Mentoring vs. Coaching

I spent many years as a mentor before deciding to become a career coach. This transition has been confusing to some of my old mentees, who have asked for clarity on the difference. This article sheds light on some of the differences I see between coaching and mentoring. I’ll also explain why I have decided to focus on coaching.

Before I get into the differences between coaching and mentoring, let me first clarify that coaching is not counseling or therapy.  A cursory overview of coaching can sound like therapy, but it’s not. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), counseling involves “helping people with physical, emotional, and mental health issues improve their sense of well‐being, alleviate feelings of distress, and resolve crises.” Counseling psychologists also provide “assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of more severe psychological symptoms.”

Coaching, on the other hand, is defined by the International Coaching Federation, as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” Good coaching is driven by where the client wants to go, and expects the client to do a lot of deep work to get there.

Mentoring

A mentor relationship is usually between someone of greater experience and someone hoping to learn from that experience. Mentor training is usually informal, whereas coach training can take a year, with certification being even more rigorous. Mentors share their experience and help mentees navigate specific situations. Mentor relationships are typically long term and free. A mentor relationship does not have to be action-focused: frequently meetings with a mentor are conversational in nature, and focus on an exchange of experiences. Having a mentor, particularly early in a career leads to better engagement at work.

Although I have been at companies with formal mentor programs, a mentor relationship need not be formal. Someone looking for a mentor may choose someone they already trust, and work mentorship into the normal course of conversation. Mentorships can span multiple jobs, and stretch out across a good chunk of one’s career.

Coaching: Ayahuasca Without the Vomit

Coaching, on the other hand, is a more formal relationship. Coaching relationships are usually short-term (3-6 months) paid engagements focused on achieving some overarching client-identified goal. Coaching works by addressing the “who”, rather than the “what” and “how.” That is, coaching takes the approach that to make the changes to your career that you’d like to see, you need to address beliefs, rules, and behaviors that are getting in the way of that dream. It’s deep work for the client. The benefits of an ayahuasca retreat without the hallucinations and vomit.

My past mentees valued me for my experience, and what it can teach them. But I sometimes felt that my knowledge and experience were as limiting as it was valuable. As I moved forward in my mentoring and career, I realized that I wanted to help my clients go beyond my own experiences. I wanted to draw upon more powerful techniques and questions and use my intuition to help the client go beyond what my experience can help with. I wanted to help my clients bring to the surface what they already knew about themselves.

Beyond that, my experience could feel limiting at times as well. Why?

The Workplace Changes.

The industry is dramatically different than when I entered it. Not only the technology, obviously, but expectations of job responsibilities. The hands-on “team lead” instead of a supervisor/manager. Expectations about how long you would stay in a job. One of the first people I met when I started my position at Bell Labs was Bill Murphy. He was retiring after 45 years at the Labs. Think he had the same experience as a UX Designer (a position that didn’t exist most of my career) who has been in three startups before they turned 30?

My Experience is Not Your Experience. 

Two of my favorite mentees had switched industries mid-career, and neither had worked in a corporate setting. These people benefited from my situational awareness, but their backgrounds meant that what worked for me would not work for these people. 

Your Situation is Not Mine.

The environmental factors affecting your career are probably not mine. Your path to a promotion, if that is what you are aiming for,  is impacted by myriad factors. Your organization is different. Your management is different. The economy is different, impacting positively or negatively your chance of getting a promotion into a new company. 

These things above are now out of your control. They are inputs that define the current situation. But what you control is most important of all. This brings us to our last difference. 

You are not me. 

Who you are, how you show up in the world, the type of energy you bring, is the only thing you can control. You cannot control outcomes. You cannot control the dynamics and vagaries of the economy or your industry. 

Who was I? I was a talented and motivated software engineer when I first joined Bell Labs out of university. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to achieve, but I distinctly remember wanting to be the best possible programmer. I had all sorts of strange beliefs about myself personally and professionally. I didn’t know how I fit into the workplace and, potentially, management. In fact, I did not consider climbing a corporate ladder until the day I was offered a promotion, on January 31, 1996. I said no that night. I said yes the next day, and have been in management almost the entirety of the last thirty years.

I had all sorts of limiting beliefs about myself, and interpreted situations in idiosyncratic ways. I could have used someone who I trusted to challenge me, or at least to get me to open up to myself. I could have used someone to help me get past the feeling I was not good enough to dream bigger. But the truth is that I was not ready to listen to these voices; I was cocksure in my beliefs, even when they did not serve me well. 

In order to be ready to be coached, you must be ready to dig deep into yourself, to want change, to live by new rules that work for you and your dreams. But it is only through coaching, not mentorship, that enables this kind of change.

Don’t get me wrong. I think everyone should have a mentor, if not multiple mentors. Mentors can not only share experience, but can model behavior for clients. But it takes a coach, someone who has been trained in the methods specific to invoking client-desired change, to make the deeper impact that can change what you are personally capable of.