I found the article, from 20. august 2008 at: http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=187519&d=680&h=0&f=0&dateformat=%25e-%25h-%25y
Finally someone with the same opinion as me, because if you read it through you find that it is pro mentoring all over.
It`s maybe a bit long, but it`s worth it!
Coaching vs. mentoring
There is no denying that coaching is the profession du jour: If it’s not advances in e-coaching making the trade press, then it’s another new product launching to make the coaches life easier. And where there is training to be imparted, there is money to be made. Add to this the impending skills gap and the current government fervour for departmental development and you have a voracious demand for more coaches.
But for all the good this tunnel vision has done for the coaching industry, it has only served to push mentoring further into the background. David Pardey, senior policy research manager at the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) suggests that the main reason behind the imbalance is down to coaching’s ability to sell itself.
«Mentoring is worthy but dull, coaching is sexy and professional. I don’t think that’s true or a good thing but I do think the emphasis on coaching has been to the detriment of mentoring.»
David Pardey, ILM
«Coaches are more commercial,» he admits. «There are an awful lot of people out there who are professional coaches; in fact the numbers are increasing all the time but also within businesses and organisations, there is a growing emphasis put on managers working as coaches with their own teams, and they in turn are having to learn new skills,» he says.
Pardey also believes that the popularity of coaching has been aided by lobbying groups and the government push on coaching, as well as the general perception that it is seen as a more ‘professional’ discipline. «Mentoring is worthy but dull, coaching is sexy and professional. I don’t think that’s true or a good thing but I do think the emphasis on coaching has been to the detriment of mentoring,» he reflects.
Mentoring comes of age
That said, the value of mentoring is gaining momentum particularly among managers where there is a growing appreciation of its advantages. It now plays a critical role in organisations and has been particularly important in the progression of women and other minority groups in the workplace and presents a valuable tool in long-term management and organisation development – something that short-term coaching strategies can often overlook.
Jan West heads up MentorSET , a women-only independently funded organisation that places mentees from the science, technology and engineering sectors with suitable mentors. She has seen mentoring experience a surge in popularity since the scheme’s inception in 2001.
«From our point of view mentoring seems to have become exceedingly popular. Back in the days when we first set up, mentoring was not well known but it’s all over the place now,» she says.
«People probably don’t understand what mentoring is all about. They think coaching is all about having these courageous conversations – well you can do that with mentoring, it’s no different.»
Linda Grant, Skipton Building Society
However West believes the reason for mentoring’s flagging publicity is down to the fact that most mentors aren’t doing it for a living and therefore have no reason to advertise themselves as such.
«The mentor has a profession and is helping someone else either as part of their job or in their spare time as a volunteer. As for a coach, that’s their occupation and what they have trained for.»
While few of the mentors who work with MentorSET are professional coaches, some are from an academic field such as teaching and lecturing. West finds that rather than simply acting as role models for the mentees, the relationship is far more useful in tackling the issues associated with modern working environments such as career development, confidence issues and work/life balance.
«We have actually had women who have been harassed in this sector and think this it’s actually the norm until they have a mentor to point it out that they don’t have to put up with that type of behaviour,» she says. «Some women have been ready to walk out of their career. We help people with lots of different issues and have been really successful. It does work and that’s why we keep getting the funding.»
A matter of semantics
Mentoring and coaching mean different things to different people but the fact remains that both present different and incredibly powerful methods of helping individuals develop. «People probably don’t understand what mentoring is all about,» says Grant.
«They think coaching is all about having these courageous conversations – well you can do that with mentoring, it’s no different – you should still be having very difficulty conversations with people, asking taxing questions in fact mentoring can be more far reaching,»
Coaching and mentoring could and should enjoy a more symbiotic relationship where coaches refer clients to mentors and visa versa. «When it come down to it, coaching isn’t necessarily the right thing to use, there are times when mentoring would be far more beneficial,» says Pardey. «Because the roles are different, the coach and the mentor can co-exist and that would be a really powerful support method.»
