Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep149: Coaching vs Mentoring: Which is best for you?

Episode Date: August 19, 2022

✅ Get FREE GUIDE, newsletter, join career program 👉 http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Corporate Survivor™ is the ultimate career course for 9-to-5 working professionals, just like *you*, who want to enhance corporate world mindset, skillset and strategy so you can NAVIGATE + GROW your career with clarity, confidence & opportunities... 🚀 ⚡ 📌 ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Welcome to Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — ex-Corporate Leader turned Career Coach & Founder of The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, Mei Phing shares her corporate world insights, experiences and wisdom so you can grow your 9-5 career with clarity, confidence and opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/freeguide ✅ NEWSLETTER ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/mondays ✅ CAREER COURSE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡

Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. If you're someone who is thinking of getting more help in your career, I'm sure at this point you may have considered either getting some coaching, mentoring or joining a training program. So if you're someone who has been thinking about the options that you have

for career development, but still haven't come to a decision as to which one is the best for you, right? So should you work with a coach? Should you go to a mentor? Or should you just join a training program and learn from a trainer? So if this is you, then I think you'll find this episode super duper helpful because in this episode, I'm going to break it down to you. What is the difference between the three, coaching, mentoring and training? And which one is the best for you as part of your career development plan? So if this is something for you, make sure that you listen to the end of this episode to help you best decide as to how you can move forward in your career. So without further ado, let's dive in. So as you all know, I am a ex-corporate leader turned career coach. And nowadays, a lot of the work that I do is working

with my clients, nine to five professionals just like you, to improve their career, boost their confidence and learning how to navigate the corporate world with a lot more clarity and confidence so that they can get recognized for their hard work. But if I were to really define what I do, I'd say that I am pretty much a combination of a coach, a mentor, and a trainer. And let me explain. So first, let's maybe talk about definitions real quick. Now, since we start with coaching, let's talk about the definition of what is a coach. So in my personal definition, a coach is someone who guides you through a process, a step-by-step process for you to achieve your career goal. So it's for you to define what you want in your career goal and then you go to a coach for new strategies, for perspectives and basically help you to move that

next step forward. Because it can be very lonely to do it on your own. And that's why a lot of people go to coaches. A lot of times, that's how I work with my clients as well. But one thing I want to also say is that coaching should be something that is a little bit more short term. So a coaching relationship will only be very effective if you have a very clear goal in mind. So for example, you can say that, okay, I think that I am unproductive and I really, really want to get better with my productivity skills. I've been trying a bunch of things, but it just didn't quite work out. So you go to a coach and work with a coach, maybe on a monthly basis or a bi-weekly basis to see how you can become better and maybe there are some

missing perspectives maybe for example some of my clients come to me and they tell me that you know I've done this and that why is it not working and I can share with them say okay this is probably what your manager is thinking of and this is probably what you're not doing right so this is how you could get new strategies, new action plans, as well as get new perspectives. And the last thing is really accountability. But like I said, your goal needs to be very clear. It can't just be like, okay, I just want to develop my career, but I don't really know what that means. So if let's say you are the other one where, like I said, you want to develop your career,

you feel like there are a lot of things that are a bit missing and you don't know where to start. So your situation could be someone who is just starting in your career. So for example, you have less than three years of experience or you may have been someone who is a bit more experienced in your career but you have not been doing anything new and therefore you start to feel a bit stuck. So like a bit of like really unsure on how to move forward. And that happens and is actually quite normal. So if you're in this sort of, I guess, environment or you're kind of get stuck in this sort of situation, probably you will benefit more if you learn from a mentor. Because a mentor is someone who has been there, done that, and actually have done the things that the mentor is going to teach you. So for example, for me, recently, if you're watching the live release,

recently, not really recently, but last week, my three-step program, The Corporate Survivor, I introduced group mentoring for all the students in The Corporate Survivor. So what I have been doing in the mentoring calls is, I can break it down to you very quickly. So we start off by sharing client wins, because I think it's really important to really give my students the motivation and also share with them to say that, hey, other students have also done it. They've put in the effort, they are inspired, and hopefully these wins

