The Blue Book of Coaching: Uncommon Sense for Helping Others

Harvey Penick was one of the greatest golf teachers in history. He spent six decades writing small observations about the game into a red notebook-not a system, not a theory, just uncommon sense from a lifetime of teaching and playing. He never intended it for publication. He wrote it for himself, and for the players he loved. When that notebook finally became The Little Red Book in 1992, it sold more than a million copies. Golfers recognized in it something no instruction manual had ever given them: the distilled wisdom of a master who had spent his life watching people learn.This is that book for coaches.What you hold in your hands is a collection of my thoughts, observations, and lessons learned from a lifetime of being a catalyst for change. It is organized, like Penick's book, as a series of named entries rather than as sequential chapters. You don't need to read it cover to cover. Start anywhere. Return to the entries that matter to you. Dog-ear the pages. Read one entry over coffee before a challenging session. Press the book into the hands of a manager who has just been handed a struggling direct report and told to "fix them." That is what the book is for. The tools, concepts, and methods explored in this book are ones I have used in my own practice. That is not to say that they are the "right answer" for every situation. Since we are dealing with humans, there is no implied guarantee that any one solution will work in your case. Your coachee will be different from my coachee. Take what makes sense to you and make it your own. File the rest away for future reference.