Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development

Kay Guccione, Steve Hutchinson

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781789739091
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Learning through dialogue brings a powerful opportunity for individuals to connect to colleagues, navigate professional demands, and meet the challenges posed by a turbulent world. Written for all who mentor or coach in universities, this book addresses a critical question: how can mentoring and coaching conversations be effective and accessible ways to support researcher and academic development?
Drawing on their wide range of experiences of coaching and mentoring, and designing and leading institutional programmes and policy, Guccione and Hutchinson provide an insight into the founding principles of reflective ethical practice, as well as a pragmatic and easy to navigate toolkit supporting you to understand the needs of the people you want to develop. Including bite-sized chapters packed full of applied solutions, the authors help you to design, re-design, or troubleshoot your mentoring or coaching approach, and offer up go-to guidance for building and enhancing a culture of developmental dialogue at the individual, programme and organisational level.

Section 1

1

Coaching and Mentoring: Concepts and Terminologies Explored

One of the themes that runs through the policy and advisory position papers about professional development in the Higher Education (HE) sector is the recommendation of mentoring (or access to a mentoring scheme) as a core tool to help individuals progress. Presumably, although this is often not explicitly stated, such direction is to facilitate people in learning from their experiences and help them to plan. Yet simultaneous feedback from research and academic students and staff at grass-roots levels repeatedly suggests that they find it difficult or even impossible to hold meaningful conversations of this kind with the colleagues who are commonly available to them, their Principal Investigators or supervisors. Reasons for this non-alignment within the line management relationship may include time and pressure to publish now, at the cost of longer-term development; a lack of empathy or inclination on the part of the manager; or a lack of proactivity on the part of the researcher. Universities, then, have sought to broaden this pool of supporting others, by providing mentors outside the direct supervision relationships. Yet, a lack of clarity about what a mentor is or does, and what is involved in good mentoring, hamper those involved and decrease the effectiveness of a well-intentioned initiative.

As development professionals and qualified coaches, we are both well-drilled in the notion that effective learning design should start by addressing the question of ‘Why?’ – defining the learning need. Our audiences and stakeholders, we're told, need to understand the rationale behind the activities on offer, so they can fully engage with the information and methodologies that are presented. In the case of this book, the ‘why?’ questions would include, but not be limited to:

• Why use coaching or mentoring as a professional development tool?
• Why do people seek out and benefit from personalised development through coaching or mentoring?
• Why do development professionals claim that coaching and mentoring is so effective as a tool?

However, such questions aren't much help if we don't clarify what coaching and mentoring means, both as abstract and intellectual terms but also as practical entities in a landscape where the line between them is often blurred to a point of non-existence. When training to be coaches, we were introduced to the idea of coaching as ‘a conversation with a purpose’, and we have subsequently seen this idea applied widely. While technically accurate, it is not, quite refined enough to be helpful to a new coach or mentor. After all, ‘Can I buy some bananas?’ – ‘Yes, how many would you like?’ is a conversation with a purpose, but it is neither coaching nor mentoring.

In this book, we are positioning coaching and mentoring as specialist educational practices, where the mentor or coach consciously chooses their methods to best meet the learning needs of the coachee or mentee.

Like ‘teaching’, ‘managing’ or ‘leading’ the terms mentoring, and coaching can be understood, and defined very differently depending on the participants’ prior experiences of those labels, the people involved, the conventions of the workplace or subject area, and the tasks to be completed. Consider how the role of the ‘mentor' might differ in mentoring partnerships, for example: for a new postgraduate student transitioning to doctoral research; for a senior leader in Library Services taking on executive responsibility; for a new member of the front desk team in Student Accommodation Services; or for an established Senior Lecturer seeking to learn how to write a 4* Impact case study for the Research Excellence Framework. One label, for four different sets of role expectations.

Coaching or Mentoring?

Within the field of people development there are seemingly endless and, we believe largely pointless, debates as to defining what constitutes coaching and separating it from what constitutes mentoring. Indeed, just within the field of professional ‘coaching’, there are myriad understandings and formulations of what the job actually entails – ranging from very directive sports, skills, business or exam coaching at one end of the spectrum through to the various interpretations of holistic ‘life’ coaching. Many of the more ephemeral interpretations of coaching are, we would offer, not particularly trusted or seen as valuable within the academic community and certainly, as an external coach, one of the questions we are asked by potential academic clients is ‘what experience do you have of the University environment?’. Thus, by proxy, the expectation of ‘coaching’ strays into territory that many would label as ‘mentoring’ – one based in experience of the mentee's context and profession.

