The word ‘mentor’ comes from Greek mythology. In Homer’s Odyssey, Mentor was a friend of Odysseus. When Odysseus went off to the Trojan Wars, he left his son Telemachus in the care of Mentor whose role was to raise and educate the boy as if he were his father.

This is the origin of the word ‘mentor; a trusted friend, counsellor and teacher. It is usually an older and wise person, someone who takes a long term and broad interest in the development of a younger person, the protégé or mentee. It would be rare for someone to have more than one, or maybe two, mentors in a lifetime.

Coaches have long been used to assist sports men and women reach levels of performance they would not have been able to achieve on their own. Now coaching is also an integral part of executive and personal development. It may be carried out by specialist consultants, by senior managers in an organisation, and by the line managers of the people being coached.

As in the sports field, coaching focuses on specific aspects of performance and career development, using feedback, training and a host of personal development and motivational techniques. It may be formalised in organisations or left to develop along lines of personal relationships.

Finally we have life coaching. Life coaching is virtually mentoring by professionals. It helps people reach their full potential in all aspects of their lives. Top business people, politicians, actors and Olympic athletes all use life coaches.

It’s not that one cannot be successful on one’s own, but in the most complex and high stakes game you’ll ever play, it’s good to have an expert in your corner.

Most of the time, they do not share their feelings. You never quite know what they are really thinking, or where you stand with them. You get hints in their non-verbal behaviour or in humorous and maybe sarcastic comments. You know that they feel something, but it’s hard to work out exactly what it is. Asking them directly doesn’t help either. They seem unable to locate their feelings or identify them; they certainly struggle to put them into words.

Except for the body language giveaways, they are in total control.

At other times they seem to be completely out of control! Some shout and swear. Others break down in tears. Some do both. A large number think that when they merely raise their voices a little, other people don’t notice that they are being pushy and aggressive. Few of them have any idea of their impact on the people around them, at least until the emotional storm has subsided.

All or nothing…they are the only two modes many of us have in which to communicate about our feelings. We either control them completely, or we allow them to control us. It’s understandable, as neither of these modes requires any self insight or skill. It’s not difficult to hold back, say nothing; and it requires no particular skill to let your emotions take over and take you where they will.

I read recently that becoming skilled in identifying and communicating your feelings involves a lifetime of learning. It seems to me that many of us have a lot of learning to do.

The speaker was a man in his fifties who was trying hard to get his mind around the idea of Win Win conversations with his people. He is a man who sees a world in which people either do their jobs properly or they are disciplined. As a manager he would consider his approach to be tough but fair. Now he’s struggling to understand how things have changed.

Today’s young employees demand a lot of their managers. They have high aspirations and expectations of themselves and others. Their personal development is important to them. They do not see themselves in the same job, or even the same company, for any longer than it takes them to acquire the next skills set they have in mind.

They hold high expectations of their managers. They want to be given freedom to show what they can do, to have their ideas requested and considered, to be told what is going on, and why; and to be held to account and then rewarded for their performance.

If managers get it right their reward is motivated, productive, enthusiastic and creative teams. But many managers are starting to realise that they will first have to make some big changes in their own behaviour.

Generally, there are two aspects of the Straight Talk process that people struggle with.

The first is with the steps required to obtain the view of the other person in a conversation. As often as not we go into conversations more intent on getting our own way than on getting the view of the other person and negotiating a solution that works equally well for both of us. Getting into dialogue, considering what the other person knows about the situation or wants out of it, is something we don’t give much consideration to.

We play to Win; to get our own way, and our own views across. It is an approach that shows little consideration for others.

The second feature of Straight Talk that people struggle with is that of using empathy to acknowledge the feelings of others. To use empathy you have to project yourself into the shoes of the other person, focus on how you think they may be feeling and verbally or non-verbally, say or do something to acknowledge those feelings.

It means putting your own needs and feelings aside for a moment to show consideration for another.

Consideration for others…that’s it! That’s what’s missing in so many of our relationships, both personal and at work. It sounds better to say, ‘I play to win’ than it does to say, ‘I’m not considerate of others’ but be in no doubt, it comes to the same in the end.

‘We need your help. Sam is not performing, seems demotivated, doesn’t follow instructions and has become quite surly toward everyone. Can you come in as a coach to find out what is wrong and to help improve the situation.’

Sam could be anyone at all: an expensive graduate with potential, someone nearing retirement, a woman newly appointed to the executive team, or a person whose performance has dropped off for no obvious reason.

The advantage of coaching is that with it focuses on the individual. A coach can accurately identify problems, tailor personalised solutions and oversee their application. The disadvantage of coaching is that it focuses on the individual! You have to be sure that you are coaching the right person, or people.

Organisations are systems. One needs always to look at how the parts are interacting. Has the person who is not performing been given positive feedback when they did well? Have expectations and standards been clarified? Has critical feedback been in time and constructive? When behaviour has been inappropriate has this been discussed and positive models provided?

There is no doubt that coaching can help individuals but when the cause of the problem lies with ineffective management, outdated systems or inefficient IT, coaching the consequence of the problem will not solve the cause.

