THE TRANSFORMATIONAL COACH: FREE YOUR THINKING AND BREAK THROUGH TO COACHING MASTERY

BY CLARE NORMAN

PUBLISHER: RIGHT BOOK PRESS

ISBN: 978 1912 30082 2

As the owner of a coaching school, I found the premise of Norman’s new book intriguing and challenging: for coaching mastery, unlearning matters even more than learning.

According to Norman, we all have plenty to unlearn – much of what we took from our parents, school, peers, workplace, managers, coaching experience and even our coach training.

Coaching is as much about what we don’t do as what we do. In the early years of the profession, it was easier to say what coaching wasn’t than what it was. As coaching searched for an identity, it became ever more complex, with a wealth of concepts, approaches and theories of change. Yet, in pursuit of credibility and depth, perhaps something was lost: the simple power of coaching.

This is what Norman calls us to reconnect with if we’re to achieve mastery and make our coaching transformational.

She forensically and lovingly unpicks what we need to master to let the client be the true expert in the coaching space and reminds all of us to get back to what really creates change: the client.

This is a much-needed book that should sit on every coach’s bookshelf.

• Nick Bolton is founder and CEO of Animas Centre for Coaching