Coaching and Mentoring (being one)

When someone's been hired to do a job, particularly if it's a well paid and/or high-flying job, they're supposed to know everything, be able to handle everything with ease, deal with other people's problems and in general be super-person.

Right?

Well, not exactly.

There are loads of people who get hired for or promoted to, really good jobs because of the skills and capabilities they have demonstrated.

Yet six months later they are floundering and don't appear to be up to it all.

You may be someone who manages one of those people.

这不是不寻常的人,甚至在开始of their careers, to feel they are supposed to know more and be able to do more than they are currently able to. A common and recurrent nightmare is the feeling that somehow they will be 'found out' as not being up to the job and thrown out on their ear.

What can get left out when people are appointed for a job - wherever they are on the career ladder - is that they will need some form of guidance and support along the way. Some companies know this and part of their employee care is to have a coaching and/or mentoring programme in place. Unfortunately, many do not.

对于为这样的公司工作的人来说，它可能会感到不舒服或令人尴尬的要求在内部的支持，所以他们没有。这是'我应该知道这一切都是'信仰的人，以及教练或指导的优惠是因为：

'I'll look weak.'
“我不想让人们知道我要帮助。
'My staff won't respect me if they know I'm seeing someone.'
“这是咨询不是我不需要咨询。
'I think it's great our company has this terrific programme, I'll recommend it to my staff not my kind of thing really.'
如果他们认为我需要辅导我wouldn't have been hired in the first place.'
'They must think I'm not doing so well if they think I need coaching.'

And so on.

让我们拿大卫贝克汉姆（我们知道，我们知道，有很多人喜欢乘坐大卫贝克汉姆），谁显然被聘请了他的清单才华，但也是他的潜力。他与他带来了很多天生的能力，但是制定了他的才能的是谨慎和持续的教练。这一直是他作为足球运动员的技能和他的成熟。他没有突出作为英格兰的队长，而是通过他的辛勤工作和许多人的努力工作。在那里没有尴尬辅导。

See, if you were a sports person, you'd know what to do: you'd have a coach who'd work with you on your fitness, your training and eating regimens, your attitude, your goals. You'd be supported by someone who had your best interests as a priority. You wouldn't even question that coaching was part of the deal; it would be integral to your development.

Coaches help us get better at what we already do.

我们所有人都需要在我们的生活中不同时间的指导和动机：有人“教授”我们进入企业相当于游泳这些额外的圈或帮助我们对我们的高尔夫挥杆进行重要调整。

Good coaching is unbiased, objective support that sees and identifies the qualities and abilities in other people and helps develop them; it sees and identifies which hurdles are hard to get over and finds ways to get over them or circumvent them when appropriate. Good coaching comes from someone on the sidelines who has their 'mentee's' best interests as a priority.

教练或导师是指导;顾问;忠诚，感兴趣，信任，最重要的是，在其他人可能不是的地区经验丰富。

这个人可以是高级或平等的人，但谁通过良好和困难时期来帮助他们的同事的职业。他们提供动机和灵感，并帮助找到处理直接困难的方法，以及帮助计划长期职业战略。

That all makes sense, doesn't it?

So why don't more people have coaches and mentors? Why don't people just see it as 'normal' and expected, rather than something out of the ordinary?

事实上，许多公司倾向于将我们跪在膝盖，喘息一下，第三次喘息，混合一些隐喻。不是在他们的职业生涯的开始，或者当他们有促销时。否，只有当他们不可能躲藏一分钟时，他们才会遇到麻烦，他们可能会发现一个有关的帮助可能是可以的。

What a shame.

所有这些迷人都可以避免。

That's where you come in. Whether you're an unofficial or official coach or mentor, you can have a tremendous impact and influence on the future career and well being of people who work in your company.

Coaching and Mentoring - Now What Do I Do?

You need a few good qualities, but don't panic, they can be learnt.

You need to have patience.

Back to our sports analogy. A good coach sees what the end result could be where the potential could end up. What they don't do, however, is to work someone as though they were already there. They see what's needed to get the person to the next step and train them up to that point.

