The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted many of us to take stock of our lives and re-evaluate our career needs with a survey carried out by Aviva in September 2020 reporting that 53% of UK workers planned to make changes to their careers in the next twelve months as a direct result of the pandemic. For those of us who are thinking of changing companies, switching sectors or even setting up our own businesses, working with a coach, mentor or trainer can help both drive this change and support us moving forwards. But what is the difference between a coach, a mentor and a trainer and which one is best placed to help you achieve your specific career goals?
Coaching
“Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them” (Sir John Whitmore)
You may have been feeling stuck for a while now; you know you want to move forwards, perhaps start your own business, take that next step up in your career or get on the property ladder but you don’t know where to start. You feel overwhelmed by the thousands of ideas you have whizzing around your mind or perhaps you are feeling a bit unsure of yourself and the steps you need to take.
Coaching is all about having that space to get clearer about your goals and dreams and generate your own possibilities to move forwards. My clients often describe how simply having an hour of time that is dedicated to them, where they can develop their own insights, perspectives and ideas in a calm and supportive space, can bring immense clarity and help them to move forwards.
How does coaching differ from mentoring? Whereas a mentor, as we will explore later, is an expert in a specific field (e.g. branding) and can provide guidance in this field, the role of a coach is much less directive. Your coach is not there to provide advice, guidance or solutions; you know you best and an effective coach will simply bring your inner strengths and resources to the fore, enabling you to access your own solutions. Coaching helps you believe in yourself and your own natural abilities and tackle any limiting thoughts or beliefs that are holding you back.
The Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) provides an excellent summary of the coaching relationship in its truest form: “Through coaching, people are able to find their own solutions, develop their own skills and change their own behaviours and attitudes... Good coaching should be a facilitative process with an emphasis on unlocking capabilities through guiding and questioning rather than on teaching or instructing”
Coaching or counselling?
It is perhaps important at this stage to clarify the difference between coaching and counselling. Counsellors are trained in dealing with cognitive and emotional issues which may have roots in an individual’s past. Coaching, on the other hand, is more about looking to the future and being creative to live the life you want to live. You may well explore limiting beliefs you hold about yourself with your coach but never past traumas or difficult life events– that is a counsellor or psychotherapist’s area of specialism.
Mentoring
“If we consistently find mentors that have more experience than us in the areas we are truly passionate about, those unique and powerful growth moments will present themselves” (Casey Jacox)
You are pretty clear on the direction you would like to go in career-wise but feel you lack skills, experience or contacts in a specific area e.g. leadership, networking or social media strategy. You would really benefit from the expertise and insights of someone who has “been there and done that” and can provide concrete information, advice and assistance on your specific situation.
I have personally benefited greatly from connecting with some fantastic mentors at various stages in my working life. All of these mentors have been a few steps ahead of me in terms of where I am on my career path and have had knowledge, skills and experience that have been relevant to my situation or goals. I have valued their insights and guidance as well as the concrete and often highly specialised advice they have been able to offer.
There are some similarities between the coaching and mentoring relationships. Both coach and mentor can act as a confidential sounding board, a neutral third party who is fully invested in supporting you to reach your goals. Whereas a coach is skilled in listening, questioning and facilitation to help draw out your strengths to achieve these goals, a mentor’s own expertise lies more in their specific knowledge and experience of a certain field. If you are clear about what your goals and needs are and would value more concrete advice, guidance and connections at this stage, then a mentor is what you need.
Image adapted from coachingcultureatwork.com
Your mentor can give you the benefit of their experiences when they have faced similar challenges, sharing what worked and what didn’t. Jonathan Meryrick from the Natwest Group advises: “Choose mentors who will give you the best insight into your current phase of life or career level. Because they have already been through it, they will be able to provide advice and will also be able to connect their experiences with your own”
How do you ensure you get the most from your mentoring relationship? Start by fine-tuning your goals and specific needs. Having that awareness of where you want to be, as well as the biggest opportunities (and obstacles) to getting there, will enable you to identify how a mentor can truly be helpful to you. Take the time to prepare for your mentoring meetings and if possible, outline in advance to your mentor what specifically you would like to discuss in each meeting. This will ensure that your mentor is able to share with you the knowledge and experience they have that is most relevant to you and your situation.
Training
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn” (Benjamin Franklin)
You are feeling happy and fulfilled in your career; in fact, you have recently been promoted to the position of sales manager within your division. Although you feel confident in your new role, you are aware that there is more at stake now when it comes to delivering sales presentations to senior executives. You would like to hone your presentation skills with the aim of connecting with your audience at a deeper level and encouraging them to invest in your solution.
The focus of training is on sharing information and knowledge that helps an individual or group to perform an activity (e.g. sales presentations) more effectively. Whereas coaching is a client-led process, training tends to have a fixed programme or agenda with well-defined learning objectives. It is usually delivered over a relatively short period of time.
Responsibility for the transfer of learning begins with the trainer, who is expected to design and deliver effective training. This responsibility later becomes shared with the learner as they are expected to engage with the training process, e.g. attend classes, do follow-up work etc.
Training, much like mentoring, is a hierarchical relationship of knowledge. There is a very strong focus on the trainer as a subject matter expert. Whereas mentoring takes place almost exclusively on a 1-1 basis, which naturally leads to a more collaborative, transformative relationship, the trainer-trainee relationship tends to be a little more formal.
Adecco, the global HR solutions provider, believes that a combination of coaching and training can be particularly effective, with one serving to reinforce the benefits of another: “If used to enhance the training process, the intentional, applied, informal and developmental nature of the coaching relationship could help individuals better cement learnings from training into real behaviours that drive actual organisational results”
What do you need right now?
Take the time to think about where you are right now and what you need. Is it to develop specific knowledge or skills through training so that you can perform to the best of your ability at work? Or would you benefit more from the knowledge, expertise and contacts that a mentor can offer you? Perhaps the clarity that a coaching relationship can bring you would best serve you at this moment in time? Focusing on your goals in this way will not only help you determine whether it is a coach, a mentor or a trainer that you need to help you get the results you want, it will also help ensure that you get the very best out of the time you spend working with them.
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