Mentoring and coaching in diversity

Different versions of mentoring and coaching have been around for centuries as forms of skills transfer and passing along valuable trades from older members of society to the younger generation. Experiential on-the-job training comes a long way as a form of education and skills transfer.

It is only recently, as late as the 1960s, that coaching, for example, has emerged as a strong field, and as late as the 1990s that it has become one of the fastest-growing professions in the world, spreading across the business world as a separate and legitimate field of practice, and one that is critical to business success. Yet it is still not fully understood, let alone fully accepted as deserving of its tag as one of the silent business essentials today. When it comes to individual or personal effectiveness, there are few success enhancers that can out-do coaching out there.

The Coaching and Mentoring Council of South Africa defines coaching as a “collaborative and outcomes-driven method of learning that seeks to develop an individual and raise self-awareness so that they might achieve their goals and perform at a more effective level”. I tend to agree with the version that defines coaching as a skilled, guided and facilitated conversation that enables others to think clearly and intentionally for themselves.

Mentoring is when experienced colleagues share their trade skills and help develop younger members interested in learning that particular trade. Mentoring and coaching often work well together. We are only recently seeing the full value and spread of business, management, executive and personal effectiveness coaching in South Africa.

In today’s highly demanding and fast-changing business environment, the acquisition of relevant and scarce skills is always welcome. In business, you can never say that you know it all, ever. When you think you have arrived and cannot learn anything from anyone any more, then you are dead in the water. The more open you are to new stuff, to learning, the better positioned you are to learning and growing. Training institutions can only equip you up to a certain level. Further quality learning and acquisition of valuable business skills comes from slow and arduous experiential learning on the coal-face of business. There are no shortcuts to true learning of anything valuable.

In our historical context, good numbers of highly experienced professionals in selected fields are mainly white. Yes, of course there are many experienced black professionals too, and many of them are not well recognised for their rare skills and valuable experience gained under trying conditions, and they tend to coach “clandestinely” without formal acknowledgement or recognition of their en-skilling contributions. Almost enough said about Bantu education and the repercussions of separate development on current skills levels.

A business colleague of mine argued very passionately recently that it seems there is easier acceptance of mentoring when it is given by a white senior colleague than there is when an experienced black colleague shares his or her skills or knowledge with a junior colleague. I don’t think that’s the case, really. Why would it be so? Whose skills or knowledge is more valuable? And what has colour got to do with it? How many senior people today have been trained by shadow mentors unknown to anyone out there? How many such heroes do we know who have never received the acknowledgement for that crucial intervention or role, black and white alike? What does it matter what colour the mentor or trainer is at the end of the day?

When all is said and done, most people need a good mentor and a great coach. And I am not referring to the parents here, or that good teacher, or the close uncle or auntie who taught you to lay a brick or boil an egg. I’m talking about life skills from coaches and mentors that build that internal knowledge of something that lives with you for the rest of your days, skills you can live by. I am referring to a trade such as journalism … for example, really serious journalism that has morals and ethics, and which is guided by deep human value.

Good mentors can set you on a straight path, and it does not matter what colour they are.