Some 30 years ago as a young management writer, my role model was Peter Drucker. I only met him a few times, the last being in a small group seminar. At one point, in that heavy German accent and with a twinkle in his eye, he told us that one of the benefits of being a management guru was that, if you were stuck for a statistic,...
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“Which is more important to you in building and maintaining your reputation – fitting in or standing out from the crowd?” It’s an unusual question for coaches and mentors to ask, but it can be very helpful in understanding what motivates a client towards or away from different choices. Human beings are typically motivated by...
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The three-way conversation between coach, client and the client’s boss, is commonplace in coaching. Sometimes also involving HR, it provides a valuable opportunity to clarify agendas, establish the support needed from the boss, and improve the direct report-boss relationship. Yet in the context of mentoring, this conversation is typically seen as one to be avoided...
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Read More The three-way conversation in coaching and mentoring
Why would successful coaches want to join the growing ranks of professional mentors? One of the big distinctions historically between coaching and mentoring has been that coaching is generally paid for, while mentoring is a voluntary activity. As a consequence, professional coaches are expected to have invested in some form of professional accreditation requiring a...
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As a line manager, one of your principal responsibilities is to develop your direct reports. Coaching and mentoring are two of the most powerful and well-publicized ways to support other people’s develop – but how do they work best in the context of a work team? Whatever approach you take to developing direct reports, it’s...
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Recent research at the University of North Carolina and elsewhere, into how we perceive emotions reveals that having a name for an emotion is important in both how we experience it and how we cope with it. Academic Tiffany watt Smith at Queen Mary University in London explains that “putting a name to a feeling...
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An implicit assumption within coaching and mentoring is that the coachee or mentee is motivated to change. That isn’t always the case and even when it is, there is a big difference between externally motivated change (doing something because you have to) and internally motivated change (doing something because you want to). Internally or intrinsically...
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Read More Helping the coachee or mentee overcome complacency
As coaches and mentors, we expect our clients to have and to review regularly a Personal Development Plan. But how do we respond, if they ask us about our own Personal Development Plans as coaches? In a series of workshops with coaches, less than 30% overall say that they have one. Apart from maintaining credibility (more…)
Read More Creating your Personal Development Plan as a Coach or Mentor
How to help coaching/mentoring clients achieve powerful insights The Aha! moment is something that all coaches and mentors relish – the point when there is a sudden and seismic shift in a client’s perception about an issue. It’s almost impossible to predict when it will happen. Sometimes it happens within the coaching/ mentoring conversation; sometimes...
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Studies have shown that overly altruistic motivations for coaching and mentoring tend to lead to more directive, unconsciously manipulative behaviours in the coach/mentor. “I want to put something back” or “I’ve got a lot of experience to share” may be altruistic in intent, but the underlying drivers are much more closely related to less noble...
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