Making the most of a mentor is a skill that you get better at with practice. As you get started with your mentor you may find the tips below helpful food for thought. People who leverage their coaches can accelerate their success, grow new skills and abilities with the support of a trusted mentor.
Here are ways that you can make the most of your coach:
Decide to make the most of your coach. Your attitude goes a long way in enabling or limiting what you get from your coach. You can start by asking, "What do I want to accomplish?" and "How do I make the most of their experience, insight, or feedback?"
You change yourself. Your coach doesn’t change you. There’s an old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink." An effective coach will ask you questions and provide feedback that help lead you to your ah-ha moments, but ultimately you’re the one who changes you.
Expect change to feel awkward or even hurt a bit. Work through your humps and know that practice will get easier over time. What’s important is that you don’t get hung up on how it feels awkward, and instead, focus on doing the things you know you need to do, to get the results you want to achieve.
A coach doesn’t change who makes the decisions. A coach is an influencer. You still own your decisions. Your coach is Consulted or Informed.
Feedback is a gift. Treat it as such, you can choose what to do with it. You have three ways to respond: 1) You can just take it all in at face value without any filters, 2) You can put it into context and consider it, or 3) You can ignore it. If you’re not getting the feedback you need, ask for it. If it’s not specific enough, then clarify.
Don’t let style issues get in the way. Style issues are things like communication approaches. For example, some people like direct communication, while others might prefer more tact. The best way to work past these is to focus on the goals, call out style differences, and find a way to communicate that works for everyone involved. Being flexible in your style can help you avoid limiting yourself, and finding ways to bridge styles can exponentially improve communication.
Don’t let your coach set you outside your values. Style differences are one thing, but your personal and organizational values serve as effective boundaries. Give your coach feedback if you think they are proposing things out of line. Find out what they want to achieve with the recommendation that you don’t like and see if you can design a different path together that is closer to your beliefs.
Stay focused on goals. It’s easy to get lost along the way or focus on improvement for the sake of improvement. I find it’s more compelling to have a goal in mind that you can test your results against and checkpoint progress along the way. This helps with motivation and it helps with more actionable feedback. It also helps you ask your coach more specific questions, which keeps them engaged in the process. While you stay focused on results, enjoy the process along the way. The process is your growth and goals are simply a way to pick a path and measure.
Weekly Things to Do
Here are some weekly things to do to make the most of your coach:
Ask for feedback and give feedback. Make getting feedback a habit. Give your coach feedback on their feedback to help them improve their effectiveness with you.
Introspect about reactions. Introspection is simply looking inward and reflecting on your conscious inner thoughts. This is where you can catch yourself in patterns that you want to change, or where you can find and challenge your resistance.
Have your coach observe you in action. For example, take your coach to meetings as a “fly on the wall” and ask them for feedback and opinions afterwards.
Be open and transparent. The more you share, the more your coach can help. Be transparent about fears, hopes, etc. so that your coach can help you make the best of them.
Make the most of your teachable moments. Whether you have a formal coach or not, coaches and mentors are all around you everyday. Learn all you can, from everyone you can, and make the most of what you’ve got.
adapted from http://sourcesofinsight.com/how-to-use-a-coach-effectively/