Over the last few years, coaching and mentoring have become much more widely used within the business world. As their popularity has grown however, so have the range of different definitions and understandings. In an attempt to clarify things, I have spoken to our Head of Learning – Martin le Comte and would like to share with you our definition of coaching and mentoring and how you it can benefit you, your team and organisation.

“Martin, please identify your definition of coaching and mentoring?”

Firstly, can I say that you are right – there is lots of current debate about coaching and mentoring and the distinctions have become blurred somewhat. My view is that mentoring encompasses a variety of development approaches dependant on the needs of the learner in question. An effective Mentor may use one or a number of the following skills to help the development of the individual being mentored including feedback, coaching, training, advice and guidance.

The mentor is frequently seen as a role model by the business or organisation for the individual being mentored and will often have specific and relevant task specific skills and knowledge in the same or similar area.

Coaching on the other hand is a specific skill. An individual coach will effectively use a series of questions to help and challenge the coachee. The questions will help the individual to explore ideas and options to help them to overcome a current challenge or obstacle that is affecting their performance.  Expert knowledge of the specific area is not required and is in fact often not desirable.

In summary, many people managers rightly use coaching skills to develop their people in their role. It is however important to remember that coaching   should be just one of the tools at their disposal rather than the only answer. The skill of the people manager is on identifying which of the tools they need to use dependant on the needs of the individual.

“How can you tell whether you should be using coaching or one of the other mentoring tools – feedback, coaching, training, advice and/or guidance?”

In my experience, the best and I might be bullish enough to suggest, the only sure fire way to identify which approach is the most appropriate is to be skilled in asking a couple of great questions initially and then almost more importantly, listen to the resulting response. The skilled people developer does not make assumptions about what is required instead they ask great questions to seek to understand what the individual needs.

Many people say that this is very similar to the start of a coaching dialogue and I would not disagree, however at this point coaching may or may not be the answer. Let me give you a practical example –

I’m a driver and have been driving for years but know nothing about what is going on under the bonnet. If I break down by the side of the road I don’t want or need someone to ask me what I think is wrong with it, I want them to ask me a couple of questions to ascertain what happened and then tell me exactly what to do. If they keep asking me to think about what could be wrong, I will get extremely frustrated and it will take me a hell of a long time to get home. When I do eventually get home I will think twice about taking my car out on long journeys in the future and I will certainly be changing my roadside assistance provider.  If the original roadside assistance provider had just asked me a couple of simple questions about my current knowledge and expertise and what had happened before I broke down, they would have quickly identified that my battery was flat and changed it there and then. They then would have advised me what to look out for in the future to avoid it happening again and what to do if it did happen again. I leave the roadside quickly happy with knowledge and expertise and more importantly I get home quickly.

I had a quote from a client recently about an inappropriate use of coaching, which I think highlights this point really well.

“I had coaching from somebody but they never gave me any answers, which is what I actually needed, all they did was ask me lots of questions. It was a complete waste of time and I felt abandoned.”

“What are the biggest challenges you face when coaching and mentoring individuals?”

From my perspective most organisations will ask me and my colleagues at Phoenix for coaching when that might not be what they need at all. In the past I was sometimes reluctant to initially deviate from the process and try unsuccessfully to use coaching when that was clearly not what the individual wanted or needed. What’s the point in asking some open ended coaching questions when they really have no idea what the answer is…I’m sure you can imagine just how frustrating and unproductive that is for all involved!!

What I have learnt is that often when a client is asking you for some coaching, unless you asked to undertake contracted coaching, what they are actually asking you to do is help develop their people.  They are actually interested in the end result rather than the approach that you use.

Marina, as a final thought if you want some additional tips on how to successfully recognise the correct development approach, keep in mind 3 of Phoenix’s Golden Rules of Leadership

1. Know your people, know your people, know your people.

2. Treat people as they need to be treated.

3. Stop it, it’s not about you.

Written by Marina Wirkner, Sales Executive