Mentoring with E-Learning (Q/A)

Many people believe coaching and mentoring are the same, and that incorporating coaching into their learning system or purchasing a coaching platform is sufficient for their employees. What if, though, they are missing the bigger picture? What if they are unaware that they are two different modalities, with one truly empowering employee development more so than the other?

After reading the “Art of Mentoring“ by Dr. Ravishankar Gundlapalli, I had to reach out.

Response(s) have been slightly edited for clarity and length.

The format is Q/A, with my question in italics and bolded. The post has been slightly edited for clarity.

Q: Can you explain the difference between “Coaching” and “Mentoring”?

A: Tapping into an employee’s genius is Coaching. Tapping into a leader’s wisdom is Mentoring. Mentoring is catalyzing human-to-human transfer of wisdom, from experts and senior leaders to other employees who need that wisdom to develop their skills, become productive at work, and also grow personally.

To be a coach requires extensive training and certification, as not everyone has the deep skills to extract the genius of the other individual. Within an organization, anyone with experience can be a mentor by leveraging their existing knowledge. With simple training on mentor best practices, any senior leader or expert can be molded into a great mentor.

Q: What do you say to people who are selecting a coaching platform and think it aligns as a better use case, compared to mentoring? What will their employees be missing in the short term and long term for their development?

A: When companies buy coaching platforms, they are looking for external coaches to help unleash the genius of their employees.

However, when employees lack specific contextual skills, such as closing deals, innovating, showing empathy, and managing teams, coaching is ineffective. Someone with this wisdom in the organization’s context needs to be tapped into for sharing it with the rest of the organization.

Let’s say I am a big fan of mentoring, but I can’t see the use case for my employees, beyond someone helping someone else at my company.  Or I like mentoring, but for my employees, what they have today is sufficient.  Why would either of these use cases be erroneous when it comes to people development powered by mentoring?

Employees getting help and wisdom from senior leaders is not a small thing. It is fundamental to productivity, skills development, creating a sense of belonging, strengthening your human fabric, and providing opportunities for your employees to grow.

If someone doesn’t see the value of human-to-human learning as a way to develop their people, then we should just move on. This is like someone questioning why they should exercise and why eating moderately is not enough.

People development with the help of your own people is the smartest and cost-effective way. You don’t need to hire expensive external coaches. You don’t need to send your people to expensive training seminars. Just tap into the gold you already have, and let that gold be better utilized. That gold is the ‘collective wisdom’ of your experts.

Q: Do you believe that mentoring is limited only to employees?  Can it be for say students at a university, customers of a client, or even members of an association?

A: Absolutely yes. Mentoring, by definition, is the transfer of wisdom.

So, the wisdom of corporate professionals will be super valuable to students getting ready for their careers; the wisdom of serial entrepreneurs will be super useful to first-time entrepreneurs; the experience of senior members within an association will be super valuable to other new members.

Q: Has there been any research done that shows that mentoring will do or does a better job at people development within a company or organization? 

A: Mentoring is a human-to-human relationship. People within organizations, as humans, have a lot to offer.

LMS, LXPs, and Learning Platforms focus on content. But the real applicability of that content to produce quick and measurable results happens when that content is matched with the context of the organization.

Q: As an expert, what are the three most common misconceptions around mentoring that you have come across?

1 – It cannot be scaled with technology (this is exactly what was said about most things in life e.g., dating, buying books online, renting spaces)

2. It takes a lot of time

Anything that is not done well takes time, like trying to cut a vegetable with a blunt knife. When you let people see the humanistic aspect of mentoring as nothing but sharing what you know with a sense of care, then all boundaries vanish.

3. There is no ROI

When your people are sharing and learning from each other, magic happens in terms of productivity, innovation, engagement, happiness, and collaboration. Just like a fan helps to direct a volume of air that is already available, a well-designed mentoring program directs the human-to-human power towards measurable business outcomes.

Q: Finally, what is your opinion on where the market will go with platforms that tap into people development by leveraging mentoring in a way that is a necessity rather than a “just have”? 

Imagine Slack on Steroids, where people who need to connect and share wisdom get connected and get the work done.

Bottom Line

Are you ready to mentor someone?

I hope so.

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