Monday Mentor-Week 39-The Coach as Mentor

The final role for the coaching leader is that of mentor. Mentoring has a lot of dynamics and sub-competencies and can be the most rewarding of all the coaching related activities.



At it’s core, mentoring is the growing of talent. Growing talent to take your place. Growing talent so you can be more easily promoted. Growing talent to ease your workload and increase team member satisfaction. Growing talent to increase your organizational influence by the promotion and transfer of people you have mentored. Growing talent to create a pool of succession for your organization.



The first mentoring dynamic is finding someone to mentor. This needs to be a collaborative operation. Not everyone you think will be a good successor wants to be mentored. Not everyone who wants to be mentored will be a good candidate for future promotion or advancement. The process needs to be available to all but utilized with only a few at a time. As a rule of thumb, you should only consider directly mentoring two people at any one time. You will have to conduct some courageous conversations with people to both encourage and dissuade participation in mentoring.



The reason that mentoring is done in plural with two people is because stuff happens. People quit. They may not be exactly what you thought they were. You need to have points of comparison and need to have choices when opportunities arise. Placing all of your mentoring stock in one candidate is risky and often backfires.



Identifying mentoring candidates will require you to do a little career counseling. You will need to discover what they want out of this job and their career in whole. What are they looking for and what are their key motivations and satisfaction points. This process is just like hiring for correct fit.



After you have identified a couple of mentoring candidates, the first step is to solidify relationships with them. Discover commonalities, reconcile differences in style and appearances and build bonds on a deeper level. This relationship base will further establish trust and communication comfort which is important in the mentoring process. Get to know the mentoring participants. Let them tell their stories. Know their biography. Both you and the mentored team member must feel good about expression and deeper communication intimacy.



The effective leader now wants to add some quality doses of storytelling. Not of the bedtime variety but the types of stories that reinforce how to be a successful leader. The challenges you faced. Things you have seen. Lessons you have learned. Not related in a I’m-The-Best-Thing-Since-White-Sliced-Bread type of approach but in narrative of lessons and matter-of-fact approach. This is uncomfortable for many leaders but priceless for those being mentored.


After relational and storytelling activities, the leader must begin the process of delegating, empowering and developing the mentoring participants. You must be able to let go of some key tasks, allow the team members to perform them using their techniques and styles and debrief their decisions and performance. Much more about this process in found in the Sheep Breeding Commandment.



Another powerful mentoring tool is job shadowing. This allows mentored participants to gain a feel and firsthand appreciation for higher level jobs and functions. Job shadowing should be done in a programmatic and long –term approach that gives a sustained look at the job.



The other key mentoring piece is to allow mentored team members to act in your behalf and for you at key meetings and during times of your absence. This is an important step of translating their learning from storytelling, delegation and job shadowing into the practical world of acting and performing. During any period when a mentored candidate acts for you, even if it is very brief, a debrief dialog is critical. This dialog is designed to see what went well and what could have been done better. When done in a non-comparing and non-judgmental form, this is a great form of learning for mentored participants.



Mentoring requires a good time commitment. A time commitment that is not always returned in the near term but an investment that will pay dividends to you and your organization for years to come.

From Linkage: The Business Case for Mentoring

It is the end of a difficult calendar year for most companies, leaders, and employees. A year when incredibly tough decisions were made—to save money, preserve core assets and talent, and in the most challenging cases to ensure the very existence of the business.

For most professionals, attention is now split between the wrap up of 2009 activities and the planning and budgeting for 2010.

What will 2010 bring? Depending on the economists you follow or media you consult, the timelines vary but most agree that we are in the midst of a slow climb up, out of recession. 2010 will continue to force hard choices. It is a time when talent retention and development couldn’t be more important.

Read the rest of the article: http://www.linkageinc.com/thinking/linkageleader/Documents/Kimberly_Vappie_The_Business_Case_for_Mentoring.pdf?CC=TLL09-EM12

Is Coaching Recession Proof-From Training Journal

Many coaches have seen their business grow during the economic downturn, according to research published this week.

