Coaching, Counseling and Mentoring: How to Choose and Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance.

Coaching, Counseling and Mentoring: How to Choose and Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance by Florence M. Stone, American Management Association, New York, N.Y., 2007, 230 pp. with index, $24.95 hardcover

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Completely revised and updated, the second edition of Florence Stone's Coaching, Counseling and Mentoring: How to Choose and Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance is intended to help managers improve employee performance. Although written by a business writer who is not an educator, the book describes many techniques that are relevant to education organizations and school administrators.

All leaders, including those who head America's public schools, must have the skills to effectively coach employees, counsel poor performers to turn around performance, terminate persistently poor performers and mentor superstars for succession planning. The key to a high-achieving school is a highly productive workforce.

Stone offers practical guidance in the form of self-assessments and real-life scenarios that illustrate how to coach, counsel and mentor employees at all levels of an organization.

Of particular use is the section of the book that identifies the five-step disciplinary process and discusses how to turn around problem employees. Stone reviews legal issues that can occur post-termination if the proper steps and documentation are not done correctly and discusses the use of new technologies for mentoring, such as e-mentoring and virtual mentoring.

Timely and practical, this is a worthwhile book for school leaders. By applying the information presented, administrators can learn techniques for managing employees effectively to create a positive work environment.

Reviewed by Diane F. Reed, associate professor and co-director of the educational leadership program, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, N.Y.