Chapter 9
The Coach as Mentor
“Frank,” you say, looking him in the eye, “I normally don’t give perfect performance evaluations. I’ve always believed you ought to leave a little room for improvement, even in the best employee. It’s a motivator.”
Frank looks dubious and a bit wary, waiting for his less-than-perfect work evaluation. “What did I do wrong?” his expression seems to ask.
“In your case,” you continue, “I’m going to make an exception. Your work has been fantastic. I can rely on you to do the job right the first time, and you frequently exceed my expectations.”
Frank’s face flushes, first with surprise, then pleasure. Clearly you’ve just exceeded his expectations.
“Thank you,” he stammers.
“Not at all,” you say. “You’ve earned it. In fact, I think your opportunities for growth in this department are limited. I’d like to help you find a better position in this company, if you like.”
Now Frank really looks surprised. What kind of manager would work to help his best employees leave his area?
A good coach and mentor, who puts the development of the individual first, would do just such a thing.
LANGUAGE OF THE OFFER
Notice that in this opening example, you offered an opportunity (“if you like”) of a better position to Frank, rather than telling him to apply. Keep your language open and allow the employee to choose. Frank may well be keen on this option, but he might choose another path or counteroffer with something you hadn’t thought of. As we’ve said several times in this book, never make assumptions about other people’s wants or needs.
Types of Mentoring
As mentioned in Chapter 2 when we defined coaching, pure coaching is not the same as mentoring. However, just like with training, you can bring a coach approach to your role as a mentor with your employees. Blending coaching skills with mentoring creates an even more positive path for your employees and truly demonstrates your focus on them.
There are two kinds of mentoring in business. Both make sense for the mentor, the employee, and the organization. Everybody wins when you mentor effectively.
Mentor A wise, loyal adviser. The word comes from Greek mythology. Mentor was friend and adviser to Odysseus and the teacher of his son, Telemachus.
Mentoring Within the Organization
As a manager, you often must do more than simply train and manage employees. Since you have to look to the bigger picture of the company, you also are responsible for guiding how your employees are a part of that—everything from learning processes and fitting into the corporate culture to career path and development in the organization.
There’s more to the job than just the job. Some of the most important stuff never makes it into the personnel manual.
When you walk into the workplace for the first time, you may encounter an invisible web of political intrigue and ancient feuds. Maybe you stepped on a few land mines before you got the lay of the land. Most of the rules aren’t written down. The “way we do things here” has evolved with practice and tradition. Folks may not even know why they do things the way they do. Getting up to speed with processes and corporate culture is a key opportunity for mentoring, especially with new hires.
In a larger organization, employees may not be aware of opportunities available to them. Do your best employees know about the Talent Acceleration Program? Do your workers know about the tuition reimbursement benefit if they take graduate-level or certification courses? You are responsible for helping them take advantage of these programs and growing as workers.
Give the people who work with you the benefit of your experience. Mentor them on the things they need to know to flourish within the organization. Be available to answer questions, and support them on their next steps.
Mentoring Beyond the Organization
Mentoring can, of course, extend beyond the workplace. There is often a lot of overlap between any one person’s work and life. Employees may come to you for bigger picture mentoring, such as creating work–life balance, goal-setting, and more (possibly even career changing or transitioning to retirement). This means helping individuals chart long-term goals that may not be directly related to their job or the company. Much of that kind of mentoring takes place within the organization. Some people seek mentors who have accomplished the things they themselves want to do, whether that person is inside the company or elsewhere.
Some workers hit a wall, rising as high as they can in a company without going someplace else. Sometimes that wall is you—for example, if you have a couple of workers who are qualified for and want your job, but they can’t move forward until you do.
You can try to keep the lid on those employees, hoping through material rewards like merit pay increases and symbolic ones like title changes (or other benefits) to keep them happy enough to stick with you, despite the lack of opportunity to grow.
Or you can help them move up and out, as you did with Frank in the opening example. Keep in mind that “moving up” might mean “moving on” from your company to another opportunity.
Yes, you might lose your organization’s best employees that way. You’ll have to recruit, hire, and train replacements. It will be a lot of work for you, with no guarantee that a new person will be as good as the one you lost.
