Peak Careers

Professional Development for Career Practitioners

Book Reviews

Virtual Training Basics by Cindy Huggett

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I have been teaching online since 2002. Myself and Cathy Van Dyke converted the Facilitating Career Development (FCD) class to a hybrid model and CCE didn’t know what the heck we were trying to do 🙂

We thing we were the first people to actually move the FCD class to a hybrid model.

Since then I have added online, discussion-based, 5-week long seminars that are completely asynchronous using a variety of Learning Management Systems (LMS) over the years. Even so, I picked up a number of tips from Cindy and tons of affirmations that I am doing things right (and now I have the research to support it).

If you teach or train online (in COVID many of us have had to) and if you are new to teaching online, get your hands on this book, it will help you prepare to be a better trainer online.

Small Teaching by James M. Lang

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Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning.

As an instructor, I am always looking for ways to improve my teaching and ensure that people are retaining the information I am sharing. This book, brings numerous tips backed by science, research, and the author practicing them to the reader.

I really appreciated the way he presented the information broken down into three major parts. (1) Knowledge and how we learn it (2) Understanding which is taking the knowledge and DOING something with it, and (3) Inspiration. What are some tips on how to inspire our students.

Each section introduces the theory, then gives models of use, review principles to remember, and provides a nice tips and summary.

My big take aways are that you have to practice retrieving from memory and the more times you can do that, in different ways, the more you will remember. Reminds me of the time I had to memorize what seemed like over a hundred trees by their bark, leaf, and their Latin names. We played pool at night in the local bar and your opponent would give you a quiz. If you answered it right, you got to shoot. 🙂

He also introduces ways to “interleave” learning by adjusting your class time. Things like using the first or last 5 minutes of each class to review key points. Using short quizzes that are not heavily graded and spreading them out before you give the test that has many points attached to it.

I particularly liked his section on Inspiration and how he demonstrates the importance of telling stories to improve learning. Stories on one of the foundations of my career coaching practice and it was good to see the research behind this.

If you teach in classes to any level, even if it is in a hybrid model, or totally online, this books has lots of tips that will improve what you do.

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

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The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster.

Holy jumping up and down Martha!! This book scared the crap out of me. The Russians were so worried about looking bad in the world’s eyes they covered up this nuclear disaster for years. Their incompetence in building the reactors was where it began, but it did not end there.

Their fear of upsetting communist party members above them, kept many people who were involved quiet. Based upon the construction problems and shoddy workmanship, it was merely a matter of time before they had an accident.

One appalling thing (there are many) was that the nuclear blast was carried on the jet stream to other countries like Finland and no country was notified of the explosion.

This book gives an insight to the “thinking” that goes on in Russian minds, most likely to this day, as well as the fundamental problem of nuclear energy…can it be controlled?

A fairly quick read with over 140 pages of glossary, notes, and index.

Yeah, you should read it.

The Treasure Hunt of Your Life

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Seeking Your Calling, Encountering God, Finding Yourself. By Rebecca Schlatter Liberty

Rebecca is a discernment coach who is taking my Facilitating Career Development (FCD) class. Her background is ministry where she practiced a lot of discernment coaching and workshops.

Her book is about how we have to look for things in our life to discover the treasures hidden throughout. I found so much of Krumboltz, Levin, and Mitchell’s Happenstance theory in her writing. About the importance of taking action to move forward in their career development i.e. treasure hunt and to be open to discovering things by accident.

In particular I liked her reference to a “God of possibility” which is similar to much of my work where I encourage people to change their mindset to look for “what else is out there” that they might be interested in doing.

Her references to the bible and a Christian view were aligned with a good sense of career development and yet, they do not take over the message of discovering a career or being too religious. Her ministerial view matched quite nicely with her career coaching view.

I am seeing a lot more coaches and books and articles now about weaving spirituality with career coaching. Clearly there appears to be a need for some people who want career coaching but also want a Christian perspective in it.

If that is you, read this book. Rebecca does a great job at helping people think about their career and weaves in much of her background as a minister.

Learn more about Rebecca at  rebeccaliberty.com

Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate

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By Mark Kurlansky who also wrote Cod which was a great book about how the cod is what brought the early Europeans to America in the 1400’s and how much an impact the cod has made.

