Introduction to Coaching and Mentoring

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Ian Donn, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

Q: 1.
I. To discuss the difference between coaching and mentoring, one only needs to look at some of the greatest minds in the field. Eric Parsloe described coaching as:
“a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be a successful a Coach requires a knowledge and understanding of the process as well as the variety of styles, skills, and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place,” (Coaching Network, 2020). This description is a true picture of coaching and if you add in the consideration that conversation is the basis that helps individuals mature to reach their goals through developing their success, achievements, and skills.

Meanwhile, theorists such as Kram described mentoring as:
Mentors help their protégés by providing two general types of behaviours or functions: career development functions, which facilitate the protégé’s advancement in the organization, and psychosocial functions, which contribute to the protégé’s personal growth and professional development (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). This would argue that the mentor has a larger impact on the individuals’ progress and promotion, whilst building the mental functions to succeed at this higher level.

Based on this coaching is a process that develops skills, knowledge, and techniques of the individual, whilst Mentoring could be described as allowing and the knowledge to the individuals’ career to grow through the partnership.

II. A mentee is an individual who is responsible for their education in the learning process. The website mentor-us describes the mentees’ role by the following definition:
A mentee is an individual who receives advice, assistance, and feedback from a more experienced person over a set time, resulting in the enhancement of the mentee’s educational graduate studies. The mentee must have clear goals and be willing to accept guidance and advice for the relationship to be successful. A mentee is open to constructive feedback and has a desire to learn and develop new skills to progress in their graduate education. ( Mentor Us, 2020)

This concise definition clearly defines the mentees’ need to decide and drive the learning. It is also unquestionable that the mentee must be open to the feedback and guidance are given by their mentor to improve their skills, knowledge, and experience.

III. The three elements of coaching are necessary for sustained success. These three elements are:
Aptitude: Skills, abilities, coupled with the talent and knowledge to obtain goals and objectives.
Motivation: To have the drive, focus, attitude, and confidence to meet your outcomes and goals as required.
Resources: Having the necessary tools such as tools, people, and the time to use them to achieve your goals.

I think there are more than three, but these are important to be a success. The coaching network would indicate up to nine factors. I cannot disagree with their thoughts, but it appears some of them are sub-sections of the three main points.

IV. The belief that coaching should come to an end and that as a coach, it is time to give in is a difficult choice. The channel of communication that leads to understanding and continued work for coaching needs to open and honest. The reality of choosing to give up is generally held by one or more factors:
Aptitude; they do not display the abilities and skills – currently they appear to be deficient in the required particular skills required to deliver the objective and learning.
Internal Factors; the individual lacks the veracity to be motivated, have the confidence, commitment, or focus to deliver the objectives.
Outside Factors; the affected of external issues that cannot be controlled by either party in the partnership. Problems with acquiring the available resources, poor internal and external relationships within the workplace with stakeholders, vendors, or colleagues, and changing organisational goals can all affect performance and delivery.
Learning; often the coaching requirement is misinterpreted and is not a requirement of coaching. The skill required is a trained skill or physical skill that the individual just needs to learn, rather than being coached.

Completion; the coach and the individual agree that the partnership has ended, either by the objectives being completed or other issues that affect the coaching relationship.

Sadly for many coaches, they see a lack of desire on the individual’s part, work not completed, and excuses given. Whilst trying to help them find the individual rediscover the zest, the interest has waned and the coaching becomes a waste of both parties’ time and effort.

V. the formatting of questions used for coaching sessions is an important task and not one to be underestimated. The most important question would appear simple, ‘how can I help you today, what topic do you require to discuss first’. Any question which leads the individual to focus on a specific topic they wish to work on. It should be remembered that the skill of being specific and action-orientated is coached.
The next important question is to discover the individuals’ goals and timeframe for success. Questions such as ‘what’s your goal? Where do you see yourself within this project in a set period and ‘what is the most important part of this project to you?’ The project requires the individual to see the purpose and outcome of the work, so they can see the project with clarity.