MENTORING PERSONAL AND WORK ISSUES
Imagine that Mary comes to you and says she is worried about taking time off for maternity leave, coming up for her in a few months. She is concerned that six weeks off won’t be enough, that she’ll not perform well when she returns, that she’ll be a bad mother if she puts her child in daycare. She is worried about the logistics and costs of child care, nursing, and needing flex time or possibly working from home.
Mary knows that you had a baby three years ago (in this example, you are a working mom) and wonders what your advice would be to her. This is a key example of thinking beyond the organization, and it’s a great opportunity for mentoring, blended with a little coaching.
You begin to share your own story with Mary, being honest about the difficulties you encountered and how you handled them, while leaving her free to choose her own path. You also can point out some of the company support available to her. For example, perhaps your company does not have on-site daycare, but they do have a discount deal with a local highly rated preschool and a nanny service. You remind her that a nutritionist comes in twice a month, and this is a great resource for nursing moms, who need more calories and a good diet. You go over the flex time policies with Mary, and brainstorm on how she might be able to do some of her tasks from home in the future.
Mary leaves feeling heard and valued, and she has some great new ideas
And yet, that’s exactly what you should do. Great managers identify, foster, and develop talent.
If you don’t help employees move upward and onward, you become an adversary or roadblock. They see you as working against their best interests (or even sabotaging them), and that creates tension and distrust, making them more eager to move on. If a constricting economy limits opportunities elsewhere and you “succeed” in keeping that disgruntled employee, you no longer get peak performance, the goal of all coaching.
Effective Mentoring
Effective mentoring can provide four important benefits.
1. Employees view a job with a sense of its possibilities and become more motivated and productive.
2. Employees will be loyal to you (and the company) for as long as they work with you—and when they’re working someplace else, too. (It never hurts to have friends and contacts.)
3. Their advancement creates a vibrant working atmosphere, with everyone in the organization working to move up the ladder.
4. You open up jobs in the organization that draw in new blood, new ideas, and new energy.
SUCCESS CULTURE
Consider the phrase “A rising tide lifts all boats.” When you mentor and coach your employees to success, everyone succeeds: they do, you do, the department does, the company does. There doesn’t need to be winners and losers when everyone is winning. Some workers may not see it that way, and could feel threatened or think you’re giving favorable treatment to fast-track certain people to a promotion. Work with these people, too, to ensure everyone’s success.
Balance these gains against the time it takes you to recruit and train new workers, and you still come out ahead.
The requirements for being an effective mentor are basic.
Time
Energy
Willingness
Accurate information
Caring
We all have time and energy. It’s a matter of how we choose to spend them. Once you see how mentoring pays off for you and your company, you’ll start to prioritize this important work.
You also need to be willing to mentor (and your employees have to be willing to receive it). Do not feel threatened by your employees’ success—it reflects well on you. You can demonstrate your willingness to mentor by coaching your employees, supporting them in their goals, and being a resource for them.
You’ve been gathering information since the day you started working. If you’ve worked your way up through the ranks, performing the jobs other people now do for you, you know the ins and outs as well as anybody. You know how to get the information you don’t already have. Remember, ignorance, your own or anybody else’s, is a curable condition. As a manager, you are responsible for imparting that information to your employees, and giving accurate information can be crucial for effective mentoring.
A good mentor (and manager and coach) should truly care about his or her employees. If you didn’t care about them, why would you even bother mentoring? A good mentor wants everyone to succeed. A coach keeps a client-focused approach, and the mentor should, too. Focus on what your employees want and how you can help them get there. As a manager, you are in the unique position of being able to care about your employees while keeping a big-picture view of the overall goals of the organization.
Everybody has to learn to find his or her own way in the workplace. But you may be able to help your staff past some of the most obvious problems. Let’s consider a few key areas to consider in your job as mentor.
Coaching the In-Game
There’s the process as it’s outlined in the employees’ manual, and then there’s the way things really work.
Remember the questions you had when you were new to the job. Anticipate the problems a new employee will have. Head off misunderstandings that result in somebody not getting paid for their first month’s work or filing for dental insurance after the cut-off date.
