Coaching vs mentoring
Sometimes, you need to stop giving advice and start asking better questions
I always had a hard time understanding the notion of coaching. For me, coaching and mentoring were synonyms, both describing an activity where a more experienced person engages with a less experienced one to provide guidance and advice. Therefore, I always believed that a coach or mentor needed to have practical, lived experience to be credible. This is why I was always skeptical of coaches who lacked relevant expertise. How could they provide advice if they hadn’t gone through similar situations themselves?
Over time, I came to understand that coaching is actually very different from mentoring. The goal of mentoring is to provide advice. This has always been my natural tendency, both as a mentor and as a mentee. If I have a problem, I want to talk to someone more experienced who has faced the same issue and can offer a solution.
Coaching, however, doesn’t work that way. As a coach, you are not expected to have all the answers. As a coachee, you are expected to find your own path and answers, with only small nudges from the coach. In some ways, being a coach is “easier” because it doesn’t require deep domain expertise to give advice. As a mentor, I often worry about not having an answer to a question, which I feel would undermine my credibility.
On the other hand, what exactly does a coach bring to the table? This is where different coaching philosophies, schools of thought, books, institutes, and professional coaching courses come into play. Unless you choose coaching as a profession, most people don’t have the time to explore all of that.
I didn’t do any extensive research about how to develop coaching skills for managers, leads and executives, but I was lucky to stumble upon a book called The Coaching Habit. I liked it because it provides a simple, non-overwhelming framework for developing coaching skills almost as a subconscious trait, perfect for people who don’t want to become professional coaches.
The TL;DR
Stay curious a little longer. Rush to giving advice a little bit slower. That’s it. Coaching is mainly listening and asking few targeted question to help drive to conversation and a coachee thought process. Just be lazy, be curious, be often.
The book provides a set of key questions to structure coaching conversations:
Identifying the Problem
Kickstart question: What’s on your mind?
Awe question: And what else?
Focus question: What’s the real challenge here for you?
You have been lazy and curious, and at this point, you should have a clear understanding of the coachee’s main challenge. Do not jump to advice giving though.
Finding a solution
Foundation question: What do you want?
Accountability question: What are you going to do? By when? What does success look like?
Strategic question: What are you going to say yes to, and no to, as a result?
Lazy question: How can I help?
I find the Foundation question redundant: if the Focus question has already clarified the challenge, the desired outcome should be clear.You also need to calibrate the Lazy question based on the person you are talking to. "How can I help you?" might come across as condescending. I had a peer with whom I regularly caught up to discuss day-to-day quirks, and occasionally rant about our common manager. She often used that question as the opening line in our 1:1s. What the hell? You’re not my boss, you’re not my skip, and you’re just as powerless as I am. I’m pretty sure it was a mind trick to prime me and subtly assert superiority.
Wrapping Up
Learning question: What was most useful here for you?
I definitely skip this one. It feels too much like a customer satisfaction survey at the end of a transaction. I prefer coaching conversations to feel as natural as possible, without making it obvious that I’m “coaching” someone.
I still believe mentoring is more valuable than coaching. However, now that I better understand coaching, I can see its usefulness in certain situations.
If you’re working with a junior person, mentoring is probably more appropriate. When someone is struggling, they usually want a clear answer, not a guided self-discovery journey. In these cases, coaching can actually be frustrating for the other person.
However, if you’re interacting with a senior person, not rushing to give advice is a sign of respect for their expertise. A coaching approach feels more appropriate, especially since they may already know more than you in their domain.
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