Book Review

“Coaching and Mentoring at Work – Developing Effective Practice”

Mary Connor and Julia Pokora

Open University Press (McGraw-Hill Education)

2007

ISBN-10: 0335 221769 (pb) 0335 221777 (hb)
ISBN-13: 978 0 335 22176 9 (pb) 978 0 335 22177 6 (hb)

This book is ambitious in its scope, addressing a very wide range of the practical aspects of aspects of coaching and mentoring at work. Likewise, its intended audience is broad, ranging from potential coaching clients, via those who want to become a coach or mentor to those who train coaches and mentors. It partially succeeds in fulfilling such an extensive brief in just 234 pages.

Throughout the book there are practical exercises and examples, which help to bring the information alive and stimulate reflection.

I was pleased to see that the book addresses the common ground between coaching and mentoring and I found the authors’ client-centred definition useful. The early discussion of the similarities and differences between coaching and mentoring was mercifully short, adding little to what can be a sterile debate. Later on in the book the lists of activities that may be found in coaching and mentoring seem to overlap considerably.

Most of the first chapter is devoted to the description of nine key principles for effective practice. These principles not only form a useful framework for the rest of the book; they are a powerful way for coaches or mentors to reappraise their own working habits and style. However I believe that the fourth principle’s apparent total exclusion of any directive techniques from coaching and mentoring may be too pure an approach for some.      

There is an extremely helpful chapter for the potential client, giving insights into such topics as getting the right coach or mentor, making the most of sessions and crucially how to use the time between sessions for continuing development. I would however question whether SMART needs including as it is well discussed in many other texts.

Although there is a quick canter through a number of frameworks earlier in the book (indeed it is such a quick canter that considerable further reading would be necessary for the novice coach or mentor to develop a working understanding of them), the heart of the book considers only Egan’s Skilled Helper framework, which is covered in three chapters (out of ten in total) discussing how it works and giving “case studies” of its use in coaching and mentoring. The material is very well presented and includes plenty of “interactive” activities which help to bring it to life, as well as check lists of issues which coaches and mentors experience at each stage of the model. Whilst this, by far the largest part of the book, is very useful and the framework highly adaptable, I would question the narrowness of its scope, particularly when the authors suggest in their nine key principles that frameworks “should be used with a light touch or even set aside”. After reading this in-depth material on Skilled Helper it is little surprise to realise that the praise quoted on the back of the book is from Dr Egan himself.

A whole chapter is devoted to a number of tools and techniques that the coach or mentor may use, ranging from the well known, such as the Johari Window, to the unfamiliar, such as the authors’ own C>A>N negotiation model, of which this reviewer was previously unaware. I found this section very useful, and I welcomed the authors’ suggestion that the less experienced would be wise to practice the techniques in a safe and appropriate environment. There are several references given for each technique, which seem well chosen. One quibble is that this chapter does repeat some material found elsewhere in the book, particularly on brainstorming.      

Ethics should always be near the front of the coach’s or mentor’s mind and I appreciated the whole chapter devoted to such issues. Once again the use of case studies and interactive activities helps to bring the material alive, and there is a clear recognition of the ambiguities that can sometimes arise in the corporate context. However some of the “solutions” in the case histories were perhaps a little glib.

The final chapter considers how to develop a coaching and mentoring culture and consists of contributions from several distinguished professionals tacked together with the authors’ own text. This made the chapter feel disjointed to me and although much of the material was stimulating I found it difficult to draw out coherent messages.

Overall I found this book well written and thought-provoking, despite some minor grammatical and typographical errors which could interfere with the pedant’s enjoyment. I particularly liked the interactive exercises which even the seasoned coach or mentor would be likely to find challenging and useful. The breadth of its scope and its huge intended audience mean that of necessity much of the material, especially on frameworks, is rather skimpy and the great emphasis on Egan’s Skilled Helper - although well done – made the book feel quite unbalanced to me. Someone new to the field would doubtless find “Coaching and Mentoring at Work” a useful introduction (albeit one that is biased towards a single framework). The experienced practitioner may find that much of the work goes over familiar material. However, as a detailed introduction to Egan it is very helpful, the nine key principles are a useful lens to criticise established practice, the discussion of a wide range of tools and techniques is likely to contain something new for any reader, whilst the chapter on ethics is a refreshing resource on the underlying principles which guide us all.     

This review first appeared in the AC Bulletin