Resources

I frequently refer to these resources in my coaching and consulting work.  If you have any questions about them, please contact me.

Self-Coaching Guides

I've compiled posts from over the years into a series of Self-Coaching Guides on the topics of Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness.

Top Posts

Here are a few key posts that continue to resonate with me. Topics include executive coaching, personal and professional development, leadership, management, motivation and organizational culture.

PowerPoint Slides

I'm a visual learner, so I occasionally create PowerPoint slides to provide another way of understanding and communicating the concepts I'm writing about.  Here's a compilation of those posts with direct links to the PowerPoint files.

Reading List

Here's a reading list of books that have had a major impact on my professional development, from Peter Block's "The Answer to How is Yes" to Daniel Goleman's "Working with Emotional Intelligence."  This list isn't exhaustive--and by focusing specifically on books it omits many articles, papers, blogs and other resources that have had an even greater impact than some of these books--but it feels comprehensive enough to be useful.

Interesting Links

I post interesting links that I come across on a very simple linkblog using Tumblr.  The 10 latest links are below, but you can search for others at edbatista.tumblr.com.  To keep up with the list you can subscribe to my Tumblr RSS feed, or just follow me on Twitter.  (My Tumblr links get tweeted, but my tweets don't get tumbld.  Got it?)

"Managing Oneself"

Peter Drucker's Managing Oneself, from the March-April 1999 issue of the Harvard Business Review (reprinted by HBR in January 2005 and the closing chapter in Drucker's Management Challenges of the 21st Century) is one of my touchstones, an invaluable essay that I re-read each year to gauge progress toward my goals and assess how I feel about my life, both professionally and personally.

Leadership Architect Sort Cards

Lominger's Leadership Architect Sort Cards are a useful tool for defining the skills and capabilities possessed by an individual or required in a specific job or work environment.  They're helpful in identifying untapped strengths as well as areas for improvement.  They can also be used to understand where a person's capabilities and their responsibilities are aligned (and where they're not) and to determine whether a particular position or organization is likely to be a good fit for an individual.

"What Should I Do With My Life?"

Po Bronson asked himself What Should I Do With My Life? while going through a profound personal crisis.  As a way to answer the question for himself, he posed it to some 900 people and got to know about 70 quite well--the 2003 edition of the book includes just over 50 of their stories.  Each chapter describes an individual's circumstances, their dream, their struggle, and their resolution.  Most end happily, or at least peacefully, but not all.  This is an affirming book, and if you're wrestling with the question it poses, you'll find encouragement to pursue the process, but Bronson never pretends there's a pat answer.

Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön is a Buddhist nun who teaches at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery established in North America for Westerners.  Although I'm not a Buddhist, I've learned a lot from Chödrön's writings and have often found guidance in her work while facing professional and personal challenges.  Several of her books are on my reading list, and I've written about her several times.

"Getting Things Done"

I've found David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system a helpful way to organize my work and be more productive while simultaneously reducing stress and anxiety.  The 2002 paperback edition of his book is a great place to start, but if you're an Outlook user, Allen's GTD and Outlook white paper ($10) is also a great resource.  (It hasn't been updated for Outlook 2007, which limits its value as a step-by-step configuration guide, but the conceptual framework still applies--and NetCentrics offers a GTD Outlook add-in that's 2007-compatible.)

An important note: Any productivity system can add to our stress and anxiety (and guilt!) if we force ourselves to conform to the system rather than adapt the system to fit our needs.  I don't apply GTD techniques religiously (or even consistently), and that's just fine--it's still been very helpful.

"Power Up"

In David Bradford and Allan Cohen's Power Up (the text for David's class at Stanford Business School on High Performance Leadership), they describe  the art of discussing difficult issues directly and candidly as Supportive Confrontation.  They define four basic approaches to tackling tough conversations that increase one's ability to address these issues without being unduly confrontational or causing unnecessary defensiveness.