By: Laura Whitworth, Karen Kimsey-House, Henry Kimsey-House, Phillip Sandahl
Reviewed by: Glain Roberts-McCabe
The Premise: Coaching has become a world-wide phenomenon, with everyone and their brother hanging up shingles to be a “coach”. One of the earliest training groups into the field was The Coaches Training Institute (CTI). Founders Laura Whitworth, Karen Kimsey-House and Henry Kimsey-House, along with Phillip Sandahl, provide the inside track on how to be a “Co-Active Coach” in this robust handbook. Covering everything from the skills you need to be a successful coach, through to a variety of scenarios, the book finishes up with a full toolkit of activities and templates that you can put into use immediately. Co-Active Coaching is the approach of choice for life coaches, but the skills outlined are excellent for any manager who really wants to increase their overall coaching effectiveness. Easy to read, with plenty of examples to illustrate the techniques in action, the book also comes with a CD rom option with sample coaching sessions and checklists.
The Bottom Line: With full disclosure, I am a CTI graduate from over a decade ago. I took the program when I was a manager trying to boost my managerial skills and it changed my life. Sounds a bit dramatic perhaps, but I honestly thought I understood what coaching was before I took the CTI program, and very quickly realized that, what I thought was coaching, was in fact more like gentle directing of my agenda. The Co-Active Coaching handbook is a great alternative for managers interested in boosting their coaching skills but less interested in going the formal instruction route. There are countless tools and techniques that you can draw on. Some are better suited for “life coaching”, but even many of these tools can be adapted. If you’re interested in taking your coaching up a notch, this is definitely a solid investment of money and time.
Roundtable Rating: Highly recommended for individuals looking to improve their coaching.
Check out the book and learn more about the CTI workshop series.
