This book is about how to develop artistry (not mastery) in your coaching. It’s not about adding tools to your toolkit. It’s not about developing your skills, or learning new clever questions to add to your repertoire. Rather it’s about how you, as a person, show up in your coaching relationships. The overall question the book addresses is “What needs to change for us on the inside to be able to demonstrate ease and partnership in coaching?”
The book is in two parts – the humanity within, and the humanity between. The first part has chapters on the six human qualities that underpin artful coaching: silence, control and not knowing, humility, vulnerability, distance, courage and insight. The second, on partnership, the dance, the words, the music, trust, and using recordings for reflective practice.
Pedrick and Baldelli show how excellent coaches to less to achieve more and use their wisdom and experience (as a coach, as a professional and as a human being) as a resource to help the client’s thinking.
I love that throughout the book they do not refer to the person being coached as a “client” or a “coachee”. Rather, they use the term “the thinker”. They also refer to the stages of a coach’s development as growing, experienced and artful, and note that these are not necessarily connected to the length of time someone has been coaching.
As well as terrific content, the book includes activities including Questions to think about, Things to look for as you reflect on your practice, and “Try this” experiments to try with clients or a peer coach. There’s also a free workbook that you can download to go along with the book.
