Eight years ago, I coached a girls softball team. We were in the fifth inning, one out, and one of my rising star batters stepped up to the plate.

She swung, connected with the ball – and was promptly called 'out'. She asked why, but the referee would not explain. Feeling confused and frustrated, she came to me. I explained that her leg was out of the box when she was swinging, which was why she had been called out.

This story illustrates a key difference between TRAINERS and referees (or referees): the coach is there to help people improve; the arbitrator points out all the problems. Their job is not to make better people.

But as a manager, I've always believed that your role is to be a coach, not a referee. Many managers fall into the trap of sitting back and observing – but while being observant is useful in management, it is not enough.

If you want to help your team succeed, you need to be honest invested in their success. Below, I'll explain how thinking about mentoring from a coaching perspective has informed my approach and how it can do the same for you.

What do great mentors and coaches have in common?

Coaching a mentee is a lot like coaching a player on a team. In both cases, you want to:

• Encourage self-reflection: Help the person you are coaching to develop means to take inventory of their actions. Ask: “What can you do to improve the result?”
• Promoting accountability: create an environment where the person you are coaching can be honest with themselves and others about what they notice as they reflect on themselves. Ask, “How will you measure your progress?”
• Promote incremental improvements: motivate person to move forward. They don't need to make the NFL draft; they have to do a little better than before. It adds up over time. Ask, “How have you improved since we first spoke?”

The main difference between all of these is what you are trying to achieve. When I coached girls softball, I tried to improve the way my team played. But when I lead a mentee in a business environment, I want to improve their thinking.

Connected: 6 Effective Coaching Strategies for Your Team

The purpose of mentoring is to make people think

I've mentored many people at different levels and in different disciplines, and I've noticed some common themes. In my experience, a good mentor always aims to make the people around them think – ideally in a certain direction.

This is one of the main reasons why mentors need to be more than mere observers. To make someone think, you have to give feedback, and you can only give feedback based on what you know about your mentees.

This means you should encourage them to open up and verbalize their honest thoughts, needs and feelings. You should communicate actively enough to learn about them instead of making assumptions based on what you observe from a distance.

In other words, you have to be coachable.

Connected: How to get people to think differently

Asking the right questions as a mentor

Asking the right questions is one of the best ways to get more actively involved as a mentor.

Here's an example: I taught a class called “Being a Leader” when I worked at Shesh. From time to time, I would ask my students: What is the one question you never ask your children at the dinner table?

It's “How was your day?” because the answer is always “Okay”. This is not a conversation; it's an excuse for both sides to tune out and go through the motions instead of engaging with each other in a meaningful way.

Instead, try asking, “What was the most exciting part of your day?” or “What did you learn?” or “Have you made any new friends?” Questions like these encourage detailed answers and the question also encourages you to listen more closely to the answers.

It's the same when you're a mentor. You need to ask the right questions to move the conversation forward.

Other coaching techniques to apply in mentoring

Asking questions is one of the best things you can do as a mentor, but successful coaches need to do a few other things as well. I will close this article with three reminders that I believe can help mentors in any organization.

First, gain confidence of your mentees. People only answer questions honestly and openly when they know they can trust you. Use language that lets them know you're on their side.

I would never ask the softball players I coached or the people who reported to me at Square questions like “Why did you fail” when something went wrong. This would create an antagonistic relationship and make it more difficult to provide feedback in the future. Instead, I would ask, “What could you have done better?”

Second, help your mentees analyze. Just as I always sat down with my softball team for a postgame debriefing of what went right and what went wrong, mentors should meet with mentees after any major project or milestone and help them review their choices. .

Write a quick retrospective of what went well, what went wrong, and what questions still need to be answered. Then, review these writings with your mentee and ask them to identify patterns or areas to optimize.

Finally, view everything that doesn't go as planned as a learning event. Remember that growth mindsets are not just for employees or players, but also critical for people in leadership roles.