Coaching V Mentoring

Given the frequent confusion between these two terms, it is worth drawing out the differences more finely. Although coaching and mentoring share some tools and approaches, coaching is primarily focused on performance within the current job and emphasises the development of skills. Mentoring is primarily focused on longer-term goals and on developing capability. Table 3 puts more flesh on these bones.

Table 3: Coaching contrasted with mentoring
Coaching	Mentoring
Concerned with task	Concerned with implications beyond the task
Focuses on skills and performances	Focuses on capability and potential
Primarily a line manager role	Works best off-line
Agenda set by or with the coach	Agenda set by the learner
Emphasises feedback to the learner	Emphasises feedback and reflection by the learner
Typically addresses a short-term need	Typically a longer-term relationship, often ‘for life'
Feedback and discussion primarily explicit	Feedback and discussion primarily about implicit, intuitive issues and behaviours

There are four basic styles of coaching, which can be reduced at their basic to

tell,
show,
suggest, and
stimulate.

The most common style in the workplace is tell, in which the coach agrees with the learner a task and an expected level of performance, allows him or her to do the task, then gives him or her constructive feedback and helps him or her to plan how to do better next time. This is territory not shared with mentoring. Another unshared territory, generally speaking, is the show style, in which the coach demonstrates how to do a task, then asks the learner to copy what he or she has seen, after which both discuss what happened. The closest a mentor may get to this style is to invite the learner to collaborate on a task so that the learner can observe, ask questions and develop his or her own approaches.

The suggest style can be compatible with mentoring. The coach effectively says, ‘When you do this task, think about the following things …', and so focuses attention on particular aspects he or she thinks will be helpful. For a mentor, this would be akin to giving targeted advice. The emphasis of feedback here has shifted from the extrinsic (provided for the learner) to the intrinsic (provided by the learner himself or herself).

Where coaching and mentoring are fully aligned, however, is in the stimulate style, which is basically about helping people think things through for themselves, through dialogue that encourages self-analysis, reflection and intrinsic feedback. This implies more emphasis on questioning than advising.