Who’s supposed to sign off on the time sheets? What’s the best time to apply for a job reclassification? How detailed do you have to be when you file for expense reimbursement?
THINK LIKE A BEGINNER
Who taught you the lay of the land when you came to your organization? How did you adjust to the office atmosphere and culture? What do you wish had been in the employee manual? What are the most useful things you learned as you moved up to your managing position? Think like a beginner, and consider the things you need to impart to new hires for them to do well. Ask those around you what they would teach new hires, or what they wish they had known when they came aboard.
The most important element in the in-game stems from the difference between the job description and the actual requirements of the job. Employees need to know what they’re really expected to do and how you’ll evaluate their work. Mentoring them on these aspects of the work will probably overlap with training.
Taking Emotional Temperatures
Some folks are quite open about expressing how they feel. But many are apt to keep their feelings to themselves, especially when they’re new to a job. Don’t wait for obvious signs of distress. Inquire after your workers’ well-being. Keep it casual, but don’t let it become perfunctory.
“How’s it going?” isn’t fancy, but it’s a fine question—if you ask it with genuine concern and a willingness to spend a little time listening to the answer (step up to level 2 or 3 listening; see Chapter 6). Without pushing or prodding, follow up if you suspect a problem: “Are you finding your way around okay?”
AVOID NEGATIVITY
When helping employees learn the in-game, be careful not to make them think that doing one thing but saying another is the norm. Managers in organizations don’t always practice what they preach, but avoid saying negative things about other people in the organization that will make those you’re mentoring cynical or undermine their enthusiasm to perform well.
Some workers won’t respond to what they perceive as being put on the spot. For them, you need to provide safe ways to express feelings and attitudes. The suggestion box (either real or virtual) has become a much belittled cliché, not because it’s a bad idea but because the concept has been abused. Too often, employees don’t take the process seriously, refusing to offer ideas or coming up with prank suggestions. Employers often ignore suggestions or, worse, retaliate against employees who dare to offer suggestions they don’t like.
Consider a variety of methods—including the suggestion box, surveys, bulletin boards, e-mail postings, and open-door office hours—to ensure ample opportunity for employees to express their feelings.
You need this information. You can’t coach or mentor without it.
Helping People Move Forward
You might like to think that your staff members want to stay with you forever. And maybe your primary concern is their performance on the job at hand. You want the assistant junior management trainee to devote 100 percent to working at peak performance as an assistant junior management trainee. But she might have her eye on something a little better.
Would you really want a trainee who was content to be a trainee forever? Employees will do their best work for you now out of a strong motivation to move into a better opportunity later. Coach them for as long as you’ve got them, and help them make realistic career plans. Then do whatever’s necessary to support them in making their plans work.
A common question to ask in a job interview is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” This is the kind of thing you should keep in mind and ask your employees about from time to time (great to ask at annual performance reviews). Their goals and desires may change, and you need to keep up with them. If you know that the assistant junior management trainee wants to eventually be a director of a national sales team, you can mentor her on that path as she grows in her role and seeks to move up.
HELP THEM MOVE AHEAD
If you have employees who learn quickly and have talent, think of part of your job as a coach as helping them move ahead. Give them opportunities to shine and take advantage of their talents. It will pay off for them, for you, and for the company.
Take advantage of job evaluation interviews and reviews to conduct formal mentoring. “You’ve been here three years already, Carol. I suggest you put in for a title change. I can give you the application and walk you through it if you like.”
Also look for chances to mentor on the run (or “coachable moments”). Much of your best mentoring will be unscheduled. Be ready to take advantage of opportunities.
Applying the Principles of Basic Humanity
What if you must mentor someone who is older than you? In many cultures, the young defer to the elders, acknowledging the wisdom only experience can teach and only age can confer. The assumption in such cultures is that the old mentor the young. Not so in America, where a 23-year-old manager may supervise a 63-year-old counter worker.
Apply the principles of basic humanity, regardless of age, culture, gender, or any other perceived difference. You have authority over the people who work with you. You will know more than they do in some situations. But remember: You aren’t smarter, better, or more important than they are. Treat everyone with respect.