There is a great deal of literature available on coaching and mentoring and the overlap between the two (recommended key works include: Garvey, Stokes, and Megginson (2014), Megginson and Clutterbuck (2005) and the Harvard Business School – Essentials guide (2014)). But many of the published definitions of coaching and mentoring, especially the online material with a corporate focus, sit out of alignment with ours. For instance, we often read words to the effect that a mentor is ‘always self-selected by an individual’, whereas a coach is always provided by the organisation. This is certainly not our experience within the HE sector. We frequently read that coaches ‘steer an individual towards a preordained goal’, whereas mentors are more general and perhaps genial sounding boards. Again, this is not our experience. The desire within the sector, certainly within teaching, research, and academic staff and students seems to be for mentors who both understand the context and challenges of the environment (as opposed to a professional coach who can simply ask the ‘right’ questions) and who also knows how to carefully use coaching tools and techniques with someone, so they can focus on setting and achieving worthwhile and compelling goals. A mentor, who deploys a coaching style.

We believe that it is more conducive to good practice to talk about the expected skills, attitudes and behaviours that will be required of the coach or mentor within the context of their mentee's situation and learning needs, than to offer a universal definition of what coaching or mentoring is. However, we do want to start by offering a working definition of both coaching and mentoring, in order that we can build on this base of understanding throughout the book. We have purposefully not sought to offer separate definitions of coaching, and of mentoring, as for those new to these specialist practices, it is more helpful to think about their huge similarities. We hope the statement below provides you with some useful points to consider:

A designed conversation to aid the clarification and achievement of an individual's goal(s) and to help them capture the learning obtained in the process of doing so.

Furthermore, for clarity, here is how we position the two sister-disciplines:

• Coaching: a designed, non-directive learning conversation
• Mentoring: A coaching conversation (larger part) plus some experience-based contextualisation, advice or guidance (smaller part).

While not explicit in our definition and positioning above, we want to advise from the outset against any language that could lead new mentors or coaches towards two oft-cited misconceptions of the role of the coach or mentor (these and other misconceptions are considered in detail in Chapter 24).

Firstly, that mentoring or coaching is a replacement for the role that should be played by an effective line manager. This should not be the case and we advocate making this clear to your mentees, coachees or trainee mentors.

Secondly, that mentoring and coaching are applied to fulfil a deficit or weakness on the part of the person being coached or mentored. We are of the opinion that these practices should provide a way of helping an individual to learn, develop and grow. They should not be seen as ways of ‘fixing’ an individual or serving to take the place of remedial performance management – although this is the reason, it seems, for which many Human Resources (HR) Departments seek to apply it as a tool.

Aligned with our definition and positioning, a coach or mentor will essentially support a cyclical process of learning, reflection and planning (see also Chapter 5). The key unifier here, that binds coaching and mentoring as development processes, is that they both centre on an individual's learning. They enable the individual to be conscious about what they what to learn, what they are learning, how they have developed and how they are capable of using that learning in a transferable way. We will return to this notion of learning-centred development repeatedly throughout this book.

If we examine what allows an individual to achieve a learning objective, there are three key elements a mentor or coach can support, choosing tools and techniques as appropriate. We believe that both coaching and mentoring have potentially a key and powerful role to play in all three elements:

• Clarity: Does the individual actually know what it is that they want and why the goal is personally important to them (as opposed to any other stakeholder, organisation or actor)?
• Capability: Does an individual have the requisite skills and resources to achieve their goal or the means to gain them?
• Confidence: Does an individual believe that they can achieve their goal? This element of mentoring is particularly apposite in an academic environment that prizes criticism over any other type of feedback. So-called ‘constructive’ criticism per se is of course no bad thing, but in academia it is often not so constructive a force as its name suggests.

