The Complete Feedback Skills Training Book.
By Sue Bishop.
Published by Gower, 2000.
A4 hardback, 181 pages, £65.
ISBN 0 566 082187 7.

If you are a manager who has often worried about ‘How am I going to tell him/her?’ or a trainer who has to produce a training programme to help managers achieve these skills, this is the book for you. As the title states, it is complete in giving background information about feedback, the theory and skills of feedback, self-awareness and learner-help instruments, case studies, activities, questionnaires, role plays and handouts.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is entitled ‘Feedback Principles’ and gives comprehensive advice on how to listen, question, understand, and all the other skill aspects of giving and receiving feedback. It considers the basic principles and gives the reader/user the opportunity to determine where they are in these respects. Far from being a boring, straight text, the part is liberally scattered with a ‘definition’ crossword; tips; questionnaires; self-awareness instruments; a SWOT analysis; and so on.

Part 2 is entitled ‘Applications’ and follows the highly practical approach of the first part, and includes all the types of activities used generally in Part 1, but in this case for specific situations. These include appraisal; coaching; correcting; counselling; feedback to members of staff on their meeting skills; organization effectiveness; presentation skills; selection interviews; team development; and feedback on the telephone.

All the instruments are well-introduced and documented, most offering several approaches within the activity, all in the clear and practical manner that one expects from this author.
Well recommended.

Leslie Rae
February 2000