Mentor, Coach or Both?

When it comes to sports, it’s all clear. A guy is a gifted baseball pitcher. He’s been throwing more balls than strikes lately. The coach looks at the whole team during the game and goes out to the mount and asks about the balls and the strikes. The coach sees what’s going on and he acts as an objective observer and tells the pitcher what he sees going on. A day or so after the game, the pitcher gets someone to watch him practice. Someone who will give him pointers on the exact things he’s doing when he throws a strike versus what he’s doing in his form that’s different when he throws a ball. It’s a way to correct his form. The coach acts as a mirror and the “mentor” acts as a guide.

A coach is not a mentor. And it’s true in the business world as well. But it isn’t as clear. I hear people interchanging the concepts in the same paragraph. A Coach identifies the best of a person and questions them until the best emerges. A mentor takes the mentee by the hand and takes them through the steps to implement changes they could be making.

So what do you think you need? You’re managing your business alone. Everything you know about it is inside your head. Would you benefit from having someone tell you exactly what others see? Then you might benefit from having a coach. Or would you prefer to have someone give you suggestions about the things you’re doing in greater detail so you could be guided through the improvements? Perhaps you need a reliable mentor. Are you the kind of person who can self-correct if you hear objectively how you’re seen (Coach). Or are you the person who can benefit from having a shoulder-to-shoulder partner through the whole process (Mentor).

You could also do two other things:

• You could go it alone and hope that what you think is being perceived IS really being perceived; OR
• You could have both a coach and a mentor to help you identify AND implement the things you’d like to change.

It’s lonely out there when you’re trying to do it alone.

Pause

It’s a scientific fact that people listen and absorb things slower than anyone speaks. When I was coaching a client about how fast he spoke and how little people were hearing, he tried to slow down but it “fellllt soooo sloooow” to him and he had trouble doing it. To solidify the idea, I had him make an announcement to one of his teams at a weekly meeting that had five specific instructions and numerous details. Of the nine people in the room, six immediately asked questions of validation and clarification to be sure they knew what he wanted them to do.

He then gathered another team together and delivered the exact same announcement but he said it at HALF the pace. People jotted down notes. At the end he asked, “Any questions?” No one had any. When the two teams delivered the assignment, the first team left some critical things out. The second team nailed it.

As a leader, you are often given two minutes to tell a group or a room full of people who you are. The first thing most of us try to do is pack as much information into the two minutes that we possibly can. So nobody remembers us at all. It sounds fast and jumbled to the listener. What we should do instead is slow down. Say less. Choose the MOST important things we want people to be remembered. And say it in SLOW MOTION so they can hear it. We want to be remembered and we want them to know us better. Be the one up gives the extra few seconds to the next person who goes over the two minutes. I assure you that you might even be remembered for thankfully being brief.

Humans Make Mistakes

Years ago when I joined a large organization, I walked into my new office. There on my desk was a gorgeous new computer. Hanging on the monitor was a note that read:

“I really hate this machine, I wish that I could sell it. It never does what I want it to, it only does what I tell it.”

The blame game just doesn’t cut it. People need to take responsibility for the things that happen around them. That’s why we should never give advice. If someone is undecided and they ask you what you think, maybe it’s best to point out the best of both opportunities. If you simply say, “What I’d do…” they only get an idea of what YOU would do and it doesn’t help them make a critical decision. What is so much more helpful is to walk them through the decision making process. That way they get to THEIR conclusion rather than what “you’d do.” When someone goes a round asking everyone for their input, it’s like what we did back in high school to ensure that our home-life experience was within the norm.

Kids that hung out together used to say things like: “My mother would never let me …” – this meant that perhaps your own mother wasn’t as strict as you thought she was. If you ask someone what they think, be sure you understand why you’re asking. Do you want and respect their viewpoint? Will they be truly honest? Are they really thinking about you or about how they would behave? And when you finally take someone’s viewpoint and it goes wrong, do you blame them? Or do you realize that it was your choice after all and that human error is truly human. We can learn from being as human as we can be.

So I didn’t sell the machine. I simply learned to ask, “What did I do wrong?”

Treat Yourself Well

I backed out of my driveway the other day in my son’s car. His mirrors aren’t adjusted the way I have them set in my car. I was only moving his car into the street so I could get my own car out, so I didn’t bother adjusting the mirrors. HOWEVER, I usually use the mirrors to back up. So I backed right into the car that was parked across the street.

Boy did I beat myself up. I ran in the house to leave my neighbor a note telling her I hit her car. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about how stupid it was and how much it could cost.

If someone else had done the same thing, I would have hugged her. I would have told her that it wasn’t a bad scratch and that it was just a bad moment in a mostly lovely day. So why don’t we treat ourselves as well as we’d treat someone else? Hey, you’re the most important person in your life.

Instead of beating yourself up, have a drink. Soothe yourself. Be kind to yourself. Sleep through the night because it was just a bad moment in a mostly lovely day.

My neighbor called me to say she was able to get the red paint easily off her fender and it wasn’t really dented. And I took my son’s car to the auto body shop and in two days it was back to new. Next time I’m having a drink and forgiving myself. After all, they call them ACCIDENTS, not stupid moves.

The Good News

We hear about missing planes, takeovers in the Ukraine, earthquakes, dissension, crises, murder trails, and droughts. But there’s always Good News.

We read about wonderful volunteers who hand out food at food pantries. People show up to help clear out the mess left after Hurricane Sandy. People donate to causes they believe in. Races are being run in honor of, or in support of, or in memory of some cause or person they care about. And in addition, people are doing what needs to get done and what they’re asked to do.

A perfect example is Habitat for Humanity where perfect strangers get together for the first time and BUILD A HOUSE!! Instant teams.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our professional teams cooperated and listened and just did what was needed all the time? What drives people to volunteer and show up BIG is their engagement. The key to a great work team is finding ways to ensure they’re engaged. So here’s the good news. There are so many ways to be engaged in your work life. Three tips for staying engaged are:

1. Recognized and appreciate your own accomplishments
2. Listen to your colleagues, customers, and clients – they will tell you what they see
3. Identify what you’re good at and enjoy it while you’re in the midst of it

The way you feel is infectious: if you remain engaged, the people around you will join you. That’s the good news.