversial. The section on body types is, in my view, ludicrous stereotyping. My field is medical technology, and when I read that "ectomorphs are tall, thin, long-limbed, long-necked folks... people of this body type often have complex and highly wrought nervous systems," I cringed. What is a highly wrought nervous system? Where is the scientific evidence to support this? Basing assumptions on people's "body type" is fraught with danger, not the least of which is being dead wrong. More importantly, what in the world does this have to do with coaching, unless perhaps if you are a fitness coach or physical therapist. It might then have some dubious merit, but Flaherty is suggesting that coaches, generally, consider these "factors." On the other hand, coaching awareness of one's physical body and its signals and responses to internal and external influences certainly has merit.
The author also goes out of his way to demean the views of Ferdinand Fournies, whose book Coaching for Improved Work Performance he apparently views as competition to his own. He dismisses Fournies as a behaviorist and suggests his coaching advice belittles those being coached. Yet Flaherty frequently remarks that you must deal with observable behavior. What's more, he acknowledges that "when someone declines coaching," but you are still responsible for their results, "I recommend that you use traditional management procedures," with "clarity about outcomes and the consequences for not reaching those outcomes." In short, he says you should do what Fournies, much more eloquently and sensitively, advocates.
There is a great deal a reader on the subject might gain from Flaherty's book, but I would not recommend it in isolation. After reading it, I was surprised at the numerous glowing and uncritical reviews it received. Read it WITH Fournies' book - the two are not contradictory. But if you are only going to read one book on coaching, read John Whitmore's 3rd edition of Coaching for Performance, a brilliantly straightforward, unpretentious, and exceedingly pragmatic view of how we can help others realize their potential in most relationships. If by chance you are coaching salespeople, also read Managing Major Sales, by Neil Rackham and Richard Ruff.
Book Review: Excellent resource for coaches!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a family and life coach, focusing mainly on parents and teens. I found Flaherty's book to have many useful and powerful tools that can be used with any client, including parents, kids, youth, teens, and families. Coaching leaves people feeling more competent and helps them learn how to self-correct. Teaching this to children and youth is powerful and can change the direction of their lives. Helping them feel more competent as a result of learning how to self-correct seems to me to be something that would be invaluable to clients both young and old. Children are like sponges and learn very quickly. They can achieve more balance in their own young lives when they are given the tools in which to do so. Parents can learn to be powerful coaches for their children through being coached themselves.
Because coaching is a relationship that is based on mutual respect, trust, and freedom of expression, it serves to support all clients. We have to remember that clients are in the middle of their lives and that includes kids. They may have developed some undesired behaviors and it will take some patience and caring to help walk them through the steps to change. We as coaches can observe and learn when something is not working for both parents and kids, then share with them the steps they can take toward positive change. I think it is extremely powerful for a child or teen to learn that he or she has the ability to make these changes and to determine the outcomes in their lives.
Flaherty teaches the importance of having a strong foundation that can act as an anchor in our coaching experience with our clients. Coaching is a way of working with people that leaves them more competent and fulfilled so that they are more able to contribute in any area of their life. It also helps clients to learn to self-correct. They know when things are going well and can see when things are not. They can learn to change behaviors that will help them in making the adjustments needed to correct it.
What's true is what works. Coaching is about practical outcomes and is a discipline that requires self-correction, freshness, and innovation. Our coaching has to be adapted to fit individuals who already have their own way of doing things. Language, observation, and assessment occur simultaneously. They never occur without the other. The coach must be very precise, consistent, and grounded in listening and speaking to the client. The coach must also have a general sense of the way the client is in and makes sense of the world.
Flaherty said: "The more profoundly and systematically we understand someone, the more effective and lasting our coaching can be."
I will use the tools in Flaherty's book for years to come. I found it to be very clear and concise and his illustrations and charts useful and practical. I will turn to his book whenever I feel it's time for me to re-assess.