啊, but in business, we need things done yesterday; we need speed; we can't wait around for someone to develop slowly.

Well, we're not talking about slowly; we're talking about patience. We know that if people are given some latitude in the pace of their development, and it's done properly, they tend to excel; push them too quickly and they will get disheartened and de-motivated.

你需要能够退后一步

We were about to say you need objectivity, but that's a really hard skill to develop. We think it's nigh on impossible to be completely objective there lies 'saint or Buddha-hood'. However, being able to take a step back and see a situation from a number of points of view is a fantastic skill to have.

That way you can help your 'mentee' step back and see the situation from more than their own perspective. You can point out where others might be coming from that they can't see just yet, or you can even act as devil's advocate and challenge their point of view.

Avoid feeding the problem

Sometimes your 'mentee' may come to you with some gripes; things they want to get off their chest and complain about. That's all fine. People should have a place where they can off-load. However, one of the worst things you can do is collude with what they are saying and feed their negative feelings. So if someone comes to you full of unhappiness about, say, Mr Philips, who's dumped them with a load of extra work, you need to avoid agreeing with just how awful Mr Philips is.

Your job is to listen, reflect back what you're hearing and then explore what can be done about it. Your job is to be on someone's side without taking sides. That way, the guidance you give helps feed the solution not the problem.

提供建议是可以的

We think it was Jung who said something like, 'Good advice is rarely harmful because it's rarely listened to.' Well, when it comes to coaching someone, it's your expertise, experience and understanding that are of value, so use them. The other person is still the one who's going to have to put it into practise it will be up to them whether they heed your words of wisdom or carry on as they are.

It's also OK to lay it on the line

Although being a coach/mentor is about creating a safe, confidential place in which people can develop without too much fear of making career-limiting moves, it is still part of your job to be straight with them. In a sense you are doing 'reality checks' by being clear for the other person about what you see is going on and some of the things they could do about it.

什么都不做

Sometimes, people just need a place to have a good moan, cry in their beer and then they're OK. They don't need advice, they don't need a good talking to, they don't need anything sorted out.

They just want a friendly, empathetic listener. You don't have to agree with their point of view, but you can make neutral comments like "It sounds as though you've been going through a rough time" as opposed to "What a bastard he is! No one should be treated like that!"

Equally important is to let people have the feelings they're having. You don't need to fix anything; you don't need to make it better; you don't need to solve their problems. We believe one of the worst things you can do to someone is to tell them how they should be feeling, or to say cheer up, or things will get better.

When we're in the midst of feelings we can't really hear any of that and it can be really annoying to be told you should be feeling differently.

没有什么是耐心的另一种版本。

Let them make mistakes

Oh boy, is it ever tempting to try to get someone else to avoid the pitfalls you fell into. Here you are sitting on all that experience and wisdom and it's painful to watch someone else screw up. Now, of course, if you see those big abysses opening up in front of them, you do need to offer cautionary words. Let them at least know your point of view and what dangers lurk ahead.

然而，这里的真正关键是他们不是你。他们可能会在没有搭便车的情况下弄脏你的错误，然后在意外的事情上摔倒。陈词滥调虽然它可能听起来很声音，但在那里犯了什么来学习，而不是被惩罚。

Development Payoff

We said at the beginning that part of the mentor's role is to be able to see where someone else's potential could take them you see the possible end result. It can be thrilling, inspiring, rewarding, etc. to have had a hand in another person's development; to see them excel because of your guidance.

有时，结果可以惊人和可见;每个人都可以看到更改。有些关于公众认可的东西非常令人欣慰，并且了解你的意见是明显和明显的差异。

However, sometimes, the results are far more subtle. To the outside world, it may not look as though much of anything has changed; but internal shifts can be as, if not more, significant than the external ones.

Either way, coaching and mentoring is an important, and we believe, essential gift you can give others.

Yes, they will have to do all the hard work to get there, but you will have contributed and the personal satisfaction of watching someone blossom can be tremendous.

Not only that, working on someone else's development develops you. You can learn an awful lot about yourself and your own foibles, quirks and talents when you experience, in a close way, the foibles, quirks and talents of others. A double bonus!