MAKING THE CHOICE…COACH OR MENTOR?

A Coach observes and trains people to improve their performance. A Mentor is an experienced person who advises and guides a younger person while they are gaining experience. Both seem to have the same characteristics. The coach and mentor fits easily into the sporting arena period end of discussion. However, which one would you choose in a business environment?
Our tennis team wanted to improve so we hired a Coach. The coach offered lessons and participated in our practice sessions. I was responsible for me getting better. The coach observed and made general suggestions as the team continued to improve. However, there were times when I was struggling with some of the coach’s suggestions. As a result I ended up modifying my physical and mental abilities to meet my circumstances. This internal conflict meant I had to go further if I wanted to get better. So I hired the coach to be my personal coach. Now the coach became my mentor. The coach focused on only me. It was now the coach’s professional skills and experiences that I wanted to learn and use to make my performance better. The coach was now my mentor. My mentor knew I had the desire and potential to be better. My mentor challenged me and began stretching my thinking and actions about what I was doing. We celebrated when my mentor’s influence was moving me forward. However, working with a mentor requires accountability by me and someone else. It was more difficult. My mistakes were mine and not the mentor’s. My ego would say things like ‘I know better.’ My mentor had good sensitivity and knew that I was not doing as well as I could. My mentor continued to challenge and push me further for improvement. I loved it…I hated it! My mentor assisted me in generating a better vision and commitment about what I was doing. The results were that I began to move up to new levels. All the while this was happening with positive results, I still found myself fighting with my mentor’s counsel. I didn’t always want to change. My mentor’s Influence on my play did not necessarily make me feel good, even when I knew it was right. This led to a time when my mentor knowing that I had stopped accepting advice brought in a new coach. An all seeing coach! This coach was a video camera that recorded me in play action. Now, there was acceptance of what was working while at the same time, there was no denying what I was not doing and where I needed to improve. I could see what I was doing and it was all about me and only me! Now I began to ‘know myself’ from the physical outside and the mental inside. I was being coached by my actual performance. The amazing thing was, as I watched my play, I was not only seeing, I was remembering what I was thinking at specific times during a tennis match. The video camera was the best coach for me. The more I watched me, the more the video replay caused me to ‘know myself.’ Thanks to my mentor and coach I improved in all levels of my performance. One, the coach, me, nurtured the best of me the other, the mentor, influenced me to be the best I could be.
Here’s the summary of what I hope was just discovered and a suggestion about how to transfer it to our personal and professional career live. A good coach will observe, listen and provide questions that stretch a person to understand and clarify who the person really is, as in, ‘know thyself.’ Like the video camera, the coach is me, the observer of myself. Now, me the coach nurtures me, raising my self-awareness and making me more conscious and of who I really am. Me, the coach, makes me go deep within myself. This is not easy. We know things about ourselves that we don’t always want to admit even to ourselves! But, when this happens we learn to know and like ourselves because we are becoming better. The Coach then is someone who listens, questions, clarifies me, helping me unlearn and learn the new me. I know best because I know how I developed, where I came from and where I am today. This is all important so I can begin to learn what I need to do to make a better me. A coach then also, nurtures the best out of me with me challenging me. The coach is an unbiased observer. The Mentor on the other hand is not me. Pure & Simple, the Mentor then, is a biased experienced person who recognizes I have far greater potential than I may realize. The Mentor then influences me with responsibility and accountability, to be all I want to be and can be.

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