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What’s happening in coaching and
mentoring?
In many ways, coaching and mentoring have made significant strides in the past
decade, although from time to time is has seemed they have also made
substantial steps backwards.
In the area of research, executive or developmental coaching is at last beginning
to establish a body of empirical evidence, as studies attempt to explore what
makes this particular helping environment or process unique and effective. It is
obvious, when reading any of the major textbooks on the process or psychology
of coaching that virtually all the evidence base comes from analogy with other
disciplines, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, gestalt therapy, counselling
and so on. Evidence for the effectiveness of coaching has tended to be
anecdotal and far from rigorous; but now there is increasing interest from both
practitioners and academics in establishing an evidence base that is truly
coaching-focused and involves both qualitative and quantitative data.
In mentoring, the dominance of US quantitative studies has led research down a
number of blind allies. Not only is much of this research flawed, for example by
conflation of direct reporting and off-line relationships and other definitional
failures, but it has focused on a model of mentoring, which itself is increasingly
irrelevant. Sponsorship mentoring, in which the power and influence of the
mentor is typically the driving force of the relationship, is shunned by many
national and corporate cultures, in favour of developmental mentoring, which
emphasises mutuality of learning and the importance of helping mentees do
things for themselves. Like developmental coaching, developmental mentoring
works on the quality of the learner’s thinking – giving advice and helping the
learner network are secondary activities, brought into play only when the mentee
lacks the experience or perception to progress through their own resources.
Once again, however, we are beginning to see studies that explore
developmental mentoring and a combination of quantitative and qualitative
approaches.
The new research perspectives challenge received wisdom and demonstrate the
dangers of wholesale extrapolation from other disciplines. For example, my
colleague David Megginson and I have both been examining the role of goals in
the coaching or mentoring relationship. Most training emphasises the importance
of establishing clear, SMART goals at the beginning and ensuring deep
commitment to them. The research shows a very different picture. With the
exception of very specific, short-term task-related goals, the narrower the goal at
the beginning, the less the chance of achieving it. Relationships that deliver value
for the mentee or coachee have a broad sense of purpose, or wide goals, which
are shaped and refocused as the relationship develops.
At the same time as we begin to clarify what makes for effective coaching and
mentoring, however, the very popularity of the approach has resulted in greater
confusion. Almost every related profession has participated in a land-grab, trying
to stake out its own coaching territory, with definitions, rules and practices based
on its own particular perspectives and interests. Terms used in one country can
have a very different interpretation in another. For example, while life coaching in
Australia tends to be associated with humanistic psychology, in the UK and much
of Europe, it is more likely to stimulate associations with fringe medicine.
Increasing dialogue between organisations representing coaching and
mentoring, stimulated in Europe by the European Mentoring and Coaching
Council, is beginning to break down some of these artificial barriers. It is
becoming clearer that coaching and mentoring need to be defined differently in
different contexts and that this is a potential strength as much as a current
weakness. There are, of course, still many dogmatic statements about the
distinctions between coaching and mentoring (I and my colleagues have not
been immune to this in the past either!), but it is increasingly accepted that both
coaching and mentoring may, in specific contexts:
Be relatively directive or non-directive
Require and draw upon the helper’s experience
Be of long or short duration
Involve giving advice
Work with goals set by the learner or for the learner
Deal with significant transitions the learner wishes to make
Address broad personal growth ambitions
If there is a generic difference (please note the if), it is that coaching in most
applications addresses performance in some aspect of an individual’s work or
life; while mentoring is more often associated with much broader, holistic
development and with career progress. This does not mean that we should
ignore the differences. On the contrary, clarifying them in the context of a
particular programme or relationship is fundamental, in my view, to achieving
mutual commitment to the chosen process.
Other encouraging signs of maturation within coaching and mentoring are the
expansion of supervision and the increased expectations of coach competence
by organisational clients. Supervision is required of all active EMCC members
and by most other professional coaching associations. It is, in my observation,
often carried out extremely poorly, especially in some organisations providing
pools of executive coaches; or it has relied on supervisors from other
professions, who may or may not have a deep insight into the different demands
of the coaching or mentoring conversation and relationship. However, there are
now a number of academically accredited courses to develop supervisors
specifically for coaching and mentoring. As more coaches and mentors – both
professional and line managers using these approaches in their relationships
within organisations – become exposed to effective supervision, it should have a
substantial and positive effect on the quality of coaching delivered.
The wider availability of trained supervisors is well-timed. Major employer
organisations have registered increasing concern and frustration with the variable
quality of coaching offered. In facilitating assessment centres for selecting coach
pools, it has been depressing to observe how many candidates expect to work at
senior levels with only minimal qualifications and a near-complete lack of CPD.
One of the particular weaknesses is having only a narrow portfolio of responses
or techniques, with which to address the client’s issues; another is a lack of basic
psychological understanding necessary to manage and work within boundaries.
Within mentoring, programme quality is an issue. In a recent survey, for example,
we found a strong desire among programme managers for opportunities to
benchmark the design and support of mentoring initiatives and systems.
In the coming years, I expect to see a great deal more research that gives a
stronger theoretical underpinning and body of good practice for both
developmental coaching and developmental mentoring. There will almost
certainly be some merging between professional bodies in the field and greater
cooperation between them in general as the uniqueness of different perspectives
is recognised and accepted. The trend to ensure that all managers have
coaching and mentoring skills is likely to accelerate, with some of those
managers going on to acquire higher levels of competence and hence providing
internal support for less experienced coaches and mentors. Poor quality
coaching will become increasingly marginalised, but will still exist; however,
greater awareness by organisational clients as to what to look for may
discourage entry into the field by those, who are not prepared to commit to
considerable personal development for themselves.
In short, we have a long way to go before coaching and mentoring consolidate as
well-established developmental methods; but we are also a long way along the
road.
David Clutterbuck
