The opinions expressed by Entrepreneur authors are their very own.
When I coach softball to kids who are just starting out in the sport, my advice to hitters is easy: stand at the plate, raise the bat to shoulder height, and focus on the ball. It’s easy because they are young and inexperienced. I’m joyful so long as they’re learning and having fun.
When I coach competitive athletes at the highschool level, my advice is more complex. This could be as specific as teaching them how you can distribute their weight on their feet when stealing bases.
I coach often in my life – as a parent of school-age children and at FutureFund, the company where I began coaching free fundraising platform for school groups K-12. Whether I’m coaching a handyman or a software engineer looking for bugs before introducing a recent feature, I’ve learned that sports coaching and business mentoring often go hand in hand.
In each cases, the key to maintaining effectiveness is to acknowledge where people are in their development stage so which you could provide them with feedback that can help them proceed to enhance. As the person you are training or mentoring evolves, the advice you give must evolve with them.
Here are 4 key stages of development for the people you lead and how you can adapt to each of them.
Stage 1: Beginner mentoring
When you are starting almost anything that requires skill, you wish someone to elucidate how you can do it appropriately. Then you wish them to discover areas that could be improved and get you on the right path.
In addition to coaching softball, I’m the strength and conditioning coach for the water polo team at our local highschool. When they begin lifting weights, most of them have to be told exactly what to do because they simply don’t know.
Since I strive to impart basic knowledge, my role as a mentor is primarily instructive. If I’m teaching someone who has never deadlifted before, I have to be clear about how they should stand, brace their body, and perform the lift. But once they understand these basic steps, I have a different responsibility to them.
Stage 2: Mentoring the novice
Eventually, most beginners reach a stage where they have some basic skills – but this is the most dangerous a part of their development. This often comes with confidence, which can or might not be proportional to their knowledge.
An individual at this stage doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. They have some ability and probably some autonomy, but they do not know how you can self-assess.
At this stage, my job as a mentor is to guage and critique. I’m here to assist them understand the difference between doing something right and doing it mistaken. I would tell a deadlift beginner, “This form is wrong – if you keep using it, you’ll hurt your back.” I’ll then make specific changes to assist them find the right technique.
To make this work, you have to let people take some risks, but you furthermore mght have to know when to step in and keep them out of trouble. This means ensuring the risks you permit them are calculated.
Most lifters have to go through poor form before they find the right form, but I won’t have them lift anything heavy until they are comfortable with that form because I don’t need them to get injured. It’s the same in business – I could allow an engineer who is looking for leverage to make selections that might impact the success of his project, but not when the mistaken selection could paralyze the organization.
Stage 3: Intermediate Mentoring
People who have reached this stage know when they have done something right and when they have done it mistaken, but may have difficulty identifying the cause or developing the solution they need on their very own. The stakes for mentees could also be lower at this stage because they are less more likely to make dangerous mistakes – but it could even be the most difficult stage for mentors because the aspects holding mentees back are not at all times obvious.
Let’s say I’m training someone at the gym and I notice that the barbell is moving away from their knees as I lift it. I can see that the force is affecting their lower back, but they probably aren’t aware of it or know how you can adjust their posture to stop it. They are just frustrated that they can not carry more.
At this point, I don’t need to easily provide information that can immediately solve their problem; My goal as a mentor now is to assist them develop the ability to educate themselves. Instead, I would ask, “Where do you feel it?” and encourage them to summarize the process truthfully.
Stage 4: Mentoring the champion
In the final stage, people develop the ability to self-criticize. They know what they did mistaken, but more importantly, they will improve if needed.
When you bring someone to this level, you frequently turn into their peer while they mentor others. When they have questions, you may provide them with an outside perspective or draw on your experience, but you recognize and respect that they will chart their very own path forward.
Note that these stages normally correspond to levels of seniority: at first you may do the job, but you wish supervision. Then you may work without supervision. You can supervise others later. Ultimately, you turn into a mentor yourself.
Your goal as a mentor should at all times be to assist people move through these stages of gradual improvement so that they will eventually turn into mentors themselves. This way you pay it forward.