Mentoring Course

Here’s a link to a Bristol based ILM accredited mentoring course. What you will notice is that it is a coaching AND mentoring  course. Raising the question of what is the difference between the two.

I looked a whole range of definitions provide by various professional organisations and discovered, that as an experienced coaching practitioner, I disagreed with more of the points made than the number that sat right with me. So, rather than dissect what is “out there”, I am going to do as I advise all my coachees to do and that is to reflect on what I already know.

My extensive qualifying process gave me some starting points. I was taught that the difference between counselling and coaching is this: ‘counselling is the archeological work of the past whilst coaching focuses on the “now and what next” of our lives’. Excepting of course that it is impossible to make good decisions about our future without reference to what we learned in the past. Ok, head torches on: let’s dig.

The difference between mentoring and coaching was described as this: “mentoring is sector-specific relationship that enables a junior to benefit from a senior’s guidance and support’. Whilst coaching is ‘a series of interventions which enables and individual to access their own wisdom independent of need for sector specific skills by the provider”. Except of course when that coaching is provided within a sector specific relationship… So the expertise of the coach lies in coaching while the expertise of the mentor lies within the sector. and then there are the ‘except when….” statements. Counselling, coaching, mentoring and supervision all cross over each other and the edges can seem to blur. From which I conclude that there are as many different kinds of mentoring and coaching relationships as there are people engaging in them.

One thing I have noticed however is that the quality of the coaching relationship is usually improved when the coach and the coaches do not share a sector or a life-style. This might seem bizzare because surely the more you know if an individual’s work and culture, the better informed your input will be? In reality it seems that this is the EXACT opposite what happens when the cultures of the two appear to be aligned. When the person sitting in front of us has a similar way of speaking, a similar skin tone, is of a similar age or gender, this is when we ‘assume’ we understand what the other means when they describe their experiences. When I work with individuals who are overtly from a different work or life culture than myself. I am WAY more conscious of seeking real clarity about the real meaning of our work. I am so much less prone to assuming we mean the same thing by the same words. This awareness can prevent us heading way off track. This rigorous curiosity adds to the spontaneity and agility of our work together.

So one of the dangers of mentoring, given that is more likely to be sector specific, is that the mentor can assume that what worked for them will work for them will work for their mentee. The danger is also that the Mentee will assume their mentor is right due to their seniority. What you have there is a collusion that may serve neither party. They are both forgetting that the mentee is an entirely different person, growing their own professional development, in a different time-zone. Therefore some tricks of trade will still work whilst some will be redundant. What can be lost in mentoring is the critical ability to decide which is which.

The benefit of coaching is that the coach is expert in coaching and the client is the expert in themselves. This way power is granted equally to each party. The coach can suggest and the client can accept or reject. There are so many different ways to skin a cat and it is the coach’s ability to be curious enough to meet the client right where they are needs to be high. Meeting the client where they are enables the coach to choose exactly the right intervention, at the right time, to the right end, for them.

Put simply, a mentoring course will enable you to deftly share your professional skills and experiences with a junior mentee. Whilst a coaching qualification will enable you to support an individual in locating their own answers in life, business or their career. Neither is better than the other. Your choice entirely depends on your desired outcome.

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