Coaching in the Library: A Management Strategy for Achieving Excellence

The first of its kind, this readable, hands-on book will help you to see your library and the staff that runs it in a new, more strategic way. Experienced librarian and coach Ruth Metz outlines a focused and results-oriented game plan for achieving performance excellence from all staff members, from top to bottom, through a coaching style of management. By viewing the people you work with as a team, you can transform the work environment and, ultimately, the services you are providing your customers. Through real world examples, coaching scenarios, and pathways to excellence that are specific to library work, you will learn how to: Be both a coach and a player - the terminology and techniques; Recognize and utilize the abilities and talents of staff at all levels; Guide individuals toward a unified goal; Encourage innovation, flexibility, and problem-solving; Spotlight the big-win opportunities; Complete with reader-friendly tables and annotated references, Coaching in the Library is for any library that wants to put the potential of all staff on the playing field in order to achieve peak performance.

Coaching is described as a method to "develop your sensitivity to conditions that threaten the effectiveness of your own library." The descriptions, scenarios, and management techniques have been drawn from public library settings, but the ideas presented relate to a variety of personnel management issues that arise in any type of library. Situations include complaints about a coworker, addressing a staff member's poor performance, and coaching a team to come together. In each chapter, a prelude sets the scene or context, followed by what, why, and how sections. Scenarios are realistic, and should provide librarians with ideas for resolving work and people-related problems, whether coaching an assistant, a library clerk, or a volunteer. This book offers objective solutions and methods for resolving personnel issues.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This book gives well-developed scenarios and examples of how coaching can work with individuals, teams, leaders, and managers. The basic structure of coaching, observed behaviors, and the role that coaching takes in library rejuvenation and transformation are clearly explained. Each of the seven chapters sets the context, gives the what, why, and how of the designated topic, and provides an example that progresses from incident to mentored intervention and follow-up. The subject--coaching and its many models--is appropriate for all types of libraries including academic, public, school, and special. The practical application of coaching extends to any work place or institutional setting where change is needed or occurring. This skill and book are recommended to all. Marilyn Long
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Surely, management must be one of the toughest roles in any organization, and the performance appraisal function must be the most difficult task any manager must perform. From the world of organized sports has come a litany of works on applying the principles of coaching to improve employee performance and productivity inside business. Metz (deputy director, Multnomah Cty. Lib., Portland, OR) summarizes and wonderfully applies these important principles for use by any manager in any library. She defines coaching as "the purposeful and skillful effort by one individual to help another achieve specific performance goals," and her focus is to provide a structural basis for coaching and for learning how to improve coaching. Topics Metz discusses include barriers and paths to performance excellence, a basic structure and overview of coaching, basic coaching behaviors, and solid descriptions and illustrations of coaching scenarios with individuals, teams, leaders, and managers. The intended audience includes supervisors, leaders, and managers, and the overarching reason for coaching to make the library more effective in serving its community rings clear throughout this important title. The inclusion of the numerous examples of actual coaching sessions help further apply this concept in a practical manner, but many readers may cry out for hands-on training to practice this style of managerial communication, especially as they struggle with staff demonstrating poor job performance. Highly recommended. Dale Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.