Comment by gls2ro | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gls2ro | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with the definition of the mentoring and coaching from the article.

Maybe the author definition is from sports, but outside it here is how I see (and how many of people that I encountered so far see) the difference between coach and mentor:

In a coaching relationship the coache sets the agenda not the coach. The coach is more backseat than a mentor. The coach is there to walk along the coachee on the coachee path while providing guidance when asked, usually in the form of guiding questions or helping navigate various points of views or helping go through decision frameworks.

In a mentor relationship the mentor sets the agenda together with the mentee. A mentor has a more active role in the agenda providing active guidance and feedforward. The mentor and the mentee walk together on a path they both agreed on.

As an example:

If I would go to a coach and say ask about should I learn Elixir or not taking into consideration my Ruby background, then the coach will not answer yes or not. But should help me discover for myself the answer. It will usually help me look at this question from various points of view or can provide a decision framework, but the answers (or the content of my answers) will always be mine or my own discovery. So they will not state "Elixir is like Ruby" or "Elixir is not like Ruby" but they might ask "How can you assess if Elixir is like Ruby?" or "What is the smallest project that you can create to see if you like Elixir".

If I would go to a mentor and ask about should I learn Elixir I expect them to tell me pro and cons of Elixir and also have an opinion about if Elixir is really similar with Ruby or not and even express their preference for this programming language or the other.

So I choose to go to a mentor or coach depending on what outcome I want to have and what experience they have.

PS: Please take the Elixir and Ruby just as an example of a technical matter to be discussed with a coach or mentor.

The terms are used so interchangeably by people that I'm not surprised you might disagree. I looked at a bunch of definitions and tried to distill a useful distinction.

Given that people hire coaches, but usually not mentors, the distinction for me is that a coach is engaged towards a goal and therefore is more directive of what you need to do to get there.

I don't think your example question is a great one for exploring the distinction because it's a single, binary question. But even in your example, despite the coach responding with questions, you describe the coach as pushing you to go do some work: figure out the differences yourself, or come up with a project to explore the question.

In that sense, I see the coach as "setting the agenda" whereas the mentor is having a more open-ended conversation about it.

I've worked with some psychologists giving business consulting, and they would use the definition from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), which is that coaching is "partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential".

So in that sense a coach would not set the agenda at all, nor be directive of what you need to do to get there, quite the opposite in fact. They keep asking questions and pushing you to figure out what you need to do to get there, which means that a coach can theoritically help you even if not in the same field as you.

I've also worked in consulting in a past career, and I've had a hired coach, and the line you quote with words like "partnering" I would describe as part of marketing the product. They're not exactly going to say "hire us to push you out of your comfort zone", but that is the role.

You said: "they keep asking questions and pushing" -- that's what I mean by setting the agenda. As I mentor, I don't see my role as "pushing". Questioning, sure. Providing perspective, sharing my stores, yes. Actionable feedback on skills is the closest I'd come to "pushing" and even then, they can take it or leave it.

When I see people talking about coaching, I often see -- directly or indirectly -- some aspect of the role of the coach to be to "bring out their best". I rarely see words like that used to describe mentoring relationships.

You made me think more about this subject with this comment. In a way - due to different incentives - I think you are right about the outcome.

As the coach is mostly hired and the mentor internal it might be that the coach has more incentive to push someone to bring their best while the mentor - having as main focus another job and doing mentorship as a side task - will offer advice/guidance but will not have the same incentive to follow through.

Anyhow I agree there is not a standard definition of what a coach or mentor is and what they should do.

Hmm maybe you are right and the example is not very good.

Let me try to rephrase it in a way:

I think the main difference for me is that I go to the coach to support me to solve problems/matters by myself and they are there supporting my process but I expect them to have less influence on the actual content/solution itself. To summarize the coach does not give advices nor they should impose best practices.

While I go to the mentor expecting them to offer me advice and guidance/best practices.

In this I choose (very rarely) a coach to explore problems that I think don't have a universal solution or the solution is subjective like “Should I move to management or continue on the technical path” or “What is best for me: freelancer or employee?”

And I go to mentor to get concrete advice/guidance on specific matters like “How to increase my income as freelancer” or “How to start a new career in X”.

As I write this it seems that for me I see coach as a person that can help me discover the why and the mentor is someone that can help me discover the how.

> for me I see coach as a person that can help me discover the why and the mentor is someone that can help me discover the how

That's not how I see it, but you expressed that really clearly. If that distinction works for you, then that's great!

mentor: a trusted counselor or guide [1]

coach: one who instructs or trains [2]

When there's some doubt about meaning, I find it useful to wonder how other people might interpret the words I say, and I have found that a dictionary is a good way for communities and societies to agree on what those words mean. I do not say this to be snarky. I used to be surprised to learn that some words I thought I knew had a different, if related, meaning. Now, if say I was presented with an article that I wanted to comment on its use of words, I will look up those words first to see if perhaps I am the one that is out of touch with my peers.

I am a mentor, a mentee, and have had life coaches and sports coaches. While I have paid life coaches, i.e I am setting goals, that's very different than a coach within a corporation: perhaps the distinction for coach is "Who is paying the coach?" A mentor, however, is very much a counselor / guide, even though they are paid by the company. Another distinction is that coaches are, to some extent, accountable. They are paid to achieve a result. Mentors just don't have the responsibility.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mentor

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coach

Honestly, the relationship between a word and the concept that it symbolizes is man-made and arbitrary, even among individuals. I don’t think that arguing vs the article on the basis of definition alone is going to lead to a fruitful discussion, because there will always be something that can be said of how one activity seems to fit with either of the two (for example, your attribution of the definitions to sports may be from your subjective experience of sports, but maybe coach and coached relationships with others are different), so it might do us all better to just really focus on what the author is trying to say. Coaching is passive, mentoring is so much more actively involved (though I personally find rather odd where the delineation was drawn, and I’m just creeped out by the idea of a mentorship setup now).

I get it in your other comment that it helps you set your expectations—but it’s not like these two words are technical jargon with clear meanings in some field of science, so you can’t just take them without nuance.

hmmmm in my mind I had the exact inverse definition of what you said. For me “mentor” is exactly what you defined as “coach” and for me “coach” is exactly what you defined as “mentor”.

I never was or had any formal mentor or coach, so there is that.

I think maybe in the end it does not matter how you named them as long as the interaction bring you value.

For me the name is important mostly related to setting my expectations about what can I get from working with one or the other.

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