Using psychological and psychometric tools for development
Editor: Jonathan Passmore (with contributed chapters)
Price: £24.95
ISBN: 978-0-7494-5080-9
Contact: www.kogan-page.co.uk
The value of this book lies in how it de-mystifies the process of coaching and psychometric tests. This could lead to more informed purchasing decisions in the buyers’ minefield of coaching.
It also offers many different points of view. The book’s editor, Jonathan Passmore, is an executive coach who has assembled a contributing team from the who’s who of people development.
The book is divided into two parts. The first consists of two chapters that explain how to use psychometrics and gain feedback. The second, which occupies most of the book, is dedicated to individual instruments and how the coaching practitioner might use them.
Don’t be put off by the opening chapter: I found it rather dense, as it is an encyclopaedia of definitions. However, the second chapter is outstanding, as it dissects how great feedback can lead to effective learning. It identifies ineffective feedback and marks out the danger zones for a coaching sponsor, such as insufficiently specified goals.
Part two of the book wades in with an epic journey around individual instruments and their use. The reader is taken on a tour of all manner of instruments designed to identify stress, emotional resilience and leadership.
I do have a concern about bias in this section, as some of the authors are involved in the tools they describe. But each chapter is written to the same format, and so keeps bias at bay.
The book is rounded off with an excellent glossary, and overall is a helpful publication.
