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 Coaching by
email
http://www.learningcircuits.org/2001/sep2001/olson.html
The common thread uniting all types of coaching & mentoring is that these
services offer a vehicle for analysis, reflection and action that ultimately
enable the client to achieve success in one more areas of their life or work
Here, an Open University tutor recounts
her experience of being coached by email.
How is it different from a conventional face-to-face
relationship?
Communicating 'tone'
How does it work?
How can you develop trust via email?
Kay Young is exploring the boundaries of mentoring
and coaching for success, as part of her role as a tutor with the Open
University Business School.
Kay has set up a mentoring relationship conducted by e-mail - e-mentoring - in
which she is the mentee.
Offline vs online
Perhaps surprisingly, Kay doesn't find the relationship elements of e-mentoring
to be vastly different from those of conventional mentoring.
'I thought the e-mentoring relationship would be very different - until I
was involved in one,' she says, 'But there is no doubt that people develop
interesting relationships over the Internet - you actually tend to say more in
e-mentoring than you might face-to-face. I think a lot of people are having
that experience on the Internet.
'I still haven't met my e-mentor, but it hasn't stopped
us having a very constructive relationship,'
Communicating tone
You have to be careful how you interpret what is written. A set of rules and
guidance on writing e-mail messages, called 'netiquette,' has been developed to
try and overcome these problems. Netiquette involves the
use of symbols or emoticons, such
as a smiling face motif :-) placed beside a cheery message, to convey tone. But
even that can't fully plug the gaps left by lack of face-to-face contact. :-(
E-mentoring in practice
The mechanics of e-mentoring are pretty straightforward.
Typically, the mentee will set down in a message the issues that are important
to him or her at that time. Using software designed to enable the receiver to
insert text into the original message, the mentor can then 'thread' his
or her responses between the mentee's sentences.
'Threading is a really important aspect of it', says Kay, 'You can
highlight elements of the text that are important, and insert your response
next to them. It's the next best thing to having a conversation,'
Ground rules have to be agreed, just as they would in a conventional mentoring
relationship. Instead of regular meetings, regular times for sending and
receiving e-mail messages can be set up.
Kay, however, has opted to keep her e-mentoring structure more spontaneous. I
haven't set up times to send messages,' Kay says. 'The benefit for me of e-mail
is being able to do the messages at ten or eleven o'clock at night.
What I don't want is a commitment to structured times - it
suits me as a mentee to keep it more spontaneous and e-mentors also buy into it
because it fits into their time as well.
Who do you choose?
'Mentors are generally working at a level above where you are, and perhaps more
than that. In my experience of being mentored, I have looked for people who
perform better at certain functions than I do, people who inspire me, and
people who make me ask, "How do they do that?"
Kay believes there are circumstances in which e-mentoring can work particularly
well. It raises the issue, however, of whether you can hope to develop the same
level of trust in a relationship with someone you have never met, and have only
communicated with through e-mail. Kay has no fears on that score.
'The level of relationship is different, there's no
question about that, ' Kay says. 'But that doesn't mean it isn't meaningful or
productive.
'Trust and confidentiality can be issues for some people, but it hasn't
been for me so far. It just depends on the nature of the person. Some people
might take months to establish a trusting relationship with people even on a
regular face-to-face basis. For me, it's pay your money, take your chances.'
But perhaps the greatest opportunity e-mentoring offers to mentees is greater
choice and diversity in choosing mentors. Theoretically, they can be mentored
by someone on a different continent!
E-mentoring opens the door to enormous diversity in potential mentors. If
people understand and endorse that, they can look for an e-mentor that is
different rather than similar, and will be better challenged for it.
Make
the transition!
Be Brilliantissimo!
Email the Brilliantissimo
Coaching Company today
and tell Sue how change is affecting your life
or ask us to design a coaching package
especially for you,
based on your own particular lifestyle and needs.
Invest in yourself
because you're worth it!
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