They didn’t make it clear

They haven’t come back to me

They didn’t do it right the first time

They never answer the phone

I have heard all of these statements this week. It’s been quite a week! They seem to be everywhere, messing up our lives as usual. They have a lot to answer for.

In my workshops on straight talk, resilience and self development we often talk about them. If they would only get it right – preferably the first time – our lives would run so much more smoothly! It’s a fallacy of course. The minute you hear someone, and it might be you, talk about them, you know that person is behaving like a victim. You can tell the person is giving away their power. It’s now in somebody else’s hands.

We often talk about empowerment as if it is something that someone does to you. In truth, the only person who can empower you, is you.

It’s Women’s Day on Monday. So this is most especially to the women who are reading this.

Get out there; take your power into your own hands. When you start to use it properly, you may well find that you have far more than you ever realised.

When you have control of your life, they lose theirs.

Her style is massively disempowering. People around her learn it is best not to speak up and to do as they are told. Inevitably, the level of frustration in the department is high, and in spite of her own competence, overall productivity is low. This is not a happy place to work.

Contrast the manager who puts relationships first. She is striving to build up the team to which she has recently been appointed. But in putting relationships first she has not managed expectations, particularly some unrealistic ones amongst her staff. She has not held others accountable for poor performance and bad behaviour. People do not show any respect for her or trust in her competence. There’s a lot of frustration and low productivity: another unhappy place to work.

Contrast these two managers, both trying hard to do the best they can, but getting it rather badly wrong.

The task orientated manager does it all herself. In her department people do not develop initiative or problem solving skills. Useful skills in this department are the ability to find excuses and to withstand wrath!

The relationships manager is a soft touch. If you work for her a useful skill is your ability to come up with a sob story and you need never worry about being held to account for your performance.

Neither of these managers is properly managing the performance of their teams. Needless to say, performance appraisal with either of them is meaningless.

I had been asked to help a manager whose staff were argumentative, surly and uncooperative. ‘There’s nothing I can do with them,’ he said. ‘They just don’t want to work!’ On the surface it looked as if this manager had indeed inherited a group of people who came to work to do as little as possible except collect their pay checks.

A few probing questions later and it looked very different.

The group had a history of change; of leaders, of location and of systems and procedures.  Most of these changes had taken place without it seemed any communication, much less any consultation, with the group.

When the new manager was appointed a few months previously, he had come from another functional area and his expertise in his new job was not immediately obvious. He was thrown in the deep end, during a crisis, without any handover, and with a new IT system that had teething problems. In his understated words, ‘It was not an easy time for me.’

To add to his problems his management style is low key; too soft some might say. His preference is to work on relationships, and build up a team. I’m not sure he knows when or how to hold people accountable for the work standards he expects.

Inevitably the group has made up its own mind about the respect and trust they will show their new manager, and it is not a lot.

The only surprise in this situation is that we should be surprised. Given the background, how could things be any different from what they are?

But be careful. It’s easy to be critical from the sidelines. How often have you seen, or perhaps even helped create, something similar?

Have you ever been involved in a set- up?

It all seems to go wrong from the start – with agreement on outputs.

Jobs are created so that certain outputs will be delivered. If you deliver the output required by your job, you deserve to be rewarded. So your first step should be to find out exactly what you must do. Then you can do it. You’d expect every employee to want to start out every year with the clearest possible view of what he or she must achieve, so they would know how they can be successful.

But maybe not. Perhaps the first problem is that when outputs are clear people can be held to account for their performance. That, however, is not what everyone wants. The clearer the requirements of the job, the more the wriggle room disappears when it comes to performance appraisal time. There’s less room for excuses: ‘I wasn’t sure’; ‘You didn’t make it clear’; or even ‘I did do what you asked!’

Top performers love clarity. Once they know what has to be done, all they ask is the freedom to get on and do it. For the rest, blurry job definitions leave more room to hide.

So here’s the first problem. Although it sounds perverse, people don’t really want to know what they should do with all the clarity that definition of outputs as goals, KPAs and objectives can provide. Lack of accountability is more attractive for many.

That’s the view from the employee’s side. Next time – how do managers see it?

Some things change. A lot of things stay the same – especially ones that we wish would change!

Two things have not changed in decades:

1. The difficulty HR people have in making KPAs and competencies simple and accessible to their line managers
2. The frustration and lack of acceptance with which line managers greet their attempts

It ought to be simple.

KPAs, goals, targets or outputs; whatever you call them, are the things you have to produce or achieve to add the value to the organisation for which you are being paid. So yes, there should be a clear connection between your achievement against required outputs and how much you earn.

Competencies, knowledge, skills, attitude, personality characteristics or inputs – this is the personal stuff you bring to the job that largely determines how successful you will be in achieving the outputs.

When you want to improve your performance you need to work on the inputs. What new skills can you learn that will make you more effective? How can you capitalise on your personal strengths to become more successful?

Most performance appraisal processes put their emphasis on visible outputs.

Coaching and mentoring really help in improving competencies but managers find them difficult to work with.

Most managers dislike the whole process.

So do most employees…

How do you feel about it? If you would like me to discuss this topic in more detail let me know.