Salmon is a book I will keep forever on my bookshelf (much to the dismay of my wife who wants me to start getting rid of some books). Kurlansky has taken the global view of this fish and how it is found all over the northern hemispere and introduced to the southern hemispher in New Zealand and Australia. One of the ONLY times hatcheries really worked and it is because NZ and Oz had the perfect environment for them.

The author talks about what the salmon needs to survive, their life-cycle, the history, and then how man-kind has destroyed the habitat required by putting up dams. Oh yeh, and also by putting up sawmills on the rivers that basically choked the fish out.

I bought the hard-cover and love it. It is filled with amazing photos of fish, grizzly, people, and scenery. He has also included a number of recipes on how to prepare salmon from different cultures.

If you are a person who loves fishing and / or wildlife in general, get this book.

Life’s Great Question by Tom Rath

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Discover How YOU Contribute To The World

Tom Rath has written StrengthsFinder 2.0 and How Full is Your Bucket and Eat Move Sleep. He is best known for StrengthsFinder 2.0 and this book builds on strengths in a slightly different way.

As the title says, it really looks at how you want to contribute to the world.

He suggests that we move away from “You are what you do” which is the most common question people ask when they first meet you, to “You are how you help.” It really is about how you help others in life that makes a true impact in the world.

His website contribify.com has a “how do you contribute?” assessment you can take. I read the book first and tried to determine what my areas of contributions are before taking the 20-30 minute assessment. (A code is provided with the book to take it for free).

I did not come up with the exact same three but I was pretty close and can see how each of them fits into my life.

He describes 12 contributions that fall within 3 areas that looks at what the world needs and how you deliver your strengths, passions, and values to each one.

OPERATE

  • Organizing: How do we make things run smoothly?
  • Achieving: How can we get more done?
  • Adapting: How can we adapt quickly to changes?
  • Scaling: How can we reach more people?

RELATE

  • Connecting: How do we connect people to our missions?
  • Energizing: How do we get and stay charged?
  • Perceiving: What does each person need?
  • Influencing: How can we grow our client base?

CREATE

  • Initiating: How do we get started?
  • Challenging: Are we doing the right things?
  • Teaching: What do people need to know?
  • Visioning: What should we do next?

I love how this model looks at a persons strength but dives deeper into how do you want to use this skill? It is similar to the conversation with students or clients when they say “I want to work with people”. What does that mean?

Well, if you filter over Rath’s 12 contribution areas, you can begin to peel away how they want to work with people. Is it to get them energized or motivated? Is it to teach them something? Is it to get more things done?

Like all tools we have to help us understand ourselves (or clients) better, we tend to have a little bit of all of the areas in us at some time. Even as a strong Extrovert (ENFP) I still enjoy my time alone. But the reality is we do indeed have defaults and strengths and if we can play to our strengths we will be happier in our jobs and lives.

My guesses on what my top contribution in each area was:

CREATE: I thought I was more teaching, What do people need to know?

The assessment results gave me initiating, How do we get started? Which as to do with connecting people to get things done…I can see this and will re-read that section more closely.

RELATE: I thought I would be closer to the energizer, How do we get and stay charged?..

The assessment results gave me perceiving, What does each person need? Again, I can see both. Perceiving is about creating stronger bonds between people, finding commonality, and being a good listener. Both of these areas have merit in my world.

OPERATE: I thought I was adapting, How can we adapt quickly to changes?

But after taking the assessment and coming out as scaling, How can we reach more people? I realize that scaling is much closer to what motivates me and why I do what I do. The mission of Peak-Careers is to help more career coaches do a better job in their work in order to reach more people.

As I reflect on my mission for Peak-Careers, Providing professional development for career service providers, I can see how my mission has a lot to do with training people but also connecting them.

As I check out my ABOUT page, and read this, I help career service providers improve their skills so the greatest number of people receive quality career services. I realize that scaling is what I am all about.

This is a book I will re-read in order to glean out some of the nuances of each of his 12 contributing areas for better understanding. All in all, if you are a career coach or a person who is exploring a change of careers, I recommend reading this book and taking their assessment.