Mentoring, Coaching and Growing your team

One of the critical aspects of being a leader is coaching your team to learn new skills, solve problems, do their best and progress their own careers. It is not enough to just tell your team members what to do. When team members face a problem, good leaders and coaches guide them to develop a solution.

The GROW Coaching Model

During a coaching session or conversation, take the following steps to make the most out of your time, and help your team members move forward with their tasks. In the explanation of the GROW formula below, you will note that the role of the leader is to coach the team member by listening carefully and asking relevant questions, not to provide an answer or way forward instantly.

Watch this YouTube video for a summary of the GROW method in coaching:

The key aspects of coaching are:

• The relationship generally has a set duration.
• Generally, this partnership is more structured and meetings are scheduled regularly.
• It is short-term (sometimes time-bounded) and is focused on specific development areas/issues.
• Coaching is generally not performed because the coach needs to have direct experience of their client’s formal occupational role unless the coaching is specific and skills-focused.
• Focus is generally on development/issues at work.
• The agenda is focused on achieving specific, immediate goals.
• Coaching revolves more around specific development areas/issues.

Mentoring

According to Eric Parsloe 'Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be.'

Mentoring techniques in supporting team members:

1. Build rapport with your mentee to know them better
2. Actively listen to understand the needs and interests of the mentee.
3. Discuss and establish goals and objectives.
4. Assist mentees with exploring opportunities that can help in achieving their goals, maximising their potential, developing their skills, improving their work performance
5. Meet regularly to check in to review and discuss any challenges or roadblocks
6. Inspire and help the mentee become more knowledgeable and effective in their current job.

The key aspects of mentoring are:

• It can be more informal, and meetings can occur as and when the mentee needs some advice, guidance or support.
• Usually, it is more long-term and takes a broader view of the person.
• The mentor is usually more experienced and qualified than the ‘mentee’. Often, a senior person in the organisation can pass on knowledge, experience and open doors to otherwise out-of-reach opportunities.
• It is focused on career and personal development.
• The mentee sets the agenda, with the mentor providing support and guidance to prepare them for future roles.
• Mentoring revolves more around developing the mentee professionally.

As a leader, you will come up against challenges at some stage. You will be required to help your team resolve challenges related to tasks or conflicts within the team.

Task-Related Challenges

Task-related challenges are issues that arise about the work that needs to be completed. They are often specific and impact the efficiency or quality of someone’s work. These challenges may be restricted to one team member or be experienced by the team as a whole. Rather than taking all challenges on board yourself, a good leader will include their team in the process to develop the skills of their employees. Some examples of determining the way out of a task-related challenge include bringing the team together for a brainstorming session, engaging experts external to your organisation, working with other departments or teams, and facilitating a GROW coaching session with the team member or broader team.

Team Conflict

Conflict within your team can be harder to identify and address. What examples of conflict in the workplace have you experienced or witnessed? Do you feel the conflict was dealt with appropriately?

If your organisation has a Conflict Resolution policy and procedures, it is helpful to be aware of what these entail and access them easily. These are designed to help resolve a complaint or conflict quickly and fairly in a consistent manner with the organisation’s values. When attempting to resolve conflict within a team, you first need to understand the cause of the conflict, and then arrange a meeting with the relevant team members.

Strategies for conflict resolution and negotiation:

1. Clarify what the disagreement is — Continue to ask questions until you are satisfied you understand what the disagreement is about. Sometimes parties see the disagreement differently, so it is important to understand how each team member views the issue.
2. Establish and negotiate a common goal for all parties — Establish what each team member would like to see happen. If both sides agree on a common goal, they are more likely to work through the required changes or process to reach it. Continue asking questions until all parties can agree on an outcome.
3. Discuss ways to meet the common goal — Ask what problems may prevent a resolution and discuss these as a team. By understanding what problems may be, you can find solutions.
4. Determine barriers to the common goal — Understanding possible problems that can occur is important so a resolution can be found. It is important for everyone to understand what can and cannot be changed and work around fixed issues.
5. Agree on the best way to resolve conflict — Everyone needs to agree on the best solution. Begin by asking each person what they consider common ground. This can help to find a solution that everyone can live with. This also leads to a discussion about responsibilities in maintaining the solution, and understanding how the conflict came about.
6. Acknowledge the agreed solution and responsibility — the point where they own their responsibility in resolving the conflict. Having all involved express what they have agreed to is important to be confident that everyone is on the same page and understands what is to happen moving forward. Following up with an email outlining these responsibilities can be helpful to ensure once again these are clear to all.

Summary

• learn and practice the stages of GROW model as a framework for structuring a coaching session
• Develop and use strategies to manage conflicts effectively and efficiently
• Communicate effectively in conflict situations
• Adopt different responses and approaches to managing conflict
• Use key coaching strategies which promotes empowerment, reflection and a focus on the future.
• Mentoring opportunities can assist mentees get better at there job faster.
• As a leader provide mentoring and coaching opportunities to team members to build relationships with the team and develop skills

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