Alexandra Karlovic

Two weeks with Irvin Yalom

Several years ago, I remember my aunt and mother speaking about Irvin Yalom's book "When Nietzsche wept" It is only recently that I read it. What a wonderful book ! I was captivated by this hypothetic psychoanalysis of Nietzsche by Dr Breuer in Freud's time in Vienna.

It is not only about certain aspects of psychology, it is about an inner quest of a man, how a relationship, a trust relationship with a therapist can be the most important success factor of a therapy, it is about how in such a relationship, the therapist also receives. I very much appreciated how Irvin Yalom paints this relationship and the honesty necesary to a trusty relationship.

Before I knew it I was reading another book of Irvin Yalom " Lying on the couch" that captivated me even more I think. To which extend can the therapist share of himself with his patient? Which of course leads me to ask myself to which extend can a coach share of himself with his client? I personally have always taken the party of honnesty and the question that I always ask myself is "how will this help my client?", if it does, why not ? Actually it can be a great way of showing that your empathy is not a professional obligation but rather a true felt feeling and that even if you are coach you are still human.

While "When Nietzsche wept" is a quite philosophical book, "Lying on the couch" is a fantastic thriller!

I am now reading a book on the hidden face of Che Guevara by Jacobo Manchover, and must confess I still have half of my brain thinking of Marshall Streider and Ernest Lash !

How to make people like you in 90 sec or less

                   

Is the title of a Book by N.Boothman that I recommend to my trainees if they want to get familiar with NLP techniques related to Communication and have a better understanding on how communication works.

I guess one could say this is the new Dale Carnegie version. I find it rather to the point and giving basic tips that are acknowledged as being useful by all communication gurus. The French version is available in the Marabout collection for 6,90€ !!!

Leadership and the one Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard

  " Different strokes for different folks" is the key concept of Ken Blanchard Situational Leadership model. In other words, a manager needs to adapt his leadership style to his co-workers, depending on their level of committment and their level of competence.

This book will give you great tools from setting SMART objectives to coaching your people in achievening them.

You can find an explanation of its principle at Chimeara Consulting and if you are looking for a training or want more information on Ken Blanchard's work consult the Blanchard Companies webiste :-)

Tao of coaching by Max Landsberg

I suddenly realized that I talk in my training about several books, refer to my blog and most of them are not even mentionned on my blog ! So here we go for a series of good books to read ....

Short, simple, one of the best support when you start coaching your co-workers. This is a valuable tool to any manager who needs to develop a coaching attitude. The tale of Alex who might be missing his promotion because he doesn't seem to dedicated time to make his people grow could be you.

Lucy Gill's 3 steps method

If you are having a hard time with certain people and feel that you can't handle them you might want to read this book. Lucy Gill from the Palo Alto school is the author of this very practical book on how to understand why doing more of the same won't help to change that nasty behaviour of your employee, daughter, son, husband, girlfriend ... and how to interrupt what we may call a pattern ... and replace it by something new, something blue ...