True competitive advantage comes not from new products, strategy, or process, but from human talent--from ordinary people achieving extraordinary results. Focusing on one of today's most popular techniques for developing leaders, improving workplace performance, and facilitating change, ADAPTIVE COACHING offers a first-of-its-kind, research-based approach to creating individualized, tailor-made learning opportunities that will close the gap between what companies and clients expect from coaching and the results it delivers. Rich in detail from the authors' work with more than 2,000 clients in Fortune 500 companies, ADAPTIVE COACHING offers a unique client-centered focus and solid research into how people prefer to be coached. Combining 30 years of experience as coaches and educators teaching others the art of coaching, Bacon and Spear deliver the tools and techniques coaches need to identify clients' real needs, negotiate expectations, understand and adapt to different coaching style preferences, manage the dialogue, and help clients change. The authors identify eight distinct coaching styles--teacher, parent, manager, philosopher, facilitator, counselor, colleague, and mentor. They also include numerous examples of coaching dialogue and explore in detail the special challenges of coaching across cultures and generations, and of coaching women, minorities, and C-level executives.