Overview

Here are the basics, the building blocks for everything that follows the fundamentals of coaching. They re presented simply, directly, and concisely with few examples or elaborations. The presentation gives you maximum room for your own thinking and creativity. This book doesn t tell you what to do. Instead, it gives you distinctions, ideas, models, and principles from which you can design your own actions. Some readers will be annoyed by this, others will feel informed and liberated. In either case, regardless of initial response, the question remains what will leave you, the reader, with the greatest chance to be an excellent coach who can self-correct and self-generate your own innovations? The following is my response to that question.

Our chief want in life is someone who will make us do what we can.

Emerson

Why Coaching Now?

Maybe as you select a book about coaching you already have in mind the situation in which you want to use coaching. Perhaps you re a manager in some kind of organization who is trying to improve the performance of someone who works for you, or maybe you are someone attempting to mentor a young promising person. Alternatively, you might be a team leader on a software development task force attempting to build the proficiency of your team. You could also be a parent who wants to provide the best possible upbringing for your child. The possible scenarios could go on and on, and it s the purpose of this book to give you an introduction...