The Coaching Shift: How A Coaching Mindset and Skills Can Change You, Your Interactions, and the World Around You offers practical guidance on how to adopt a coaching mindset and how to build a coaching skill set to unlock better communication, stronger relationships, and high performance in others.

Accessible and practical, the book draws on research from coaching, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and industrial-organizational psychology to provide the best science-based practices that can be applied in work and life. It presents core coaching skills that anyone can develop and use to improve their own emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and interactions with others. It uses levels of analysis to help readers think about key concepts first in relation to themselves, and then in 1:1 interactions, group and team dynamics, organizational-level impact, and beyond. The book offers specific and tangible advice for readers to develop their coaching and communication skills, while also developing a deeper understanding of themselves.

The Coaching Shift, with its clear tone, anecdotal references, and practical application, will be essential reading for coaches in practice and in training, and for academics and students of coaching and coaching psychology. These concepts and practices are also relevant for anyone who wants to have more effective interactions with others.

About the Author

Shonna D. Waters, PhD, is an organizational psychologist, technologist, leadership coach, and part-time professor at Georgetown University, USA. She spent her career conducting research and consulting on people and organizational systems. She is the CEO and Principal of WatersEdge Coaching & Consulting and co-founder of Fractional Insights, an evidence-based people strategy consultancy. Shonna also authored The Practical Guide to HR Analytics.

Brodie Gregory Riordan, PhD, is an industrial psychologist, executive coach, and part-time professor at Georgetown University, USA. Her career includes global leadership roles at Procter & Gamble, CEB, and McKinsey & Company. She manages Ocular, a coaching and consulting practice based in Washington, DC, and is an executive coach with The Boda Group. Brodie also authored Feedback Fundamentals and Evidence-Based Best Practices.

Reviews

Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Awards for Business Book

Awarded with a 5-Star Reader's Choice Award (2023)

Awarded with a 5-Star Reader's Favorite Award (2023)

"The Coaching Shift is an empowering and transformative guidebook that will help readers develop more impactful coaching skills. After each chapter there are a number of practical exercises, where readers are invited to reflect on their own experiences and practice their skills. The book is easy to read, engaging and very relatable, making it accessible to a wide range of readers.

Well written and extensively researched, this book is a valuable resource that will equip coaches / aspiring coaches with the necessary skills and mindsets to become more effective and meaningful in their coaching practice. An essential read for practicing coaches, managers and anyone leading teams, students of coaching and coaching psychology, and anyone interested in how to develop more meaningful connections with others."

Readers' Choice Book Awards Review, Completed May 2023.

"Shonna D. Waters & Brodie Gregory Riordan have done an extraordinary job of capturing the tools, techniques, and fundamentals needed to successfully build out impactful coaching skills. Their content is deeply pragmatic; through stories, examples, and reflection exercises Coaching Skills empowers readers to unlock one's potential to show up as more curious, present, engaged, and supportive with others. This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to up-level their ability to manage in an organization, lead a team, engage a business partner, or navigate a relationship."

Dr. Jacinta M. Jimenez, PsyD, BCC, Author of The Burnout Fix and Vice President, Coach Innovation, BetterUp.

"The best leaders I have worked with, whether within the 75th Ranger Regiment, the world of entrepreneurship, or within McKinsey and Company, Waters and Riordan were the best coaches. These leaders have the self awareness to know that is it more fun and rewarding once we shift from needing to have all the answers, and instead focus on much more effective and scalable ways we can coach ourseves and others - this book gives you the tools you need to achieve this."

Neil Markey, Co-Founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats

"With the autonomy of hybrid work comes the opportunity and challenge to take greater command of our own paths to full potential and to process relationships differently. 'Coaching Skills' wisely pivots the focus from coaching up others to coaching up ourselves first. It provides a fresh approach to self-reflection and self-actualization that can unlock new levels of success and well being. And spoiler alert: By strengthening the skills to coach myself, I feel emboldened to facilitate a similar journey in others in a more authentic way. And hasn't that always been the holy grail of coaching from the start? Brilliant move by authors, Waters and Riordan, to know better than to just teach us how to coach others."

Joe Fernandez, SVP of Global Sales at OnFrontiers

"If you're looking to understand the why and the how through real examples and coaching tools you can put in practice for you or your team this a must read. The Coaching Shift provides the unique combination of teaching the "what" of coaching through concepts and theories AND the "how" of coaching through relatable stories and tools that help you learn more about coaching yourself, team or others from the first chapter through the last chapter. This book lays the platform for continual growth in way that you not only learn how coaching leads to growth but in a way that you can start enacting changes as soon as you complete the first chapter. Waters and Riordan uniquely explains concepts, with stories, and templates for growth to help the reader learn, and support learning of others."

Kimberly Corbitt, Senior VP, People & Culture at Phoenix Suns/Phoenix Mercury

"I thought I knew what it meant to be a great coach - then I read Coaching Skills and it changed everything. Dr. Waters and Dr. Riordan take you on an artful and science-based journey to explore your own life and relationships and share simple and easy ways to use Coaching Skills as a leader, teammate, partner and friend. I recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their life and those around them."

Andrew Biga, Chief People Officer at GoHealth Urgent Care

"The Coaching Shift offers readers information about developing useful coaching skill sets for improving your emotions, mindset, habits, and relationships. The book is divided into three parts. The first part helps you lay the foundation for personal change by examining thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Part Two looks into how you can use your coaching skills and your increased knowledge of yourself and others to improve your relationships. In the last section, readers are enlightened on how a coaching mindset can be employed in organizations to improve cohesion and maximize human potential. From this book, you will learn to improve your well-being, communication skills, job satisfaction, learning ability, team performance, resilience, chances of achieving your goals, and much more..."

Please visit www.readersfavorite.com/book-review/the-coaching-shift to read the full review.

Reviewed by Foluso Falaye for Readers' Favorite, August 2023.

Book Information
ISBN 9780367764395
Author Shonna D. Waters
Format Paperback
Page Count 202
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 220g