Edgar Schein

“Leaders are either conscious of the culture they work in, so they can manage it, or they'll be managed by it”

The work of Edgar Schein, born in 1928 and still a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, is a reference for understanding organizational cultures.

Furthermore, when we discovered his work on process consulting, it felt he was describing the way we work. He defines coaching as: “a set of behaviors on the part of the coach (consultant) that helps the client to develop a new way of seeing, feeling about, and behaving in situations that are defined by the client as problematic”. He continues by stating that he sees coaching as a ‘subset’ of consultation and believes the coach should have the ability to move easily between the roles of “process consultant, content expert, and diagnostician/prescriber”. Reading his work was a feast of recognition to us and it is now a handbook for our own consulting.

His recent book "Helping: How to offer, give and receive help" promises to be another addition to our collection.