Mentoring to Define the Work
A major part of your job as mentor/manager involves providing accurate, clear information and guidance about work expectations. This goes well beyond providing the job description, as noted, and it also goes beyond clarifying, explaining, and pointing out how the real job differs from the job on paper. In some cases, as industries and markets change, you may be called on to create new definitions of work. You should guide workers to positive, creative definitions of their jobs.
Positive Definition of the Work
Somebody has to empty and clean the bedpans in the nursing home. It isn’t pleasant, it isn’t ego-gratifying, and it isn’t well compensated.
You can call it “sanitation engineering” or classify it as a responsibility of the nurses’ aides, but don’t tie a bow on it. It’s still slinging bedpans.
Put the job in the context of the larger goal. Cleaning bedpans is part of creating a healthy, pleasant environment for every resident of the nursing home. It’s an important job, and it has positive, worthwhile outcomes.
Creative Definition of the Work
A writer’s life used to involve pounding out stories on a manual typewriter (or writing them out longhand). That meant changing a lot of ink ribbons, wadding up a lot of paper, and slathering on a sea of correction fluid. To get an extra copy, the writer had to insert a sheet of carbon paper between two sheets of typing paper, put the sandwich into the roller, and type harder.
MISSION STATEMENT
Help employees find a connection between their work—even if it seems thankless and menial, like cleaning or emptying bedpans—and the overall mission of the organization (such as “creating a healthy, peaceful environment with the highest standard of care”). With this, you can show the positive impact of even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant task. You don’t need to dress up the task in fancy language, but you can draw this connection to the bigger picture.
Now writers type words on a screen and send the work as electronic impulses over the Internet or push a button to print them out from a machine in another room. It’s common for books to be written online by writing partners who never meet face to face.
Any writers who defined their job as typing words on paper (the mechanics of the task) locked themselves out of the profession long ago. Those who see their job as conveying information and telling stories (the heart of the job) have adapted to the changing workplace. The tools to get there are different, but the ultimate product remains the same—communication and understanding.
Mentors work to enable employees to define their jobs (and careers) creatively and in terms of a bigger picture—by ultimate purpose, not current tools—so that they will develop the flexibility to adapt and survive. A rigid definition of work won’t stand if there’s a sudden shift in the industry or the company.
Mentoring to Motivate
You may need to channel the natural motivations people bring with them to the workplace. This kind of mentoring often takes one of two forms: challenging an overachiever or getting an underachiever unstuck. Coaching skills can prove invaluable here!
1. The overachiever. Forget pep talks and lectures. Don’t set arbitrary goals or quotas. And definitely don’t create busy work. All these approaches simply deepen an overachiever’s dissatisfaction and may invite contempt.
WATCH OUT FOR APATHY
Although the core problems are quite different, the symptom is the same: apathy.
An overachiever is bored because there’s either not enough to do or nothing to do that provides challenge, stimulates learning, and results in meaningful productivity. The underachiever adopts boredom as a pose to mask insecurity.
One is wading, and the other is drowning. Both want to be swimming with the current, and both feel dissatisfied with their jobs.
You must look beneath the apathy and learn about the worker’s abilities to be able to diagnose the problem accurately. Then you can apply the appropriate mentoring and coaching techniques.
Be open and honest, but not confrontational. Share your perception with the worker and discuss possible solutions. Ask for her input. How would she like to be challenged? What skills and talents would she like to put to use? Where does she see opportunity? (These are all terrific coaching questions.) When you can coach her a bit to clarify what she wants, then you bring in some mentorship to get her the resources to do it.
Look for meaningful challenges. Set the bar a little higher, letting the worker succeed one level at a time. Provide additional training opportunities and give increasing amounts of responsibility. Ask the worker to play a leadership role in group settings.
2. The underachiever. Approach an underachiever as an underused resource rather than as a problem to be “fixed.” Employees don’t want to disappoint you. They’re motivated to do good work, and they want to be able to take pride in their work, just as you do.
