Rich in detail from the authors' work with clients in Fortune 500 companies, Adaptive Coaching offers a unique client-centered focus on how people prefer to be coached. Combining 30 years of experience, 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 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.