New age mentoring - MenChing

"MenChing" is a new term that I as a Team Leadership Coach have come up with. It combines Mentoring and Coaching. I see "MenChing" as an equalizing way forward that organizations and teams must consider employing formally as part of their mentoring programs.

Traditionally, Mentoring is defined as

"Employee training system under which a senior or more experienced individual (the mentor) is assigned to act as an advisor, counsellor, or guide to a junior or trainee. The mentor is responsible for providing support to, and feedback on, the individual in his or her charge."- Business Dictionary

"Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them." 

- John Whitmore, in Coaching for Performance

Their definitions deem Mentoring and Coaching to be similar, in that they are both geared towards growth of the individual. There is a slight difference in the approach however.

"MenChing" is taking the elements of coaching and mentoring, fusing them in a new approach which in my opinion is the need of the hour and the immediate future of global, team centric, fast pace, innovation seeking organizations.

Coaching emphasizes the belief that any individual has the answers to their own problems within them. Contrary to common understanding, a coach is not a subject matter expert, unlike a mentor, but rather is focused on helping the individual to unlock their own potential. The focus is very much on the individual and their experience, values and beliefs. A coach may not necessarily be a designated individual; anyone can take a coaching approach with others like your peers, subordinates or seniors.

The key skill of coaching is asking the right questions to help the individual work through their own issues. Other competencies needed are being in the moment and listening actively. As a certified coach, I can say that it does take a lot of learning and practise to be one.

A mentoring relationship usually focuses on the future, career development, and broadening an individual’s horizons, unlike coaching which tends to focus more on the here and now and solving immediate problems or issues.

Conventional mentoring has a noble goal to match an employee with someone more senior who can show them the ropes and lend a hand with their career enhancement and development. Unfortunately, since most organizations have few assigned mentors, only a small number of employees can benefit from a typical mentoring program. The idea of "MenChing" replaces conventional mentoring with group structures, in which everyone can be a mentor or an adviser and everyone is a learner. Mentoring is based on the paradigm that age and experience equal to wisdom which is the key to do the right things forward. But innovation is contrary to experience. Innovation seeks new ways of doing the same things. Sometimes traditional mentoring can be a road block to innovation. One can argue that it may actually limit learning. Leadership principles believe that there are no limits to learning no matter at what point we are in our lives and careers. We can always be more than who we are today. Everyone has something they can teach, and something they can learn.

"MenChing" is open, collaborative and all-inclusive. It is not one on one but many to many. It works across all levels in an organization. It does however require people working together to be more open with each other. Personal connection at the level of being aware of aspirations, motivations, past experiences, life changing events will have to be shared in order to gain trust and know how you can gain from the experiences and knowledge of your peers, no matter what the age group. It is more of a lattice structure. "MenChing" will have to rely on advanced technology software for collaborative purposes like intranets, Slack, Chatter etc. that enable employees to connect with each other. Each employee, no matter where in the organization hierarchy, will establish their personal learning network and be part of groups where members function like both learners and advisors; sort of like having a personal consultant team that provides varied insights and perspectives.

The one thing that can enable such a mentoring structure is trust amongst the people in the organization. A company with a firm culture sprouting out of organizational values emphasizing innovation, their people, respect, collaboration and disruptive thinking can only allow this to happen. It would interesting to hear thoughts of business leaders on this concept.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.