GETTING MOTIVATED
Jack seems bored. You invite him to your office and ask him about it. He admits he seems a little “checked out” these days, and says clearly that he doesn’t feel challenged in his work. He elaborates, with your prompting, and says he feels like he does the same thing every day and only gets to use a limited number of his skills. You learn he’s been taking online classes in different programming environments, just to stay sharp.
You ask Jack where he sees some opportunity. He surprises you when he says that he noticed another division in the company sometimes gets bogged down with a mundane computer task that they have to do by hand, which can sometimes take hours. He has learned some scripting tools in one of his classes and feels confident he could create an automatic converter program that would handle the same task in minutes. He decides to work on this side project when he has time at work and at home on the weekends.
Three weeks later, Jack is finished. You arrange a meeting with the other division, where he demonstrates what his program does. You see the jaws drop around the room as the other employees realize what a huge time-saver he has created! Jack’s satisfaction is also obvious.
A few months later, you notice that Jack is not only more motivated and driven, but he’s identified several other areas where he can start creating solutions. Upper management has noticed—he gets a hefty quarterly bonus for the time he’s saved numerous people, and he has several commendation letters. He’s also in line for a big promotion with the next budget review.
If there’s no fault, there’s no need for excuses.
You aren’t looking for something or someone to blame. You’re looking for ways to help a worker do a job better. Be sure to communicate that clearly. With this approach, you’ll be working together toward a common goal. The employee will see you as an ally, not a threat.
Pep talks and lectures won’t work here, either. Forget carrots and sticks. Again, get the worker involved in a dialogue. They may be afraid to ask for help when they need it. They may not know what resources are available to them. They may be distracted by personal events or other aspects of their lives unrelated to work.
Together, you may be able to create a better match of worker and task. Explore all possibilities, including altering the work environment or routine to get rid of stumbling blocks.
Perhaps a person seems “checked out” and doesn’t achieve much because he is distracted by all the tedious meetings, progress reports, gossip, and office politics that goes on. After meeting with him, you offer the opportunity to work from home a couple of days a week, with online availability in case you need to reach him. After a few weeks of trying this revised schedule, the worker seems more energized at the office, and you notice that he is caught up on all his responsibilities and is doing excellent work.
As with all coaching opportunities, set some guidelines, a way to measure progress, and arrange for a follow-up session.
UNDERACHIEVER OR A BAD FIT?
Be aware that an underachiever might just not be right for the job. Despite our best efforts to put the right person in the right job, sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
Respecting the Boundaries of Mentoring
You’re a manager, a coach, a mentor. You motivate and guide. You make decisions, evaluate performance, solve problems.
You do not “fix” psychological problems or mediate disputes for one simple reason: You aren’t qualified to deal with them. Know your limits!
If you’ve got a “dysfunctional” department, clearly in need of some group therapy, you’ve got some alternatives.
Bring in an expert. If your organization is large enough to have an Office of Employee Assistance or a similar department, arrange to have a professional come in, help you establish guidelines, and conduct an extended discussion or series of discussions to work through problems. If you don’t have an in-house pro, look to the nearest university extension or outreach program. Many have experts on conflict resolution in the workplace who will work with you for reasonable fees. Hold such sessions away from the workplace, but don’t call them “retreats” or half of the workers will hate the process before they ever get started.
Create firm boundaries. If you can’t solve the problem, as leader you must enforce a cease-fire. Admit that you can’t “fix” things. Don’t pretend to be fair. Discuss, develop, and implement guidelines for behavior. Nobody will be happy. They might all blame you. But at least they’ll be united in that, and you’ll be able to get some work done.
Despite some of the problems and pitfalls inherent in mentoring employees, most of your mentoring will be positive and productive. Combined with training, coaching, and problem solving, it will help move your staff closer to peak performance.
The Coach’s Checklist for Chapter 9
There are two types of mentoring: inside the organization and beyond the organization. One teaches skills and organizational savvy; the other helps a person build a career.
To be a successful mentor, you need to have time, energy, willingness, accurate information to share, as well as genuine caring for your employees.
Successful mentors understand that they are no smarter, better, or more important than anyone else. They understand their role as a helper, however, and take it seriously.
Mentors help people understand their work not as tasks but as contributions to a process to deliver an output others will value.
Mentors help bolster employee motivation.