The Extraordinary Coach: How the Best Leaders Help Others Grow 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

I absolutely love this book. It's a unique combination of solid research, relevant and illustrative examples, with lots of practical how-to applications. I don't know Kathleen but I've worked with Jack on and off since 1981. Clearly they've co-authored this book because of the strong alignment of their style, approaches, and experience. I was delighted to read the manuscript Jack sent me earlier this year and provide a supportive "jacket blurb" for it.Like Jack's previous book, The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders The Extraordinary Coach is written in a warm and conversational style. Reading this how-to guidebook feels like feel like a personal coaching session with two highly effective leadership development coaches. The book brims with practical and timely advice distilled from Jack and Kathleen's decades of successful leadership development experience. It is an absolute must-read for anyone wanting to strengthen their leadership and development skills.This book is chockfull of so many useful observations and advice on coaching it's really tough to highlight just a few. Here are some that particularly stand out:Coaching Definition"Interactions that help the individual being coached to expand awareness, discover superior solutions, and make and implement better decisions." They go on to explain, "Coaching helps individuals discover answers within themselves and helps them feel more personally empowered. The coach is also dedicated to helping to ensure the implementation and long-term follow-through of planned actions."What Gets in the Way of Coaching?The authors find that most managers claim "time," "my boss doesn't coach me," and "my employees don't need it" as the main reasons they are aren't coaching as much as they'd like to. This certainly squares with The CLEMMER Group's experiences and common leadership discussions in our workshops.Jack and Kathleen believe the real reasons are:* "Avoiding Potentially Uncomfortable Discussions"* "Insecure about the True Value of One's Own Coaching"* "Misunderstanding the True Nature of Good Coaching"* "Direct Reports Seldom Ask for It"No-Time- for -Coaching Doesn't Hold Water"When asked what gets in the way of coaching employees, managers invariably mention the pressure of time. The reality is that managers are working long hours. Their ranks have been thinned. They are stretched. Their schedules are packed. We are reminded, however, of the two men who are mopping up water from a floor. After working feverishly for hours, one of them finally says, `Let's stop mopping and go find what is leaking water.' Managers spend a good deal of time mopping up problems. Coaching is a way to turn off the spigot. It takes only a short leap of faith to say, `I'll take time to develop and coach my people because in the long run it will pay off more than virtually anything else I can do'."Mindset and Skill Set"Coaching represents both a mindset and a skill set. The mindset comes into play for leaders who have a choice in how they guide conversations with employees. Leaders can either direct their employees' actions - in a fairly autocratic mode - or instead coach their employees to discover the best actions to take to move forward. A manager's mindset might be, `I can get more done by controlling and directing,' whereas a coach's mindset might be, `I can get more done by growing my employees and gaining their commitment.'The mindset must precede the skill set. Unless a leader consciously chooses to coach - and chooses `growth' as a worthy objective of the coaching process and conversations - he will be less likely to fully employ the array of skills that support coaching."The book provides an extensive number of frameworks, checklists, guidelines, examples, and how-to steps. Practical job aids like pocket or purse-sized "Action Planners" and "key action cards" have proven to be extremely useful. We continually meet workshop participants from years ago who still reference these tools or ask to replace them. Jack and Kathleen cite the surgeon, Atul Gawande's, book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, on the overwhelming evidence that checklists, frameworks, steps, and guidelines are dramatically reducing medical errors. Just as they've done with aviation pilots for decades now.There are so many more gems to be mined from The Extraordinary Coach. These include letting the people being coached drive much of the coaching agenda, not confusing updates with coaching conversations (a common problem), listening or drawing out versus telling or advising, how the coach owns the process but the person being coached should own the content of the coaching conversation, and how to "let silence do the heavy lifting," Each chapter concludes with a very useful Chapter Summary of the main points just covered.A boss manages and a leader coaches. We need to do both. But most people in supervisory, manager, or executive roles over-boss and under-lead. The results are lower performance, weaker people, disengaged frontline staff, and stressed out managers. Developing people is at the heart of strong leadership. The Extraordinary Coach is an extraordinary guide to developing this critical skill set.

"The Extraordinary Coach" is extraordinary because it helps give people the tools to help them develop as coaches and understand why this skill is so critical in order to have a wellPart of my profession requires me to be available to coach senior managers, who recognize that they need to develop in many ways, but usually they ask for help with their coaching abilities, in order to help increase their own teams performance capabilities. They also don't know hoe to have those difficult conversations, regarding issues such as poor performance. This book effectively helps them do that, along with a little guidance and feedback from my office ;-) (just until they feel completely prepared to tackle this world).Stint and Zenger explains why it is so critical they possess these skills, proving many real life examples from their own experiences in practice, that really are helpful and relative in helping others who are trying to build effective relationships in the workplace.They give a lot of interesting example, ideas and comments you may come across in your own practice. My favorite was one was one I hear all the time from senior management, which is totally unacceptable:"I don't have the time for this"Well, then make time! The authors make it clear there are no excuses.The authors have their own websites, complete with videos.This book is a great read and will encourage many people and really make a difference in an efficient and happier workplace.

Great framework, enjoyable read, useful tools!As coaches, in the face of our complex challenges of developing people, we frequently recognize our need for better tools, processes and practices. In `The Extraordinary Coach' Stinnett and Zenger share their model as adopted by executives across the country.Coaching, as Stinnett and Zenger emphasize, is about helping people develop their awareness, confidence and capacity for achieving better results. The Extraordinary Coach provides an excellent framework for both adopting a coaching mindset and developing more effective coaching practices. Filled with a powerful collage of real-life examples, proven models and developmental self evaluations, Stinnett and Zenger coach us through a deeper understanding of productive coaching relationships and extend their invitation toward our mastering their proven coaching practices.As examples of the wisdom shared in `The Extraordinary Coach', Stinnett and Zenger encourage solutions to pressing coaching questions. For example:1. How can we structure our coaching relationships so we continually make progress?2. How can we build people's commitment for the changes they're seeking?3. How can we model accountability in our coaching relationships as examples for accountability people's performance?A recommended read for every leader who recognizes their need for more effectively developing the self-leadership and performance capabilities of their people.