Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring

by David Megginson

The aim of this book is to provide the coach or mentor with a wider portfolio of techniques and approaches to helping others than would normally be gained from practical experience or attending a course. In compiling these techniques, the authors have drawn on experience from their coaching and mentoring activities, and added to these with the help of other experienced professionals within the field. They have clustered these into a number of themes, which now make up the framework for the main body of this book.

Techniques for Coaching & Mentoring is designed to offer the reader a range of interventions that they can employ when working one-to-one with others. The purpose is to enlarge the range of techniques that you can use in this important work of helping, and thus make it more effective, the book can be used in a number of
·As general preparation – thinking through a range of techniques that you might be faced with in the future and seeing the techniques offered here as extending the range of the possible.
·As specific preparation – if you feel stuck with a particular client, use the contents, index and flicking through the chapters as a means of finding something that may help to unlock possibility for the client.
·As an agenda for a course on coaching or mentoring where the various techniques for different stages can be used as a source for practice.

Paperback

First published December 1, 2004

Reviews

[Exina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring is a practical guide for mentors and coaches. It provides proven techniques and practices of how to set goals, build self-knowledge, understand other people’s behavior, stimulate creative thinking in mentoring and coaching relationships.

[Michelle Weijia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a large collection of coaching techniques, definitely better suited for more experienced coaches who want to expand their reservoir.

I liked the structure of the book which follows the key steps and/or activities of the coaching process. It was both a refresher of concepts and techniques I already know and a leaning of new techniques and tools. It reminded me what’s important in coaching and brought me new insights.

Three key learnings (out of many more) I’d like to note are:
1) remember to pay attention to “creating more awareness and better self-understanding” in the coachees when coaching; that’s how we help them achieve real changes.
2) remember to look at the layer of changes - what’s changeable? what’s not changeable (or very difficult to change)? also remember to look at the circle of control - what’s within our control? what’s out of our control? what should we focus on?
3) remember to use metaphors, stories, and images more when clarifying context and situations; they could help make complex and unclear things easier to express and explore for coachees.

P.S., The authors argue for an eclectic approach to coaching (rejecting the idea of operating from one single tradition or framework) and hence the techniques (processes, tools, approaches) are from many different coaching/mentoring/counseling schools. On one hand, it is great to have such a large resource where you can pick and choose what you need. On the other hand, for some of the more complex techniques, without a solid understanding of its theoretical underpinnings, you probably won’t be able to use them well. In addition, some of the techniques are described in a superficial manner maybe due to space, you probably need to research/learn more about them in order to apply them.