Always ask a question similar to ‘what help do you need with this?’ ‘What topics do we need to discuss to progress?’ Also, questions that allow the individual to describe what they hope to get from the session and take away with them define the work needed by the coach to be achieved.

The need for the coach to focus on the specific needs of the person and the project is essential to deliver their outcomes.

Q: 2

The development of coaching skills is important to ensure an effective process and these are key coaching skills.

Developing a rapport – coaches must be able to develop a rapport with the individual. This is essential to have an open discussion and allows the individual to relax and ask questions they may have felt difficult. The better the rapport, the more challenging questions the coach can ask if required, without making the individual uncomfortable.

Listening Skills – as with all coaching, you cannot be effective if do not listen to what is being said or what is betrayed by body language or ambiguity. A coach must be insightful and use insightful questions to understand the true picture of a person’s situation. Traditional methods like the GROW model drives the correct and informative questioning format.

The GROW model develops four levels of listening skills essential to the process:

Attentive listening – to make sure that you give them full attention whilst listening and enable the asking of further questions to clarify understanding.

Accurate listening – to ensure you hear all the issues and ensure an accurate process that meets the need.

Emphatic listening – appreciating the feelings of the individual and ensuring you comprehend the process from their perspective.

Generative listening – understanding the issue at hand, via summing up to show comprehend their points, allowing you to ask enlightening and insightful questions.

Questioning – the need to ask questions of different styles, yet give insight to the mind of the individual. Open questions allow the subject to discuss openly. Questions that begin with, how, what, when, what, who, and where allows the individual to enlarge their answer to encapsulate a greater understanding on both sides.

Non-judgemental – There is no greater skill for a coach than being open-minded and non-judgemental. One cannot judge a person’s point of view or version of the truth. A person’s perception is their truth and should and should be reflected on and summarised.

Do not tell – as a coach the role requires guidance and advice, challenging ideas, and suggesting alternative scenarios. Coaching is not telling someone how to do it, this limits the individuals learning. Remember that the action is to guide and support and in doing so give the individual the tools to find answers for themselves in future scenarios.

The unlocking of limiting beliefs – the greatest of all learning misconceptions is that you can teach someone something. Whilst in practical terms this may be true, you have affected no learning until the individual accepts it as their new truth. Limiting beliefs that hold back the individual are rational for them and can only be changed by them listening and accepting new truths for them. The knowledge that the coach must ascertain is done he affect change in the individual’s mind and thoughts. If not, it is unlikely the individual will accept or use the new thinking. This seems irrational, but beliefs are not always rational to others as they look into the individual’s mind.

Summarising and Reflecting – allows the individual to correct misconceptions or misunderstandings on the coach’s behalf during the process. Reflecting on the points and thoughts of the coach, this important skill allows the individuals development in terms of the objectivity and understanding of the process and issues.

Keep Focused – the coach needs to remain focused on the subject and objectives. The coach or the individual can be allowed to move to topics and discussions that have little relevance to the process.

Q: 3

There are several competencies considered essential to deliver effective coaching, the one mentioned communication, helping, teaching, mentoring, and/or challenges are an interesting selection. If we consider which is the most important then for me it is as follows:

Communication – the essence of coaching is effective communication. Without this skill, the process is mute and has little chance of progress. The ability to communicate and generate appropriate responses from the individual drives the process and learning.

Challenging – the art of challenging whilst maintaining co-operation from the individual is essential. As part of the communication process, this competency is as important to ensure self-questioning, alternative thought, and changes in mindset.

Mentoring – giving opportunities to individuals to grow and learn by their actions is imperative. If the person is to learn competencies, that allows them to learn to achieve on many occasions rather on one occasion.

Teaching – Whilst not seen as an important skill as those before, one should never forget that the process is to enable the person to learn. If the project requires new skills then teaching is an essential tool to ensure that the skills needed are available to the individual.

Helping – the skill is required in the process although should be used sparingly and as required. One should remember the process is to guide and allow personal growth. Whilst help is required one should consider the effectiveness of this part of the process, before undertaking it.

Ian Donn, 5th June 2020.