Mentoring & Coaching Your Team.
In a mentoring relationship, the mentee takes the lead.
Here’s a handy guide to help both you and your team mate get the most out of the experience.
Mentoring vs coaching vs teaching…what’s the difference?
A mentor has experience that someone else values.
A mentor shares their lived experience in response to questions. If someone wants you to be a mentor, it's because they want to emulate something you’ve done before.
A coach helps someone figure out what they want to do next. They don’t give ‘advice’ like a mentor would.
A teacher shows someone how to do something.
It’s less about discovery and more figuring out how someone can best work out how to do something new.
Which is best?
All serve different purposes.
A mentor dynamic works best when people have senior level skills or a level of familiarity with the gig. This is because they can take your insights and apply it quickly.
A coaching dynamic works best when someone is at the intermediate level or newer to certain elements of the job. This is because they have some awareness of the job to be done and reminding them of their agency and ability to solve problems helps them solve bigger ones the more they grow.
A teaching dynamic is best for junior team members or people who have never had experiences requiring certain elements. This is because they need to know the nuts and bolts before you can coach them to figure out things for themselves.
What’s the time investment?
If you are short on time, mentoring is less of a time investment as the agenda is driven by the mentee.
Your only requirement is to recall your personal experiences as you go. There is no project management involved in that you simply respond to questions. This works particularly well for people who have a strong drive and are keen to do the work involved following a conversation.
If you are craving the opportunity to help someone grow in their career, and have the mental head space to bring thoughtful observations and reflections, coaching could be incredibly rewarding.
This works well for people who are able to take positive steps forward with validation from a trusted source of their own choosing.
In a coaching arrangement, you are making a commitment to actively listen, ask constructive questions and help someone move through the process of managing change. You’re also documenting what the person said last time so you can point out patterns in thinking and behaviour. The time investment is bigger and equally rewarding depending on how you’re wired.
In a teaching arrangement, you’ve been asked to show someone how to do something in the most engaging way possible. It requires time to plan a presentation, sit down with someone and work with them until they figure out how to make it work without you.
All leaders will benefit from using a bit of all of the above depending on where their team members are at.
How does a mentorship relationship work?
In a mentoring relationship, it’s incumbent on the mentee to drive the agenda.
Before you agree to mentor someone, ask them to clarify what specifically they want to learn about. And make sure to outline that you understand they will drive the agenda so everyone is set up for success.
If they aren’t sure yet what they are looking for, direct them to finding a coach. A coach is a person who helps them make a game plan for their career. From there, they can figure out what mentor will be useful for their future prospects.
Mentoring examples could include:
A leader has experience combining two departments as a result of a merger. They have specific advice for someone doing it for the first time. A mentee is about to manage a merger in their team and is craving some real world insights and advice.
A leader has experience creating a startup within an established brand. They have specific lived experience that could help someone starting their own business as a result of an investment from a bigger brand. A mentee is about to take on a new investment in their startup and is craving talking to someone who’s done it before, without risking their investors knowing they are freaking out.
An employee has experience managing the expectations of the CEO. As a result, they have tricks and tips to share with someone who is looking to become a credible confidant to their CEO. A new player in the company wants to build a respectful relationship with the CEO so is craving tips from those in the know about what they’d recommend to build authentic trust.
How does a coaching relationship work?
If you’re setting your team up with an external coach, it’ll typically be to help them manage a change or a tricky time. For example:
Taking on more responsibility and creating a game plan.
Being asked to be more of a ‘leader’ at work and needing someone to soundboard what behaviours that could look like, without their boss around.
Managing a professional setback and disappointment around that.
If you’re using coaching skills in your own leadership, it’ll be with the goal of helping your team member solve a problem.
Instead of telling them what to do (teacher mode), or sharing what you’d do (mentor mode), you help them figure out what they’d like to do.
To do that, it can be helpful to remember a few things:
Figure out what the problem is to be solved first. Your main job is to name what you’re hearing into a problem statement. For example, “It sounds like you’re keen to figure out a path forward with Jason, but that’s tricky because you’re working with their 2IC who isn’t keen on you, is that right?”
Acknowledge what is. Validate what you’re hearing. Once you’ve validated, then you can start asking what else could be a useful path forward.
Help the other person see they have choices in what they do next. This helps you move from a vent-fest to productive problem solving.
Your job isn’t to solve the problem but to help the other person make a plan to solve their problem. For example, instead of “let’s do this”, try “based on what you know, what are you thinking of as a next step? What do you see as your options?”
At the end of a coaching conversation, it can be useful to ask someone what they see as their next step. This helps the leader press ‘pause’ on taking over with a game plan and helps the coachee see they have agency, choice and control over what they do next.
What mentoring, coaching and teaching all have in common is reminding people they can solve their own problems, with a little guidance.