AM I A COACH OR MENTOR?

While cruising around town with my wife escorting the sun to the west, my phone rang. As I was looking around for it “tuta” (road humps), the shout from my wife took my leg straight to the break pedal but I continued searching for my phone as if nothing happened. “For God sake this is a car not a horse,” my wife complained. As we were passing over the road humps, she handed over the phone to me. “I will appreciate if you park first and continue with those non-stop calls,” she insisted. I pulled over and answered the phone after several missed calls.

After few minutes of my phone call conversation, I indicated right. She gave me a look that I used to get from my mom when victors were being served with soda and remained staring. I finished the conversation and passed her the phone then we took off. “Should we pass by ice cream kiosk?,”  I asked gently. She calmly looked at me but her face said more, “I would like to have vanilla with chocolate,” the face could tell. We drove for five minutes of silence but she suddenly broke the ice by asking, “Why did you lie to a person you were talking to over the phone few minutes ago? You can’t be a judge of your own case, there is conflict of interest, why did you advice her that she can be a mentor to a person that she will one day seat to assess his performance?” That moment I knew that the legal adrenaline was about to explode. I tried to compose a sentence but I couldn’t get a better way of saying it, so I stayed quiet for sometime then I asked, “What do you think?” We continued with that debate up to Ice cream kiosk, with few lines of “yes”and many of “I beg to differ.” This discussion like many other discussions took its natural death at the kiosk. Everybody’s thinking and interest shifted to ice cream ladies on what they did last time that they shouldn’t do this time.

After few days I went back and revisited my books and articles on Mentoring and Coaching, I managed to gather some facts hoping that my wife will also read and ask questions if need be.

 “Mentoring” The Oxford Dictionary (2003) defines a mentor as a trusted advisor, counsellor, guide, guru, teacher, tutor and coach. This recent definition gives us an insight into the multi-faceted nature of the role. Indeed, we need to distinguish between mentoring and these other related activities, teaching, counselling, coaching and tutoring to better understand the role. Mentoring, it has been argued, is the most effective way to transfer skills and knowledge quickly and inspire loyalty in new employees to co-operate in an organization (Robinson 2001). It is a word that is often used by academics, politicians, sports people, actors and other performers to describe the person they chose as a role model or someone who had significant early influence on their professional careers. Generally, it is a popular approach in education and in business.

 “Coaching” According to Grant (1999), coaching is a collaborative, solution-focused, result oriented and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and personal growth of the coache. Coaching is a partnership between a manager and an individual who reports directly to him or her in which the coach focuses on helping the coachee to optimize his or her potential. Coaching can help an organization create an environment of meaningful jobs and a positive atmosphere by eliminating barriers that prevent employees from reaching their full potential. It can empower employees to be more productive and improve morale (Franklin 2000).
There are three primary strategies for coaching:(1) Creation of a relationship between the coach and each individual as a part of the team;(2) Observation to uncover technical and skill deficiencies that need coaching; and(3) Demonstration of alternative ways to increase an individual's effectiveness (Ridlehuber 2001). Generally, these are the terms which can be used interchangeably by business leaders, someone may consider himself/herself as a coach while s/he was supposed to be a mentor at the first place. Mentoring is a long-term process based on mutual trust and respect. Coaching, on the other hand, is for a short period of time. Mentoring is more focused on creating an informal association between the mentor and mentee, whereas coaching follows a more structured and formal approach such as the A+ Coaching ladder.