Coaching and mentoring

My mentoring and coaching approach involves a series of six tailored sessions.

Discussion is driven by your overarching goals for the mentoring relationship and your specific goals for each session.

The sessions are generally held every 4- 6 weeks and last up to 90 minutes. At the end of each session I will ask you for feedback so I have a clear understanding on how you have benefited from the session and any areas for change. This allows me to continue to enrich your experience and shape future sessions.

My approach is set out below. Whilst being flexible to meet your needs, it also establishes the importance of powerful questions to help you to find your own solutions with my support.

Contact me today to discuss your requirements →

Session 1- designing the mentoring/coaching relationship

This first meeting is critical for us to build a rapport. The end result will be an agreement that the relationship could work and outlines expectations and responsibilities for both of us. I refer to this as the commitments, rules of behaviour and our boundaries (the informal contract which is captured within the written document).

Building rapport

I will ask you open questions about what we may have in common or about your background, motives, interests and aspirations to find commonalities as well as uniqueness.

Commitments and rules of behaviour shared, discussed and agreed

Confidentiality (my code of conduct and ethical approach is shared)
Expectations (what do you want most from me?)
Goals (what do you want to have achieved by the end of our work together?)
Success criteria and measurement (how will we know if we have succeeded?)
Accountability (how do we ensure that what is agreed is completed?)
Protocols for addressing stumbling blocks (what might get in the way or take us off track? How will we share this and deal with those things?)
Agreement to consider and complete the contract/agreement and the questionnaire

We will then agree some homework on setting future goals to be completed. This will form the basis of the next session.

Session 2- setting clear direction

At this stage I will have collaboratively created an agreement outlining what you wish to accomplish and when. Now it’s time to plan how we will go about achieving the set goals.

We will discuss your mentoring/coaching goals by answering questions such as:

What are your top 3 goals?
In six months, time what do you want to be saying/doing differently?
How will you know you have achieved your goals?
How passionate on a scale of 1 – 10 are you about your goals?
Where are you now?
What are your strengths that will help you achieve these goals?
What are the development areas that need to be addressed?
What is getting in the way - (fears, obstacles, people)?
What can you do about these?
What do you commit to doing between now and the next session?

At the end, we will set some actions/homework and accountability for you to work on in between sessions based on overcoming an obstacle.

Session 3 & 4 – progress reporting and refocusing if needed

At the half-way point we will be checking in on the progress of the relationship.

Key areas of questioning will be:

What have you accomplished so far?
How long have you been working on this?
Where do you need to refocus?
What is your next step?
What do you have to do to make it happen?
What problems or obstacles might occur that would prevent you from achieving the best result?
What will you do if the first plan does not work as well as you expect – Plan B?
What resources do you have; what do you need?
How can I help you succeed?

Different coaching models and techniques will be used and I will select the right one based on my understanding and assessment of your preferred learning style.

Session 5 - the relationship continues

At this stage there should be complete confidence and comfort about challenging each other's perceptions, exploring issues more deeply and experiencing mutual learning.

There would be open questions such as:

What have you achieved since our last session?
What have you learnt/identified since last time?
With 1 session left, how are you doing on your 6 month goals?
What is still challenging?
What can I most support you on at the session?
What is the step up for you?
What do you commit to between now and our last session?

Session 6 – completion and closure

This is the final session where it is important we both take stock the relationship and the benefits from working together.

There will be open questions so I can get feedback from you on your progress:

Celebrate – what have your achieved?
What are your proud/pleased about?
What is there still to work on?
What are your new goals (in the next 6 months)?
What are your next steps to continue to develop?

The final element is for me to find out your views on my performance as your mentor/coach:

What did your feel about my style and approach?
What worked best?
What could be improved?
Was there anything missing/should have been done?
What recommendation would you give to others about me?
Will you agree to complete my end of programme review form?

Joint acknowledgements – what do we want to say to complete our 6-month mentoring and what are our next steps?

Post 'goodbye'

I will follow up a week later with card/e-mail to touch base and find out how you are getting on. I also offer 10-15 minute contact points - one per month for the following three months for you to make use of when needed.

Contact me today to discuss your requirements