A joint survey of more than 600 coaches from the Association for Coaching (AC), European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and International Coach Federation (ICF) found 70 per cent believed that their practice had either grown or stayed the same as a result of the recession.

Read the Article At: http://www.trainingjournal.com/news/2447.html

The Benefits of Positive Feedback

From the Soaring Eagle Enterprises Training Program: Coaching I-Positive and Corrective Feedback.

The benefits of positive feedback are immense and powerful. They include:

1. Performance increases. Team members want to perform to continue to receive praise and positive feedback. Team members that see others receiving positive feedback will increase their performance to receive it as well.

2. Increased engagement. Team members that are regularly and consistently provided with positive feedback will be more engaged and attached to the organization.

3. Reduced turnover. When team members feel appreciated they are much less likely to leave.

4. Potential for improvements are realized. Team members strive harder when they know they will be recognized for their work. Hidden potentials and performance elements previously not seen will be revealed.

5. Satisfaction levels rise. Team member satisfaction will increase when they receive constant and consistent positive feedback.

6. Corrective coaching is better received. Many times, the biggest reason that corrective coaching does not go well is because team members feel picked at or over-scrutinized. When positive feedback equals or is greater in volume than corrective feedback, this feeling is eliminated or reduced.

7. Morale is improved. After receiving positive feedback, the demeanor of team members is raised and collectively, that improves team morale.

8. Fear and avoidance of the boss is eliminated. Many team members avoid any contact or communication with the boss because the only time they hear from him or her is when things are bad or something went wrong. The use of consistent and constant positive feedback eliminates this avoidance.

9. Team and team member apathy is reduced or eliminated. Many team members perform at a good level or achieve something significant and hear nothing about it. Over a couple of occurrences, that team member will develop a “why bother” type of approach. When team members receive positive feedback, the apathy is eliminated.

10. Appearances of favoritism is reduced. When team members see the equal application and distribution of positive feedback, the appearance of favorite treatment is reduced.

Return on Investment in Coaching Behaviors

Coaching programs delivered an average return on investment of 5.7 times the initial investment.
The average return on an executive coaching assignment was more than $100,000.
Productivity increased (reported by 53% of executives)
Quality improved (48%)
Organizational strength increased (48%)
Customer service improved (39%)
Reducing customer complaints (34%)
Retaining executives (32%)
Cost reductions (23%)
Bottom-line profitability (22%)
Working relationships with direct reports improved (reported by 77%of executives)
Working relationships with immediate supervisors improved (71%)
Teamwork enhanced (67%)
Working relationships with peers improved (63%)
Job satisfaction increased (61%)
Conflict reductions were more effective (52%)
Organizational commitment increased (44%)
Working relationships with clients improved (37%)

Forbes Executive Survey Data

Coach Eagle Welcomes Minerva Mendoza

The team of professionals here at Soaring Eagle Enterprises continues to grow in order meet the ever changing demands of our clients. Our friends, colleagues and clients, like us, are very demanding; so we are very picky. Over the next few months, I will take this opportunity to introduce you to our team, as Partners in your Success.

What does it take to become a member of SEE? After almost a year of intense recruiting efforts, only a select few “survived” our Coaching Clinic this past Spring. This month it is my pleasure to introduce you to one of the chosen few, and the most recent Success Partner to join us at Coach Eagle.

Ms. Minerva Mendoza, MBA

Minerva’s passion for educating young people has made her the successful leader she is today. She is very involved with her children’s activities, a role model and community leader. Minerva currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Southern Nevada Hispanic Employment Program. SNHEP She has a commitment to mentoring young people to help them achieve their dreams. She brings that same passion for seeing others succeed, combined with her extensive knowledge of human resources and practical business processes to her coaching practice.

Professionally, Minerva is a specialist in Human Resources & labor relations with over a decade of practical experience in executive development, teaching, coaching and management. She earned her M.B.A. graduating with honors, and is beginning work on her doctoral program. Minerva is also very active in volunteer leadership of Society for Human Resources Management at the local and national level.

You can reach Minerva at m.mendoza@coacheagle.com