Helping People Change

Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth

By: Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, Ellen Van Oosten

Narrated by: Barry Abrams

You're trying to help - but is it working?

Helping others is a good thing. Often, as a leader, manager, doctor, teacher, or coach, it's central to your job. But even the most well-intentioned efforts to help others can be undermined by a simple truth: We almost always focus on trying to "fix" people, correcting problems or filling the gaps between where they are and where we think they should be. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well, if at all, to inspire sustained learning or positive change.

There's a better way. In this powerful, practical audiobook, emotional intelligence expert Richard Boyatzis and Weatherhead School of Management colleagues Melvin Smith and Ellen Van Oosten present a clear and hopeful message. The way to help someone learn and change, they say, cannot be focused primarily on fixing problems, but instead must connect to that person's positive vision of themselves or an inspiring dream or goal they've long held. This is what great coaches do - they know that people draw energy from their visions and dreams, and that same energy sustains their efforts to change, even through difficult times. In contrast, problem-centered approaches trigger physiological responses that make a person defensive and less open to new ideas.

©2019 Richard E. Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Ellen Van Oosten (P)2019 Gildan Media

All the acronyms

The book is good, however for those of us who are using the audio version and listening while driving - it is very hard to keep up with all the acronyms. In a hard copy, you could not flip back. A cheat sheet would be great. After a while, I did not want to listen anymore because I got lost as to what was what.

great book

Loved it. 15 coaching with compassion 🙌 it makes a difference. the book is comprehensive

Great story!

This a good story and informative for coaches! I’d recommend having some pdf files for the acronyms, etc for this who purchased the audiobook. Sometimes it was difficult to keep up. If I had a reference to review that would’ve made it much better!

Key Resource for Positive Coaching

I found this book to be incredibly insightful and applicable. It has some wonderful stories of coaching and specific recommendations for coaching interventions and exercises with clients. The discussion of the PEA and the NEA is quite helpful. It is probably one of the best contributions of the book. Richard, Melvin and Ellen have provided us yet another great resource to helping coaches become better coaches.

Practical!

This book was written with a very thoughtful structure and very clear in the way it teaches. Immediately usable!