COACHING & MENTORING

How do Coaching and Mentoring ‘Work’?

It’s not a one-off ‘quick fix’ as some people seem to expect, and neither is it something done ‘for’ or ‘to’ you. Some ‘coaches’ do offer DFY (Done For You) programmes but that isn’t coaching, contracting out certain tasks you’d rather not do yourself,
Most people understand how sports coaching works and to some extent how business coaching works, generally it’s all about improving ‘performance’.
But what about ‘life’ or ‘personal development’ coaching? This is often surrounded by some mystery and very few people know what it’s really all about.
In truth, it’s just the same, it’s about improving your ‘performance’ in those fundamental areas.

You may be asking “Do I want a coach or a Mentor?”

Mentoring differs from Coaching. It’s a process of guiding and teaching the when, where and how of whatever you wish to achieve whereas Coaching is about helping you discover the what and why of your direction and purpose in life.

We don’t really have to decide whether we need a coach or a mentor or a teacher because a good ‘coach’ will fulfil all three roles and have a network of specialists they can bring in if required. From time to time a therapist may be called in to deal with specific matters
The ‘answer’ is to take on a holistic coach who you can engage with to deal with matters ‘as a whole’ rather than a series of specialists. If a specialist is required, your coach will summon one.

Without a guide you’re likely to go down the wrong paths or through the wrong gates and have to turn back, you may misinterpret the signposts, or not realise they’ve been moved, and you’ll be led astray by ‘great ideas’, ‘scary monsters’ and ‘bright shiny objects’.
And if you do successfully complete your journey, it will have taken you more time, more effort, and more investment than it would have done if you’d had a coach. I know this from personal experience!

What’s your experience of coaching?

Probably one of these because that’s what we (coaches)  do, working individually or with or as a group
Coaching about whatever is on your mind
Coaching to guide you through a course or programme
Coaching on the way to achieve a specific objective
Coaching to improve or maintain performance (this is where sports and business coaching usually fit in).

How long does it take?

The answer to this is “it depends” but the definite answer is it’s no quick fix.
What usually happens is one of these one of three scenarios:
To deal with a ‘crisis’ we’ll start with a full day and follow up with weekly or monthly sessions until the issue is resolved.
For course coaching it’s normally a three month engagement with weekly coaching sessions and monthly follow-ups for 12 months
Then there’s open-ended engagements starting with a 12 month period (I said this wasn’t a quick fix!) In this case you can expect focussed ongoing attention which may take the form of a weekly call or a monthly in person meeting or whatever we decide is best for you. It could even take the form of a two day retreat to address matters in depth.

A word about ‘groups’

We recognise two types of group:
a coherent group may be a company team, family group or a sports team –  they all know each other
a disparate group will be people who don’t know each other but have been attracted to the topic of the coaching session. That’s the only thing they have in common.
These groups require different styles of coaching