Mentoring Archives

MentoringMentoring is one of the most powerful learning and change interventions our clients use within an organisational setting. Some organisations see it as an activity, which can take place within the line of command; other organisations see it as incompatible with the fundamental openness of the relationship. Similarly, some cultures see the exercise of authority and influence on the part of a protégé as appropriate; others see mentoring as primarily a developmental activity, with the emphasis on empowering and enabling people to do things for themselves. Some people view mentoring as synonymous with coaching, or teaching; others see it as a form of counselling. Certainly others view it as a kind of godfather relationship.

At Coach Mentoring Ltd we can help you understand the form you wish to use and how to set up a programme. We create both bespoke programmes and support with off-the-shelf products for our clients, such as Mentoring Mastery, a state-of-the-art product, which provides on-going support to develop your mentors.

So improve your organisation’s performance with a health check to optimise your mentoring. Get tips on setting up your mentoring programme like an expert. Or expand your knowledge with a Postgraduate Certificate.

In conclusion, contact us if you’d like to discuss your situation, we would love to hear from you!

Mentoring and Coaching malaise? Spring clean your programmes!

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Spring clean your programmesI just love the spring, with daffodils and tulips out in the garden, the bluebells beginning to peep through in our local wood, longer days and sunshine brightening up our lives, it is a time of renewal, recharging, refreshing and spring cleaning!

So don’t confine this just to your personal lives. With summer just around the corner, it is a good time to check that your mentoring and internal coaching programmes are in great condition to keep them going over the holiday months and into the autumn. So many programmes tend to launch or set up new cohorts in the autumn and now is the time of year they drift into a malaise and loose momentum. Effective mentoring and coaching needs to be nurtured and energised to deliver the best outcomes, so whether you are in HR, L&D or an external consultant then ‘clean up’ your programmes at this time of year.  Continue reading →


Lost your mojo? Re-energise your mentoring programme

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A quick look at how to get that healthy buzz back again

Are you supporting, motivating and creating the most effective mentoring relationships in your programme? Well, if you are like most organisations then you probably start off with great intentions of doing this through the life of your programme and start off with a flourish, but then budget constraints kick in, or other priorities take over and you find six months down the line your mentors haven’t had a check in or support or supervision since the programme launched.  Continue reading →


Women at work – Are you faking it?

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Imposter SyndromeA closer look at Imposter Syndrome

In my final post for International Women’s Day, I am going to consider the issue of Imposter Syndrome. This can have a dramatic impact on a woman’s ambition. It used to be thought of as the domain of the high woman achiever. However, it is a syndrome also experienced by men.

Amy Cuddy in her book ‘Presence’ talks about it being a female rather than a male issue. She says men are far less likely to talk about it. They fear social punishment for failing to conform to social stereotypes, i.e. that men are assertive and confident. Two psychologists Clance and Imes originally termed the condition from their clinical experience. They found it occurs much less frequently in men and when it does occur, it is far less intense. However, more recent research published by the International Journal of Behavioural Science in 2011, shows that 70% of men and women have experienced it at some point in their lives. Millennial’s may suffer from Imposter Syndrome even more. They have commenced their careers at a time of extreme technological pace, where there are constant comparisons on social media between peer group members.

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Are Women Ideal Workers or ‘Bulldozers’?

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Are women bulldozers?Barriers to women’s ambition

In my second article leading up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017 I am considering how despite all the time, money and great intentions which have been put into building a more diverse talent pipeline in many organisations, there are still some basic barriers, which have not been removed and get in the way of women feeling and being more upwardly mobile. A Bain Study in 2015 illustrates that an employee’s early employment experience influences their confidence in whether to actively pursue a C-suite career or not. Some of the erosion of or challenges facing ambition come down to factors such as whether women are perceived as ‘ideal workers’, whether they are getting sufficient support from their own direct supervisor, the organisation’s leadership development process and the dearth of real role models. These types of barriers can be explored and supported through coaching and mentoring relationships. Continue reading →


Career Development – Don’t women like ambition?

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Women’s ambitionThe issue of ambition in women’s careers

Welcome to the first in a series of three articles as we lead up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017, in which we consider the issue of ambition for women. Ambition still seems to be an obstacle for some women when developing their careers. Women’s presence on the Board has been proved to add competitive advantage to an organisation. Despite there being roughly the same numbers of women and men in the workforce, there is still an unbalanced ratio in favour of men in more senior leadership roles. In the last two decades, many employers have shown enthusiastic commitment to gender diversity and women have made enormous strides in being able to compete on the same playing field as men at work, so what is going on? Continue reading →


Do you want to be self-sufficient with your mentoring?

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Mentoring Starter Package

Do you want to implement a new programme? Or enhance a programme you have already got running?

Mentoring is the most cost effective organisational development intervention you can use to develop, retain and motivate your employees. Bringing in external consultancy is not always an option, so based on our many years of developing and designing programmes we have produced a package to make you ‘experts’ overnight and to create the programme you need, quickly and hassle free.

Its Core Curriculum gives you a range of options, so if you do need a small element of consultancy support you can add this with the cost transparent upfront and with the intention of making you completely independent from day one! Continue reading →


‘Tech-savvy and lazy?’, How to mentor millennials

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Millennials at workThe way mentoring programme design was approached ten years ago needs to be reconsidered in the light of more recent generational differences in the workforce. By 2020 half the working population globally will come from the generation born between 1980 and 2000. As generations evolve, so do the methods for training, developing, coaching and mentoring people. Mentoring someone from the Millennial Generation (sometimes known as Generation Y) is not textbook developmental mentoring as we have experienced it previously. Understanding Millennials’ quite different career and value expectations is key if mentors are going to provide the right type of support to them, as well as the form of mentoring that Millennials relate best to, in order for organisational mentoring programmes to be effective.

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Mentoring — a 1000% ROI

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Two business men meetingI’ve been shocked this week after some conversations at a conference about the number of organisations who are dismissing mentoring as ‘too labour intensive’, ‘difficult to keep the energy in the programme’ or just plain ‘ineffectual’. Anyone who knows me and understands my passion for mentoring will immediately understand the emotional response this has created. In the seventeen years I have been working designing and developing mentoring programmes, I have found that organisations who are focused and structured in their approach to mentoring get amazing results and it is not difficult or particularly hard work if you know what you are doing. Continue reading →