Coach, Mentor, Or Accountability Partner: Which of These Do You Need?

 Coach, Mentor, Or Accountability Partner: Which of These Do You Need?

 

Does the prospect of being your own boss excite you? Do you find working for someone else for a salary stifling? Are you apprehensive that being an employee undermines your potential and stunt your growth? Do new ideas and experiments increase your heart beat? Then, you are cut out to be an entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur is one who realizes the potential of something novel. He would take no time to size up an idea or thought, and is obsessed with it till he takes it to its logical outcome. All this sounds good, but do you know how difficult it sometimes is for entrepreneurs to keep their motivation levels high?

This sounds odd, if you consider that entrepreneurship is all about seizing opportunities and accomplishing them before most others do. This implies that entrepreneurs are switched on mentally almost all the time. So, do you expect such highly energized go-getters to lose their motivation?

Well, it does not happen all the time, but happen it does. Because entrepreneurs are human after all. It has happened to the most talented and the most fired up people. It is not too uncommon to find the most respected and awed sportsmen getting butterflies in their stomach at the start of a match. This new school feeling is present in almost everyone, even the most successful of people.

This fleeting feeling aside, the most dashing entrepreneurs can fail at times. They can lose their focus. Their vision and goal could go astray, and their ability to keep themselves covered in glory could fade in a jiffy. It is in situations such as these that the services of a coach, mentor or accountability partner is of inestimable importance

So, let us get down to an understanding of these three kinds of people. Who are they, what do they do, and which of these do you need?

Coach: A coach is one who trains you in activities concerning your aptitude. This coach is in a position to train you because she has been from that profession. This places that person at a higher pedestal than you. With their innate ability for understanding their area of work and given their experience, coaches are very well placed to understand your strengths and weaknesses. They use this analysis to guide you into a proper sense of direction.

A coach is primarily someone who has immersed herself in an area of specialization. If you love athletics, an athletics coach who has been an athlete herself in the past, is what you should be looking for. While sport comes to mind initially when we think of a coach, a coach’s area of work is not restricted to this. You could have accounting coaches, organizational coaches, business coaches, and so on. The simple thing tounderstand about coaches is that they have been in the thick of thingsthemselves, and hence, are in the ideal position to help you out by assessingyour strengths and weaknesses.

Mentor: A mentor is also the same as a coach, where the purpose of the relationship is concerned. Both coaches and mentors have the goal of bringing about improvement in the people whom they work with. However, where mentors differ from coaches is in their being less formal. Unlike a coach, you are not likely to find mentors who will work with the mentee in a structured manner. The nature of their work could be a lot more flexible. The mentor could be called into an organization at any random time or place to help the organization address a particular problem or issue.

Another point about mentors is that they are sometimes just inspirational people who could have influenced you indirectly at some point of time. In this sense, most of us have our own mentors. By just following their method of doing things, we may have brought about an improvement in our work or goals. Like coaches, mentors too build skills among the people they work with. They often get into close one-on-one sessions to get a thorough understanding of the needs.

Accountability partner: This is a very strong kind of person or persons. What an accountability partner does is what a coach or a mentor doesn't: they ensure that you end up doing what you would otherwise not have done. This means that the accountability partner has to be someone who is forceful, result oriented, and a pusher in every sense of the term.

It is interesting as to why organizations need such people. An accountability partner is hired to ensure that the organization (or individual)’s interest does not trail off before the completion of the task. This is often the bane for most people, because they sometimes tend to go astray during the goal-accomplishing journey.

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The fact that can be understood about an accountability partner is that she is a tough person, a kind of taskmaster. An accountability partner works against clearly set goals, and it would be a parody if she fails to deliver what she has promised. Accountability partners are not expected to be nice sounding, sweet speaking people. Back during your childhood, what did your parents do when they realized that you were not very prompt at doing your homework consistently? They waited for your teacher to spank you, but when even that did not work, they took the help of your intimidating neighbor. One frightening look from the neighbor would have you scurrying to do your homework!

I am not suggesting that what happened during childhood has to happen now as well. Still, the role of an accountability partner is sometimes a crucial factor in the life of an organization. It helps the organization realize its goals which it would never have, left to itself. You may ask if it is worth running an organization that fails to motivate itself into achieving its goals. But, as I said at the beginning, it is sometimes natural for organizations to lose sight of their goals. This is when an accountability partner can be absolutely helpful.

Which of these do you need?

Finally, when it comes to taking a call on which of these you need, that is purely based on your need. You have to take a very objective decision about this, based on your unique need and requirements. Bungling with this decision and choosing the wrong person can have its consequences. So, take your important people into confidence before deciding which of these you need. It should be a decision that will bring about positive change, not bog your organization down. Taking a decision requires you to approach the issue with a calm mind.