Mentoring - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Power of the Other: The Startling Effect Other People Have on You, from the Boardroom to the Bedroom & Beyond – and What to Do About It

By Scott J. Pearson | January 16, 2024January 16, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Modern leadership is often contrasted with healthy relationships. Leaders, we are told, have to be a lonely and isolated genius, like Steve Jobs. However, in truth, no one can lead without relying on other people. Getting things done requires healthy relationships, and most key advances just cannot be made without others’ influence. In this book, leadership psychologist Henry Cloud examines how to best take advantage of others’ help by identifying mutually beneficial relationships. Cloud’s main…

Management-Business Mentoring

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

By Scott J. Pearson | October 24, 2023October 24, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

When approached with an issue, most of us instinctively respond with doling out advice. We assume that people want to use our expertise. However, many of the best leaders have a different response: curiosity about the other person. They ask questions to empower the people around them to make better decisions. After all, the question-askers are the ones closest to the issues, not the one being questioned. In this book, Michael Bungay Stanier seeks to…

Management-Business Mentoring

Brag, Worry, Wonder, Bet: A Manager’s Guide to Giving Feedback

By Scott J. Pearson | September 13, 2023September 13, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Regular performance reviews are part-and-parcel of just about every managed venture. They mark successes of direct reports while charting next steps towards a future path. Unfortunately, these reviews can sometime turn into routine affairs. In this case, feedback is not always useful; worse is when it doesn’t even strike a chord but instead discourages the employee. In this short book, business professor Steve King suggests a simple method to improve conversations in performance reviews. As…

Mentoring

Co-Active Coaching: The Proven Framework for Transformative Conversations at Work & in Life

By Scott J. Pearson | May 3, 2023May 3, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Coaching and mentoring are crucial ingredients for success in almost every endeavor. At first, the coachee needs to learn technical skills to succeed, but later, they must learn how to navigate more complex areas with many shades of grey. For instance, coachees might need to figure out how to find fulfillment and happiness in the midst of competing demands in work and family. There is no black-and-white answer for these. Fortunately, the authors of this…

Indie Mentoring

Equip Your Inner Coach: Personal, Career & Leadership Development in an Uncertain Age

By Scott J. Pearson | February 11, 2023February 11, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

How can someone advance their career and leadership skills without having access to good, personalized mentoring? Many – particularly women and minorities – in the workforce lack such access, yet their ambition to contribute to the world does not lack. What are they to do? One thing they can do is check out Janet Bickel’s book. In it, she teaches readers to rely on their “inner coach” and like-minded peers in figuring out how to…

Management-Business Mentoring

HBR Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need

By Scott J. Pearson | December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Education invests over a decade into teaching youth about life and their speciality, but the need to learn does not stop with graduation. In some ways, it’s just starting. The wise learn how to learn in their organization and community. This allows them to adapt and advance over time. This collection of essays, written by business leaders and compiled by the Harvard Business Review, initiates and inspires learners in their quest to benefit from those…

Management-Business Mentoring

Mid-Career Crisis: Why Some Sail Through While Others Don’t

By Scott J. Pearson | November 12, 2022November 12, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Early career development gets the bulk of social attention, and rightly so because starting a career takes work. Failure to do so can lead to vast social and economic consequences. But the middle of a career also deserves some attention, as Basu points out in this book. It has its own host of crises. Successful resolution of these can lead to even greater career fulfillment in later days; failure to resolve these, however, can lead…

Mentoring

The Mentoring Guide: Helping Mentors & Mentees Succeed

By Scott J. Pearson | November 5, 2022November 5, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Mentoring relationships are point-blank critical to career development. They’re not just for the school setting but for anyone interested in a growing career. This book, written by three MDs in academic medicine, delineates the principles of mentoring based on research and experiences. It concisely teaches how to be both an effective mentor and an effective mentee (an under-appreciated virtue). Finally, it has a lengthy appendix (around 50 pages) that provides summaries of articles about mentoring,…

Management-Business Mentoring

The Mentor’s Toolkit for Career Conversations

By Scott J. Pearson | October 10, 2022October 10, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Many students and people in their early careers need to learn how to think and act about careers. To them, learning this understanding can be an “elephant in the room” holding them back from achieving their goals – and personal happiness. Mentoring is one way to help these people get their lives on track. This tool is especially used in educational settings. However, mentoring is harder than it first appears. To help mentee-mentor relationships get…

Mentoring

Super Mentors: The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Asking Extraordinary People for Help

By Scott J. Pearson | September 30, 2022September 30, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

As adults move from school into the workplace, learning from teachers in formal settings often shifts to learning from mentors in more informal settings. However, in this new environment, being a successful mentee is often more important than having a successful mentor. Being a successful mentee means growing in self-awareness and persistent towards finding out the right answers to your specific dilemmas. Learning to ask the right questions to the right people in the right…