are 100% possible for you as well so we started off with sharing some client wins then after that I covered a very short mini training for about 10 minutes of mini training more from a perspective standpoint as to how you can really overcome the feeling of stuck how the learning process works and how do you continue developing your competence. So I think that refresher is actually really, really useful as well to share the journey. And I think, you know, talking about the career journey is something that I think a lot of coaches and mentors don't talk about,

but it's so, so, so important. Because if you are not thinking of your career as a journey, it's going to be really easy to go for shortcuts or go for magic hacks that honestly, I'm telling you right now, it does not work. So it's really, really important to think of your career as a journey. And I think the mentoring calls,

the one I'm doing it right now on a monthly basis for students in my program is super, super helpful. So anyway, after the mini training, we actually dive into like the main part of the mentoring call which is the q a session so what i do is i send a q a form to all my students about i think it's about two weeks before the group mentoring call allowing them to ask questions that they have with regards to implementation of the strategies that i teach or just as part of their workplace challenges or their career challenges, maybe something that they want a bit more advice from as part of the broader

career development. So we spent about like 40-45 minutes purely on the Q&A across all the three phases of my program, which is getting clear on the corporate world, getting confident from corporate skills, as well as getting visible with personal branding, as well as some bonuses around the career journey, moving up the career ladder, a little bit about job search as well. So the Q&A is really, really targeted. And the best thing is that it's just,

it allows me to also share experiences, the things that I've personally done, but also for my students to learn from each other as well, because it's a bit more of a peer learning experience also. So learning from me as a mentor, but also learn from other students. So for me, the good thing is that a lot of these students in my program are 9 to 5 professionals, work in a structured environment, whether it's an MNC, SME, startup, or NGO. And therefore,

the structure is pretty much the same. I mean, it is the corporate world after all. So every lesson, every challenge that student A faces, student B, C, D, and E could learn something and make sure that they are also avoiding these errors in their own career as well. So I think that's really the power of the mentoring session. Of course, we just make sure that we wrap it up with any live questions, reflections, and recap. It's always really, really helpful to hear what students are saying. So in the last one that we just did literally last week, which is the first ever group mentoring call, a lot of students actually said that they realized that they shouldn't be too hard on themselves and learning is a journey and it's okay to feel like

sometimes things are not moving. And that's why I always say any progress is progress, right? And I think that nowadays in a very busy environment, it's very easy to get distracted with a lot of things. So therefore, the group mentoring calls

is something that I'm really, really excited to introduce. It took me some time to make this decision, but I'm really, really glad I did. So on a monthly basis, I get to meet all my students answer any questions that they have and really help them along their career journey and really help them to develop their career for the long term and that's really the essence of mentoring right mentoring is really we're looking at career development for the long term along your career journey and up the career

ladder and i think these two parts are actually really, really important. So coming back to the third one that we have not talked about. So we talked about coaching. We talked about mentoring. But let's now talk about training. So training is one of those things that I think if you are someone who is working in the corporate world, you may have been attending trainings by your company or you have seen training workshops and training webinars here and there. So how does

training fit in to the coaching and mentoring method of learning for you? Personally, what I suggest is training is like the foundation, right? So training is really, really important. If you are lacking core knowledge, you are lacking core insights or really, really important skills that you don't even know where to start, right? So that's why training is really, really helpful in that sense because it kind of gives you a bit of a foundation. It's a bit like a pre-coaching or pre-mentoring homework to give you an understanding of the frameworks on the methods and the steps. And then after that, you go to mentoring to learn from other people, to get your questions answered.

And then if you have something really specific, then you can go for career coaching. So that's kind of how I see training fitting into something. Now, the danger around training, I think a lot of people make around training is just going in to listen, but they have no idea where their skills gap are. They don't really know what they don't know.

