Is Your Mentoring Program a Coaching Program in Camouflage?
It’s time for Final Rounds (CAT/ MBA Exam), so we thought this was an especially apt subject to talk about today: is your mentoring program really a coaching program in Camouflage? Or are you perhaps considering “mentoring” for your program, but it’s actually coaching?
Let us explain.
First, it’s important for me to state that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with coaching. In fact, we believe coaching is an important component in the education place since it helps people work on ultra-specific initiatives with people who have expertise in those initiatives. So, for example, if a fresher for an MBA Interview needs help with how to perform his/her skills, they can work with an expertise that excels in it and is a current student in top-B school. As you can see, that’s a win-win situation for you.
But That’s Coaching, Not Mentoring.
Knowing this will help you better understand my original point: coaching will work very differently from mentoring simply because it needs to. The goals are different. The processes are different.
The problem we’ve been seeing is that more and more “mentoring” systems are hitting the market that are really designed for coaching, not mentoring.
Again, both coaching and mentoring have their place in the system. And having effective coaching will make a coaching program work more smoothly. But that’s only if you WANT coaching. If you want mentoring, you need a design to support a true MENTORING PROGRAM.
When you’re evaluating both, or even evaluating your own existing program, ask yourself these questions:
§ What’s the purpose of my program — to share knowledge and improve skill sets over a long-term relationship (coaching) or to build a short-term relationship in a defined period of time that transforms the two people involved professionally and personally (mentoring)?
§ For new programs: Knowing the purpose of my program, does the software I’m considering support this purpose?
§ For existing programs: Does my current program support my objectives?
I know what you might be thinking: well, what does “true” mentoring software look like and what does “true” coaching software look like?
Coaching will have…
§ A one-size-fits-all approach to understanding and solving problems
§ An emphasis on building profiles and listing detailed competencies through conventional approaches
§ A rigid search capability that allows users to find people with specific skill sets with no scope of self-exploration
Mentoring will have…
§ A matching component, a way for mentee to create matches manually.
§ Benchmarks to hit month-to-month and resources that support those benchmarks with personalised approaches
§ Less emphasis on building profiles but a relationship for mutual growth — mentoring needn’t have the offline aspects that a coaching program has since the mentoring relationship is between two people who meet ONLINE most of the time.
We know that folks debate the definitions of mentoring and coaching, but at Menticlub, we’ve been doing mentoring since a while now. And we know that mentoring and coaching is NOT the same thing.
One final note: we see the value in coaching, so much so that we’ve designed a product called “Anytime or On Any Date Mentoring” that can serve as a coaching system. It does all the things we mentioned above in what to look for in a coaching system…and more. Ask to see a demo if you’re interested in learning more.
As always, feel free to ask us any questions.
And, of course, we’ll continue to address the issues and challenges that face mentoring today, starting with Our Newsletter and Blogs.
In the meantime, we want to THANK those of you who’ve been with us, using our provided mentoring platform, as well as those who’ve joined us along the way.
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