Blog Post

As we have deployed more and more 360 assessments, many of our customers have requested that we include a reading list for participants who would like to explore ideas for increased management effectiveness.  I thought it would be interesting to ask clients and colleagues to share what they considered the best articles, books and online resources for the current business marketplace.

What I received was an amazing list of books, articles and websites.  We organized these into specific topic areas, and I will be sharing some of these resources in this blog.

Below is the information on ten books on Coaching and Development that were submitted by our colleagues.  Please note that we tried to assign ownership to the description/review wherever possible.

Executive Coaching: Practices and Perspectives
by Catherine Fitzgerald and Jennifer Garvey Berger
Amazon Review: Coaching has for too long been relegated to the bottom of most consultants’ bags of fixes. More properly called “executive development,” this field is becoming one of the hotter areas in the training world because of today’s need to retain and develop superior talent. This excellent book of essays and articles by the top people in the industry is the first to integrate the theory and practice of this emerging field…
Citation: Fitzgerald, Catherine, and Jennifer Garvey Berger. Executive Coaching: Practices & Perspectives. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black Pub., 2002. Print.
ISBN: 891061614

Action Coaching
by: David Dotlich
Product Description: Chances are, if you’re a manager in most any organization today, coaching has become an integral part of your responsibilities. And there’s no more effective approach to coaching than Action Coaching…Here, Dotlich and Cairo share the same advice, techniques, and tools they’ve used to transform hundreds of managers and executives into first-rate coaches. Moreover, they clearly demonstrate how Action Coaching can be used as a strategy for achieving organizational goals by aligning personal improvement with a company’s vision for the future.
Citation: Dotlich, David L., and Peter C. Cairo. Action Coaching: How to Leverage Individual Performance for Company Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999. Print.
ISBN: 787944777

How to Get Ideas and Ideaship
by: Jack Foster
Editorial Review: “Ideaship is thirty-five years of creative coaching experience, condensed and delivered in the short, pithy style of one of America’s finest copywriters.” -Joe Phelps, CEO, The Phelps Group
Citation: Foster, Jack, and Larry Corby. Ideaship: How to Get Ideas Flowing in Your Workplace. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2001. Print.
ISBN: 1576751643

Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others
by: James Flannery
Editorial Review: “At long last, a book on coaching that moves beyond ‘advice from the sidelines.’ James Flaherty convincingly shows that the only way to truly help people grow is to help them in developing new practices and new language, and that the only way to coach effectively is to enter into a reciprocal relationship where ‘coach’ and ‘coachee’ engage in a dance of mutual influence and growth.” – Peter M. Senge, MIT and Society for Organizational Learning
Citation: Flaherty, James. Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others. Amsterdam: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010. Print.
ISBN: 1856178161

Putting Management Back Into Performance
by: James Webb
Product Description: Setting out seven strategies for how every manager and supervisor can be more effective in their performance management role, James Webb discusses the processes of assigning work, performance planning, employee development, understanding and responding to performance data, and accounting for the “unmanageable” in an open system.
Citation: Webb, James. Putting Management Back into Performance: a Handbook for Managers and Supervisors. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2003. Print.
ISBN: 1865089656

The Power of Feedback
by: Joseph Folkman
Editorial Review: “Joe Folkman has years of experience and miles of wisdom from coaching and training high-performance organizations. He speaks truth: change is hard. But feedback can be very powerful if the receiver makes the commitment to lasting change. Folkman has scored a home run with The Power of Feedback.”–Maria Nalywayko Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Fremont Investment & Loan
Citation: Folkman, Joe. The Power of Feedback: 35 Principles for Turning Feedback from Others into Personal and Professional Change. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2006. Print.
ISBN: 471998206

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
by: Marshall Goldsmith
Editorial Review from Publishers Weekly: Goldsmith, an executive coach to the corporate elite, pinpoints 20 bad habits that stifle already successful careers as well as personal goals like succeeding in marriage or as a parent. Most are common behavioral problems, such as speaking when angry…Goldsmith deals with touchy-feely material more typical of a self-help book—such as learning to listen or letting go of the past—his approach to curing self-destructive behavior is much harder-edged. For instance, he does not suggest sensitivity training for those prone to voicing morale-deflating sarcasm. His advice is to stop doing it…
Citation: Goldsmith, Marshall, and Mark Reiter. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. New York, NY: Hyperion, 2007. Print
ISBN: 1401301304

The Empowered Manager
by: Peter Block
Product Description: Peter Block, the author of the classic Flawless Consulting, is a true visionary. And here he turns his sights on management. Managers and other employees who feel powerless to control their own destinies, who feel stifled by bureaucracy, who feel sapped of creativity–will feel invigorated by Block’s legendary insight…Block presents ways to treat all members of the organization as entrepreneurs so that employees feel that their units are their own businesses and that they, and they alone, are in the process of creating an organization of their own choosing…
Citation: Block, Peter. The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987. Print.
ISBN: 1555422659

Tell Me How I’m Doing
by: Richard L. Williams Ph.D
Product Description: Imagine going through your life receiving absolutely no input from colleagues or supervisors, friends or family. No inclusion in decisions, no praise or constructive criticism for the things you do — in fact, no acknowledgment that you even exist at all. We all take feedback for granted, but it is a reference point without which we become incapable of functioning fully and productively.Tell Me How I’m Doing presents a fable that illustrates what can happen when feedback is denied, and then offers step-by-step guidance for making feedback an integral part of all working and personal relationships…
Citation: Williams, Richard L. Tell Me How I’m Doing: a Fable about the Importance of Giving Feedback. New York: AMACOM, American Management Association, 2005. Print.
ISBN: 081440832X

Real Time Coaching
by: Ron Ernst
Product Description: RealTime Coaching is a “how-to” manual for every manager, executive, or leader who is responsible for getting the work of the organization done with and through the cooperation of other people. In RealTime Coaching you’ll find a solid, practical theory of “why people do what they do,” you’ll see coaching in action in four vivid coaching sessions, you’ll learn a simple straight forward coaching model, and you’ll have the opportunity to discover the values that motivate you and how to adapt your behavioral style for effective coaching.
Citation: Ernst, Ronald L. RealTime Coaching: How to Make the Minute by Minute Decisions That Unleash the Power in Your People. Carmel, Ind.: Leadership Horizons, 2004. Print.
ISBN: 966886801

Happy Reading!