So it's a bit of a danger in training programs in that sense. So I think it's really, really important that if you are going for a training program, make sure that it is taught by someone who has actually done what you want to do. So for example, a lot of students come to me and join my program, The Corporate Survivor. The reason is because they want to do better in the corporate world. And that's something that I have already done. So you've been following me for some time. I'm sure you know that I was the ex-head of governance and control at Standard Chartered Bank, managing a $1.5 billion portfolio across 43 countries. And I have been the top

performer for many years in a row. I've gotten recognition, increments, promotions almost every other year. So that's what my students get when they work with me and that's really what they learn in my training program. So how I basically use the training program is really the starting point. So when my students or clients join the Corporate Survivor, they get immediate access to all the lessons. Those lessons are really, really important because it's really walking through the three-step framework that is essential for success at any corporate job, any job, any company, any industry, any company size. It's really important.

So they go through the training program, which I think, like I said, is the foundation. So it's really, really important. They go through the training program. Then once a month, they attend the live group mentoring call. So where they have the chance to ask their question across the three phases, whether it's clarity,

it's confidence, competence, or personal branding and visibility. So really helping them to navigate through and say, hey, actually, this is what you should be doing and this is kind of what someone else has done

and what has worked and what has not worked. So on a monthly basis, there is a bit of a pivoting and development and accountability on that sense. Then for those who are unable to attend, they also get the video recording as long as they have an active membership.

And finally, there may be some students or there may be some clients, and maybe that's you as well. After going through the training, after going through the monthly mentoring, you may still feel like, hey, actually for the next few months, or I really need, I have a very big goal that I want to achieve, right? Maybe you are looking to get on the big project and then you want to be successful. Maybe you are trying to aim for a promotion, for example, and you want to get additional help.

And that's when the third element will come in. And then the third element is coaching. Because like I said earlier, you need to have a very specific goal that you are dedicated to and you're looking for someone to guide you and that's going to be the coach. So as a recap, what I recommend if you're someone who is really serious about your career, you want to develop in your career, what I recommend is in the three sequence, right? In this exact, the three, the three methods in this exact sequence. The first one is training. Because if you don't know what you don't know, then it's going to be very difficult to get help from a mentor or a coach because you will not even be able to explain what you're looking for. And that's going to be a

problem. So first part is definitely training first, right? Number one is training. Then after you get the foundation, right, then the second part is making sure that you are participating in mentoring. So for my program, the mentoring is on a monthly basis. So make sure that you participate in the mentoring sessions

and get your questions answered, right? Learn from other students, observe what other people have done, what has worked for them, what has not worked for them and see how much you can take from it. Then the third one, if you really need to on a limited basis or within a short-term period, if you need support from a coach, then you can definitely do that to get strategies that are personalized to you, an action plan that you can

track your progress on, as well as getting perspective for things that you may have blind spots about. So that would be really the best sequence, which is training, mentoring, and coaching as part of your overall development plan for career success and career growth in the corporate world. So that's also what I recommend. So at this point, let me know which is your preferred method. So make sure that you drop me a DM on LinkedIn and Instagram where I'm most active. So I'm really looking forward to hear from you to hear about which method works the best for you and what has your experience been with training, coaching, and mentoring? Which one do you like? Which one do you not like? So make sure you drop me a DM on LinkedIn and Instagram and let me know. So in the meantime, if you want to learn more about

what I teach my students to boost their clarity, confidence, and competence in the corporate world, you can always check out www.thecorporatesurvivor.co. And recently, I released a new training as well. It's only a 30-minute training, which I think you'll really enjoy, that walks through the three-step framework of what I teach in The Corporate Survivor. So you can click on www.growyourcorporatecareer.com and you can also find the link somewhere in the description box below. So look through it. It's only 30 minutes.

I think you'll find it super duper insightful and it's kind of also walks through a framework on I think the model that really works the best if you're serious about developing your career

and you want to enjoy more career growth and career success in the corporate world. So with that, I hope to hear from you soon on my social media. And till then, I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.