Continuing Education

	Book Review/Prescription for Terror, by Sandra Levy Ceren/Reviewed by Martin Williams
	Video Review/Top Executive Coaches in the US/Reviewed by Ben Dean

		Reviewed by Ben Dean, Ph.D.			Top Executive Coaches in the US Produced by Robinson Capital Corp & Weinstock Productions Available for $39.95 from www.jeremyrobinson.com or 212-873-6809 (FAX) While some of the most exciting work in coaching is occurring in the virtual coaching arena, Executive Coaching is coaching’s oldest and most developed niche area. It is largely transacted face-to-face and onsite in corporate offices. This 30-minute videotape allows us to see four of its most successful practitioners. It begins with a brief interogative that could have come straight from “60 Minutes.” “What percent of business decisions made by senior executives, in your opinion, get made based on emotional reasons,” the interviewer asks. “At least, fifty to sixty percent,” Paul Rich, one of the four executive coaches presented in this tape, answers. “More than half?” the interview repeats, Mike Wallace-style, slightly incredulous. “More than half,” Rich asserts. This interchange underlines how the world of feelings gets drawn into the language of business—even for cerebral executives who may largely be unaware of the affective component—and may partly explain why executive coaching is of growing interest to many psychologists and other mental health professionals today. Then, too, the pay is good with top executive coaches receiving $ 4,000- $ 5,000 per day for their work with senior management executives. The videotape, Top Coaches, has Robert Hargrove, Kathy Strickland, Paul Rich and Jeremy Robinson talking about their coaching practices. They provide crisp answers about their work, what coaching is, their styles as executive coaches, their perceptions of the future of executive coaching, and their advice for coaching novices. You also see their humor. Each includes an amusing coaching story or joke, which in my book adds value to the tape. Hargrove, the author of Masterful Coaching, has a business and seminar background, and tells a revealing story about coaching the CEO of Adidas Corp. Strickland, whose Human Resource Company, The Strickland Group, is one of the most well known in the world, tells about confronting a top executive about his male chauvinism with the help of his wife. Paul Rich, who comes from a business and accounting background, argues that executive coaches need to have either a strong business background or a core competency such as psychology, before entering the executive coaching arena. Jeremy Robinson, the lone clinician in the group (and co-producer of the tape), is a psychoanalyst-graduate of the Postgraduate Center Training Program in NYC, and an early entrant into the Executive Coaching field. Robinson first became interested in coaching via his training in what in the late 70’s when coaching was then called “mental health consultation.” He talks plainly about the emphasis he places on risk-taking in his coaching. These four coaches provide vigorous examples of the kind of confidence that a professional needs in providing executive coaching. Each has a different style and personality, which is evident even in these brief interviews. For psychologists who are interested in getting more information about the kind of interventions that take place in the executive suite, this video—the only one I know of that’s been produced to date on executive coaching—is an excellent place to start. For psychologists who are already providing executive coaching, this tape might provide some instructive examples to future clients who want a sense of what they might face as executive coaches. Many executives are interested in coaching but wary about what is in store for them. Some confuse coaching with therapy. This tape, in fact, might have benefited from more discussion about how executive coaching is different from psychotherapy. The viewer definitely comes away with a sense of the four different yet confident approaches to executive coaching. Some of the coaching seems more like one-to-one therapy (Strickland), and some seems more like the work of an organizational development practitioner (Hargrove). I strongly recommend the tape to psychologists who are interested in making face-to-face executive coaching part of their core practices. Although a 30-minute tape is only a taste, and the time goes quickly, repeat viewing suggests that the work of executive coaches might be closer to the work of clinicians than many psychologists have suspected.
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