Designing a Learning Conversation

Returning to the opening of our definition of coaching and mentoring as ‘a designed conversation’, we would whole-heartedly stress that that conversational ‘design’ should happen as a partnership between the organisation hosting the initiative, the individual learner and their coach or mentor. All parties benefit from explicitly establishing what the process, application and context of the professional relationship, as well as the ultimate purpose of the partnership, will actually be. This is something that must be iteratively revisited as the coaching or mentoring relationship develops, and as the initiative progresses.

Mentoring is often mentioned in institutional strategies as being an ingredient in talent development, promotion and retention. Most academic and research staff, in our experience, if surveyed or asked, say that they want a mentor, or at least recognise the value that a mentor can bring. But is this actually what they want? We've learnt to listen closely when a colleague says that they want a mentor, or when staff surveys return multiple requests for ‘mentoring’ and we've both learnt to ask the right questions to ascertain whether they actually want:

• A sponsor who can open doors for them, provide work for them and elevate them;
• A career sounding-board who doesn't hold all the financial cards;
• A more capable manager;
• Ring-fenced time to think about themselves and their options;
• Someone to ask them the tough questions;
• A professional who can show them other professional routes to tread;
• Or, frequently, someone who won't judge them for saying that they want to leave the sector.

Many of the people that have crossed our paths over the last decade, especially research staff, just want to sound out ideas about how to do their own job well, to understand the expectations and the ‘rules of the game’, or, to discuss the different career routes or decisions they are considering. They are usually independent high achievers and don't necessarily need huge amount of instruction. What they value is time, connection and being listened to without judgement. Whatever your role as a development professional or as an interested ad hoc developer of your colleagues, it is worth remembering that the people in universities who seek development through mentoring or coaching are intelligent, thoughtful, good evaluators of information, sometimes introspective and often very isolated.

With all of the above, it is important for the coach or mentor to ascertain (or to be provided with) the purpose of the initiative, frequently occurring learning needs, the organisational culture that the individual operates within, the line management frameworks that exist and what other sorts of developmental options are available. We also need to define what is not within the expectations of the mentor or coach role. Failure to ensure this basic step, generally leads to a failed relationship or at least one that is less productive than the time invested in it suggests it should be. In formal coaching and mentoring schemes, this process forms part of the programme aims and objectives, the mentor or coach orientation to practice workshop, and the ‘contract’ (a specialised learning agreement) between mentee and mentor. The types of elements that need to be included in an Agreement template are presented in Chapter 11.

The Boundaries of Coaching and Mentoring

The boundary that most frequently concerns new practitioners is how the mentoring or coaching partnership is separate and distinct from a counselling or therapy relationship. This is to be expected as counselling or therapy have common roots with coaching and mentoring, in that they facilitate learning and growth through conversation, they can look similar in practice and share tools and techniques. Learning is an emotional process, and it is common that mentees and coachees experience a range of emotional responses from the excitement of a new idea or insight, to the relief that getting their concerns out in the open can provide, to regret or grief at a lost opportunity or way of working. However, coaching and mentoring are not counselling or therapy. Coaching and mentoring concern goal setting and movement towards achievement in the future, where therapy more commonly concerns helping an individual to understand the past and to ascertain what this means for their current life. Good ethical practice requires the mentor or coach to draw a boundary between the two forms of support, and Chapter 22 offers more detail on how to recognise when that boundary has been approached of crossed. Both coaching and mentoring can run in parallel to counselling or therapy, but they exist in different spaces and serve different purposes.

There are other boundaries also, for example, we urge caution around the idea that a mentor or coach will act as a sponsor (the first of our list above), providing work opportunities and elevating and championing the mentee within their field. In addition, as we state above, the mentor or coach should not be engaged as a substitute for a line-manager, research team leader or supervisor. We wouldn't expect either that the mentor or coach role would take on the responsibilities of mediating between the mentee and their line manager, supervisor, or PI. Similarly, the mentor or coach should not advise on HR matters (for example, issues of contracts of employment, performance management, grievances, discrimination, dignity at work or any other policy or process falling under HR). It is helpful for mentors to be provided with or to keep a list of other University Service Departments or key contacts who may be needed if a boundary is reached.

There may be other boundaries to establish also, to:

• Pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Editor
• Endorsement
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the Book
• Section 1
• Section 2
• Section 3
• Index