Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Oh, my. MEMO TO EVERY PERSON I’VE PRETENDED TO COACH OR MENTOR: I’m so, so sorry! Honest! Here’s why. This month I was a learner in a seminar with CEOs and board chairs. The highly energetic, wise and witty facilitator was Michael Bungay Stanier, the author of the hot-off-the-press book, “The Coaching Habit.” At a coffee break, halfway through the three-hour, how-to-coach practicum, I told Stanier that—already—the seminar was on my Top-10 list of best workshops ever attended (and I’ve attended my fair share). Here’s why I gave it a 10: Three memorable points on coaching: --BE LAZY: Stop working so hard. --BE CURIOUS: Stop giving so much advice. --BE OFTEN: Stop waiting to coach. And how’s this for role reversal? I’m usually reading snippets from books to my wife. She picked this up first and is still reading—and reminding me—on what effective coaching looks like, especially the “stop giving so much advice” poke-in-the-ribs. Ouch. Stanier notes that “Harland Howard said every great country song has three chords and the truth. This book gives you seven questions and the tools to make them an everyday way to work less hard and have more impact.” The seven essential questions: --The Kickstart Question --The AWE Question --The Focus Question --The Foundation Question --The Lazy Question --The Strategic Question --The Learning Question Stanier says the best coaching question in the world is the AWE question: “And What Else?” In a four-minute drill with another board chair, I was instructed to ask four questions displayed on the seminar room screen. Stanier says “the first answer someone gives you is almost never the only answer, and it’s rarely the best answer,” so the AWE question is the perfect follow-up. --Q1: What’s the real challenge here for you? --Q2: And what else? --Q3: And what else? --Q4: So what’s the real challenge here for you? In just four minutes—it was almost magical. I stuck to the bargain (whew—very hard) and just asked questions of my board chair partner. He responded to each question—and increasingly, in response to “And what else?” he dug deeper and deeper and—BINGO!—answered his own question and solved his own challenge. Where was this book when I was pretending to coach team members, clients, my son, my grandkids, and many, many others? Yikes! I’ve underlined gems on almost every page: --Although coaching is listed as one of the six essential leadership styles in Daniel Goleman’s article, “Leadership That Gets Results” (a Harvard Business Review classic), “it was the least-used leadership style.” --“You can build a coaching habit” and “You can coach someone in ten minutes or less. And in today’s busy world, you have to be able to coach in ten minutes or less.” --“Coaching should be a daily, informal act, not an occasional, formal ‘It’s Coaching Time!’ event.” Stanier’s humor sneaks up on you! As you embark on what he calls the “coaching habit,” he suggests you start somewhere easy: “If you’re going to manage someone differently, pick someone who might be up for it and is willing to cut you some slack. Or pick someone with whom it’s all going so badly that you’ve got nothing left to lose.” ANOTHER AHA! The author says there’s a huge difference between coaching for performance—and coaching for development. “Call them forward to learn, improve and grow, rather than to just get something sorted out.” A gargantuan fan of questions—versus answers—he quotes Nancy Willard: “Answers are closed rooms; and questions are open doors that invite us in.” “CUT THE INTRO AND ASK THE QUESTION” is another shot over the bow. He notes, “No James Bond movie starts off slowly. Pow! Within 10 seconds you’re into the action, the adrenaline has jacked and the heart is beating faster”—so “cut the preliminary flim-flam” in your coaching process. In 72-point font on page 52, Stanier shouts: “If you know what question to ask, get to the point and ask it.” TAME THE ADVICE MONSTER! “We’ve all got a deeply ingrained habit of slipping into the advice-giver/expert/answer-it/solve-it/fix-it mode.” (One study revealed that doctors interrupt patients with advice within 18 seconds. Ditto, perhaps, the rest of us.) Slow down and take a breath, says Stanier. “Even though we don’t really know what the issue is, we’re quite sure we’ve got the answer they need.” VP OF BOTTLENECKING. If your employee name badge should read “VP of Bottlenecking,” you must read this book. These seven essential coaching questions will help you coach others, and as Stanier perceptively writes, “Focus on the real problem, not the first problem.” There are dozens and dozens of more gems in this fresh, easy-to-read format (plus almost 50 full-page quotations—all PowerPoint-worthy). I just ordered eight books for colleagues who are coaching boards and CEOs this year.