What does it mean to be a mentor /coach?

Article first published at PS Village October 2007

As a veteran of the corporate climb I grew up, like most of you, on hard work and little advice. Early in any career you survive on pure will or youthful ignorance to succeed. But as you stockpile the good, bad and ugly encounters in your repertoire, you begin to use your experience to help navigate not just your career but the careers of others. Mentoring and coaching is skill that every great leader needs to have. So, what does it mean to be a mentor or coach?
Some think it is an annual review where you give and receive the ‘do better cards’. Some think it is leaning back in their chairs and telling of ‘when I started this career .. blah blah blah’. Others think only sports analogies will give them the distinction of ‘coach’. Categorically all of the above, while useful tools in some cases, have nothing to do with being a mentor or coach. Being a mentor or coach is about the mentored / coached; helping bring clarity to a goal and tasks to an end result.

I got such clarity early in my career when I met my first real mentor/coach – and of all unlikely places, in a pulp mill. Now those who know me, realize that stylish footwear is part of my passion – so the steel toed shoes made by RedWing did not fit my goal and objective of style. But, the learning opportunity afforded me as one the IT staffers far outweighed the horror of lace up combat boots. Our boss was a fabulous mentor and coach – he helped me, for the first time in my career, see that what I did in my daily, weekly and monthly tasks were directly connected to the goals and objectives of the mill and the parent company. In today’s buzz word style this would be known as cascading goals – and if you don’t have them where you work, you need to get them.

Most companies have a mission statement and then annually set goals in line with that mission. These objectives are typically tied to revenue and customer satisfaction. But how does the IT staffer ever know how they affect the revenue – because they don’t sell anything or produce the widgets or cup stock. And customers - Who are they? They don’t talk to or see the company’s customers. So when Dixie Cup calls and complains about the 45 railcars loaded with cup stock all bearing the exact same batch number label (they are suppose to be unique) – who in IT knows about it? All we hear is that the label printer is on the fritz again and someone needs to strap on their ugly shoes and get down to the finishing house and fix it! Yesterday!

During this unfortunate series of events, our boss/mentor/coach, took the opportunity to bring clarity to the goals of mill. Customer satisfaction – well Dixie was none too happy. And revenue – after refunds, rail charges to/from/to the client, labor to refill the order, etc. – pricy to say the least. So beginning that day, not during reviews, we all set goals reflecting what we could do to affect revenue and customer satisfaction. From there, we reviewed our daily, weekly and monthly tasks to ensure we were progressing toward our goals. The lesson - if we are doing a task not related to one of the goals, then we are not doing the right task. Basically, if you don’t have goals, how does anyone know what to do each day?

What a difference one meeting can make. Companies are powered by the individuals working to accomplish daily, weekly and monthly tasks. So I challenge each of you to have that meeting in your teams, set the clarity of the group’s and the individuals’ goals. Then proceed to the list of tasks that will carry them to the end result. Be a mentor and coach – help your colleagues, peers and subordinates realize their contribution and value of the work they perform.