1979 Book - Coaching: A Management Skill for Improving Individual Performance
The author, Arthur Deegan, had been delivering workshops on this topic for ten years before he wrote this book. Even in 1979, Deegan was talking about “the situation of many organizations - the rapid overall growth necessitating unusually rapid movement of key personnel from one position to another with the feeling that all of them are not ready for it.” Deegan addresses whether people development in an organization is an option or a policy.
This book views coaching as a communication tool that is an ongoing responsibility of leadership. Deegan talks about three approaches to organization communication theory: defining communications as the transmission of information and concern with the mechanics of the process; focusing communication on attention to perception, motivation and other psychological factors present in the sender and receiver; and equating the entire managerial process with the task of effective communication.
One surprising section in this book was titled “How to give an order like a coach”. Common mistakes in giving orders read like communication deficiencies. For example:
- Using ambiguous or vague words in framing your request
- Neglecting to get useful feedback and assuming that your instruction what understood
- Failing to share why the request is being made and thus demotivating the individual
- Not tailoring the level of detail to fit the needs of the particular individual
- Mistiming the order and hot having the individuals attention for the communication
- Relying on positional authority rather than using inner authority based on competence, insight and understanding
- Giving too many orders at once
- Mumbling, talking too fase, or giving orders over your shoulder as you rush off somewhere
- Giving an order before you have had time to think it through yourself
Each of these deficiencies can be reframed to fit coaching as we know it today. This book is one that, when translated into todays language and context, holds valid concepts and approached for coaches working in business.
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Comment by Christine Heinrichs on 6 May 2008:
These are helpful pointers for directing volunteers, which I am starting to do. Thus far, I’m having some success, but hope to improve. I’ll look into getting this book.