We hope you enjoy this list of favorite coaching books and resources compiled by the AceUp Team and our coach community.
If you have any books or resources that you would like to suggest, please email support@aceup.com
AceUp Coach Authors!
First-Time Managers Start Here: Building a Solid Foundation for New and Aspiring Managers by Donna Aldrich. In our fast-paced work life, companies don’t spend the time to cultivate and grow new managers. Often, they expect managers to know what to do, which leaves you with the question: “Where do I begin?” Ask yourself: How do you approach your first week in management? How do you hire the best employees for your team? What approach do you take for meetings so people actually want to be there? How do you have a difficult conversation with a problem employee? This book will answer all those questions and provide you the blueprint you need to be successful in your first management position.
Coaching:
The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. Best for coachees, great for coaches. MBS is a straight-talking, common-sense leader in coaching circles who avoids ICF rules and coaching terminology to embrace a more everyday approach to coaching that can be very accessible and instructive to curious coachees.
Helping People Change by Richard Boyatsis. Best for trainers and coaches. Boyatsis, a leader in the field of coaching research, distills over 30 years of research to explain why remedial coaching, which he calls coaching for compliance, gets much poorer results than coaching to a coachee’s highest vision, which he calls coaching with compassion. He makes some interesting and subtle points about why research shows that coaching to short-term goals and problems is both easier and less effective than coaching to their most ambitious and challenging visions of a better future and ideal self.
Pivot by Jenny Blake. Equally good for coaches and coachees. Blake, who worked in Talent & Development at Google for 5 years before starting her business, has created a great career shift toolkit for people who feel stuck, have been laid off, or are searching for something better, but don’t know what. Great as a step-by-step book for coachees and equally great as a resource for career coaches. Has a great online community and website.
Behavior Modification/Habit Formation
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Great for coaches and coachees. Full of great stories, analysis, and insight, this review of habit research by an investigative NYTimes reporter is full of great tools and tips on what researchers and organizations have discovered about successful habit formation. The 3.5 minute video linked to here is a great intro that is a great starting point to share with clients. Full disclosure: Pratt got so deep into this book and Duhigg’s research that he made it into the paperback version ;) (Pratt)
Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood. Best for coaches, good for wonky coachees. BIG insight and payoff is her main finding that people who rely on willpower to change behavior fail, while those who focus on habit formation succeed at a much higher rate. Wood is one of the preeminent researchers on habit formation and summarizes decades of research in a useful and insightful book. If you’re looking for stories and entertainment, read Duhigg’s book. If you are into science and psychology, read this. The podcast linked to also has a great short-read intro for coachees wondering why their efforts to change behaviors haven’t paid off yet. (Pratt)
Emotional Intelligence
Unlocking Us by Brene Brown. Brilliant for trainers and coaches. Brown, whose groundbreaking research into shame redefined the field of social science, delves deep into diversity, the challenges of not blaming those who make mistakes, and many other topics that the leaders we coach need to learn more about. The episode with Mark Brackett on Permission to Feel is an amazing place to start. (Pratt)
Improving Work Performance
Your Brain at Work by David Rock. Better for coaches than coachees. This book, authored by founder of the Neuroleadership Institute David Rock, is an incredible distillation of decades of neuroscience about work and performance in easy-to-grasp scenarios. Rock walks us through research on why we shouldn’t check email when we wake up, why GPS is better than memory, how to avoid meltdown meetings, and above all, how to manage the fragmentation stress can cause and get our brains into flow more often. The podcast linked to here is a great intro to these and related topics. (Pratt)
Resilience:
How I Built This- Great for coaches and coachees. Amazing podcast series hosted by TED talk radio host Guy Raz and filled with frank and enlightening interviews with successful founders on all the failures and setbacks they encountered and had to survive. Great recommendation for clients who are struggling and think they’re at a dead end. ALL these people and companies thought they were, too, but found ways out.