Friday, June 18, 2010

Smarter than I was Yesterday

It’s official. The Extraordinary Coach book is out. I co-authored this book with my good colleague Jack Zenger to help managers be better at coaching their employees. McGraw Hill published the book, and it was officially “out” on June 4th. Now, if you were fortunate to pre-order the book from Amazon, you probably got it weeks ago.

Publishing a book is a lot like being an external consultant. People perceive that you are smarter. I routinely consult with bright clients, but because I walked in from the outside, they think somehow I am smarter than their internal organizational development team members. (Often, this is just not the case.) I was as knowledgeable on the topic of coaching before I wrote the book, but now that I have published my thinking, I got even smarter.

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being with an executive team at a very respectable organization, who had managed to pre-order the book and get early copies. I must say that it was humbling to autograph the books for the CEO and several board of director members. One book even made it to a highly-decorated, 4-star general. I certainly smiled internally as I personalized the general’s copy, as I wondered how many years and miles of leadership and coaching he obviously had under his belt. Still, the group was delighted to have me sign his book. I was delighted to do so.

I’m still getting used to this new role, and I will do my best to live up to all of those expectations. J

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