Business coaching has become an increasingly popular tool to support individual and organizational growth and development. It takes a holistic approach, helping individuals and organizations understand their strengths and weaknesses, set goals, and improve growth strategies.
Whether you are a business owner, executive, manager, or aspiring entrepreneur, understanding the principles and practices of business coaching can help you achieve your goals and tap your full potential. In this article we present five books that can help you understand the power and potential of business coaching. From Robert Hargrove to Emilie Wapnick, this introductory shortlist aims to give you a solid understanding of the scope and potential of business coaching.
How to Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick
This book serves as a great starting point for anyone trying to figure out what career best suits their personality; it is particularly insightful for people with a broad range of interests and passions. Its author garnered a lot of attention for a Ted Talk in which she urges people who do not feel they have a single vocation to instead embrace their “multipotential” being.
The book is also a useful tool for learning how to focus on multiple projects at the same time, making progress on each one in an organized way. Another key area in which How to Be Everything attempts to give practical insight is losing interest in the things you used to love and how to deal with that.
Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore
The subtitle of this book is as eloquent as its pages: Growing Human Potential and Purpose — The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership. This book has become an international reference for coaching, the basic idea is the one that lies at the heart of coaching: to bring out the best version of yourself. This is the key to stimulating productivity, as well as personal and professional growth and satisfaction.
Whitmore’s classic book offers a comprehensive guide to coaching, exploring the fundamental strategies and principles, including coaching models, and provides practical examples for how to adjust coaching for a business context.
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Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg & Lauren McCann
Again, the subtitle explains the intent of the book: ‘Upgrade Your Reasoning and Make Better Decisions with Mental Models’. This guide uses models to help optimize decision-making, models with which we interpret reality to solve problems and thus choose between options. Essentially, the best models guide us towards smart investments and the development of innovative technologies; Super Thinking explains what these models are, Commandment #1 being: ‘apply the sunk cost error to the end of a project doomed to failure’.
Masterful Coaching by Robert Hargrove
This book focuses on coaching as a tool for organizational change. It was so successful that it became a best-seller and has been published in three editions, each time updated and expanded. It explores how coaching can be used to guide and support change processes within companies. This seminal book was a trailblazer in coaching when it was first written twenty years ago; its advice is as valid today as it was back then.
Making Remote Work Work by Gil Gildner
A pragmatic book on making remote work organized and effective. At a time when remote working is shifting towards hybrid working, this handbook is a valuable ally in adapting to this ‘new’ approach. Inside there are tips for attracting remote workers to an organization, best practices for communication and planning, warning signs during remote interviews, how jobseekers can make their CV stand out when looking for a remote job, and much more. A special focus is on the importance of Diversity & Inclusion for improving a team.
