Unleashed! Expecting Greatness and Other Secrets of Coaching for Exceptional Performance [Hardcover]

Gregg Thompson (Author), Susanne Biro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2007

Bluepoint Leadership Development has been designing and delivering world class leadership education, training and coaching programs for over 20 years. Now their incredible, business-transforming approach is available in this highly-accessible new book. "Unleashed" is certain to transform how managers, executives, human resource professionals and organizations approach and practice leadership.Readers of this inspirational work will discover how to: .Understand what High Performance Coaching is (and is not!).Identify the qualities of an effective Leader Coach.Recognize their strengths as a coach and what is required in the coaching role .Better understand the coaching process .Identify their own self development work and personal growth curve.Better understand current leadership challenges.Search for opportunities to coach those they manage and lead for performance.Participate in the personal growth of others while developing high performance coaching skillsGregg Thompson's revolutionary approach incorporates the very best processes and practices employed by professional coaches and draws upon his extensive experience in experiential leadership development. Dare yourself and your employees to engage in bold new performance-changing relationships!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gregg Thompson is President of Bluepoint Leadership Development. He has extensive experience as a business leader, operations manager, executive coach, trainer and management consultant. He holds a Master of Organizational Development degree from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.Susanne Biro is the Director of Coaching at Bluepoint Leadership Development. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Select Books (February 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590791134
• ISBN-13: 978-1590791134
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A practical coaching and self-development book!, May 29, 2007

By 

Bruna Martinuzzi "Bruna Martinuzzi" (West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unleashed! Expecting Greatness and Other Secrets of Coaching for Exceptional Performance (Hardcover)

There is a powerful, timeless concept in this book - it's the chapter on the expectation/performance connection: "People live up, or down to our expectations of them". How easy it is for us to forget this truth and how quickly we can sabotage relationships with the people who report to us or our colleagues by not paying attention to the fact that, whether we voice our thoughts or not, people have a way of sensing how we judge them or assess them. As the author says, people innately know how we rate them. And to enter a coaching relationship with someone, we need to suspend our judgments otherwise coaching is not effective.

Among the many practical tools and concepts in this book are:

1. The 60 Big Coaching Questions (I was stopped in my tracks by questions such as: "which working relationships are affirming and which are degrading?")

2. The 10 Big Intuitional Perspectives (many books on coaching talk about the importance of "messaging" but few actually provide a tool such as the 10 big perspective that often show up in a coaching conversation).

3. The 10 Big Acknowledgments.

4. "Try This". This is a series of useful quick tips. I found myself leafing through the book to read each one quickly, in succession.

5. The concept of "walking away empty".

6. "Nixing the Sounding Board". (I found this novel - traditionally, we think of coaches as individuals that we can use to safely "vent" about our situation - the author uses a contrarian approach to this which is refreshing and powerful in making sure that the coaching conversation time is not wasted in this unproductive activity).

There are also references to many useful books. For example, I re-discovered Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis model of conversation - very powerful for any situation in which we interact with others. I also found useful the many thought provoking questions such as: "Consider yourself a brand. What would the marketplace say about who you are?"

Overall, this book is clearly laid out, easy to read and helpful not only for coaching others but also for self-coaching and self-development.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coaching Understood, June 17, 2007

By 

Bob Johnson "Bob Johnson" (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unleashed! Expecting Greatness and Other Secrets of Coaching for Exceptional Performance (Hardcover)

Gregg Thompson and Susanne Biro hit pay dirt with a great read for those that want to unlock the secret of coaching - Unleash the Talent in those you lead. It's in them. Know it and believe in them and great things will happen.

After coaching executives for over 24 years and having read everything I could find on the profession of coaching I would place this book in the top 3 books about coaching on my shelf!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm Unleashed!, May 23, 2007

By 

Susan Vafa (Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Unleashed! Expecting Greatness and Other Secrets of Coaching for Exceptional Performance (Hardcover)

I grew after only reading the introduction of this book! I am a facilitator/corporate trainer and started reading Unleashed! for research, but found that it helped ME - not only as a mother (read the introduction and see), but as a facilitator, employee, wife, and friend. Gregg and Susanne write in a way that pull you in and make it real/tangible/understandable. Watch out world, this book has created a coach in me and I have already begun to build my legacy!