Rating:

In a hurry?  Recommendation    Product Preview/Demo

A conference organizer asked a leadership guru how long it would take him to prepare a two-hour lecture. He replied, "About a day." The questioner, thinking that he might not be able to afford the cost for the prep day, then asked how long it would take for the guru to prepare to speak for 10 minutes. The leadership expert replied, "About two weeks."

The same perspective is evident in the precise scripting of this short (24 minutes) DVD, Coaching and Counseling: Maximizing Opportunities. While the actors in the video play very realistic roles and the content deals with real business issues, the scriptwriters have been able to focus on key coaching issues in a highly succinct fashion. Not only do the characters in this DVD reveal how coaching, counseling, and mentoring differ but also what they have in common and, most importantly, how they work together.

Coach-the-coach model
The primary focus of this work is on coaching in the workplace, particularly coaching for improving performance, learning new skills, and building strengths. The story line depicts a person who has been asked to coach a colleague. She has served as an informal coach before, but she has doubts about her abilities and turns to someone else in the organization to act as her coach.

Coaching the coach becomes an excellent teaching tool to reveal the steps in a six-step coaching model. To reinforce them, the video shows how the steps can be put into practice. Several interactions depict how situations are typically handled prior to coaching. These contrasts help demonstrate the value and power of coaching.

And that is one of the key messages in this smoothly produced DVD: there are many on-going opportunities for coaching to take place naturally during the work day. By following a few simple steps, and maintaining a perspective of compassion, attention, and understanding, managers, supervisors, team leaders, and almost every employee can use the coaching model depicted in this work.

Guides address range of skills
The producers have created a facilitator and participant guide to go along with the movie. Both guides are presented as a set of slides to help guide discussion and debriefing. One of the best features of these guides is the attention to the wide variety of learning skills that viewers might bring to the table. The guides provide some excellent discussion prompts that allow even seasoned coaches to engage with the material while at the same time encouraging those new to the concepts to contribute.

As a movie buff, I did get a laugh from an ongoing feature in each of the video's four stories. Whenever one of the characters says, "Let's go for a coffee" (and that happens quite often as a way of depicting an informal learning conversation), the coffee drinkers are typically drinking from cups that have the Edge Training logo on them. It reminded me of how the great director Alfred Hitchcock would typically appear as a minor walk-on character in his movies.

Note: the preview disc I received included three other Edge programs: Master the Message: Communicating for Success; Conflict Resolution: The Skill that Makes the Difference; and Light the Fire: Leveraging Appraisals for Maximum Performance. All three of these have an interpersonal communication skill base and use the same actors, writers, and director as Coaching and Counseling. I didn't review them in detail, but I found them to be as well done as the coaching video.

Recommendation
Coaching and Counseling has the three essentials of a good training program. It uses a practical model for an important activity. It presents the content effectively and has helpful collateral materials. In addition, the price is a good value.

Coaching and Counseling Holds user interest      Acting/presenting      Diversity      Production quality      Documentation      Value of Content      Instructional Value      Value for the money      Rating