Using Mentoring

More info
The last post was before I read the posting policy which stated no please contact me (new member mistake). So here are a few tips:
Top 5 tips for email coaching:
1. Agree a protocol, a contract for how you will interact. Including: dealing with tempo, silence, literacy (computer and otherwise), when you will communicate and how much time you have available (manage expectations).
2. Develop rapport – provide the opportunity for a relationship to form (actually invite this so that it happens). This could take longer using this media than with face to face coaching and will be an ongoing action (as it is in face to face).
3. Agree objectives and goals.
4. Encourage your learner to participate. Motivate them to utilise the process.
5. Keep a log of what you have discussed over your time together. This will help you both review the process, celebrate the success and see how far you have come together.

The list of five email coaching tips would not differ significantly, if I were to be asked to give ‘a top five tips for face to face coaching’. What would change is the context in which they operate, some of the issues/ challenges involved (such as protocol issues with email) and the differences that would then translate into the ‘how to do it’ actions.

Reflecting upon what I have said here and from my personal practice, this list supports the view of online coaching and mentoring as an adaptation of face to face and not something different. The differences are in the way it must be organised and operated, all the fundamental basics of helping another to learn remain.

Other issues to consider:
Technology – Is everyone able to use it and is it available
Media Richness – Interpretation is different without the non verbal stuff. People also read what they have written and fill in the blanks mentally for things they miss out.
Social Presence
Tempo and silence – how often/ Did the other receive my mail as they haven’t responded?
The ‘online self’ – people can be different in cyberspace to what is reality.

Hope this helps

Spencer Harris.

3 Responses

User deleted says:

August 3, 2005 at 11:18 am

Online coaching
Mathew,

I completed an online coaching module as part of a Masters degree. If you would like a chat then email me.
User deleted says:

August 3, 2005 at 11:40 am

More info
The last post was before I read the posting policy which stated no please contact me (new member mistake). So here are a few tips:
Top 5 tips for email coaching:
1. Agree a protocol, a contract for how you will interact. Including: dealing with tempo, silence, literacy (computer and otherwise), when you will communicate and how much time you have available (manage expectations).
2. Develop rapport – provide the opportunity for a relationship to form (actually invite this so that it happens). This could take longer using this media than with face to face coaching and will be an ongoing action (as it is in face to face).
3. Agree objectives and goals.
4. Encourage your learner to participate. Motivate them to utilise the process.
5. Keep a log of what you have discussed over your time together. This will help you both review the process, celebrate the success and see how far you have come together.

The list of five email coaching tips would not differ significantly, if I were to be asked to give ‘a top five tips for face to face coaching’. What would change is the context in which they operate, some of the issues/ challenges involved (such as protocol issues with email) and the differences that would then translate into the ‘how to do it’ actions.

Reflecting upon what I have said here and from my personal practice, this list supports the view of online coaching and mentoring as an adaptation of face to face and not something different. The differences are in the way it must be organised and operated, all the fundamental basics of helping another to learn remain.

Other issues to consider:
Technology – Is everyone able to use it and is it available
Media Richness – Interpretation is different without the non verbal stuff. People also read what they have written and fill in the blanks mentally for things they miss out.
Social Presence
Tempo and silence – how often/ Did the other receive my mail as they haven’t responded?
The ‘online self’ – people can be different in cyberspace to what is reality.

Hope this helps

Spencer Harris.
egnaled says:

August 5, 2005 at 9:44 am

Follow-up questions on online coaching
I wonder whether the module Spencer took was an online module about on-line coaching? If not, what was the subject?
The reason for my question is that I know of (and have been involved in) online coaching about online coaching, but I am particularly interested to see what are the wider (successful) uses. Of course it is widely used for academic tutoring/coaching, but is it used, for example, for remote performance improvement coaching in business? Anyone got good experiences of this?

Secondly, with online coaching does one experience the sort of “aha” moments of insight that one would expect with good traditional coaching or is it more a source of technical input and feedback?