What Coaches and Mentors Can Learn from Blue Ocean Strategy
Assuming you have to coach every mentee using the same standard approach every other coach uses, rather than asking what genuinely fits, is the specific trap Blue Ocean Strategy names, and it's an easy one to fall into when the standard coaching approach feels like the only approach.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Stop competing head-to-head in a crowded market
Coaching every mentee with the same standard approach puts your guidance in direct competition with every other generic source of similar advice, rather than offering something genuinely distinctive.
A mentor gives the same standard advice every mentor gives, and the guidance doesn't feel any more valuable than what the mentee could find from any other generic source.
Identify one piece of standard advice you give most mentees, and ask what a genuinely tailored version for this specific mentee would look like.
Pursue differentiation and low cost at the same time
Finding a way to give genuinely tailored guidance without spending dramatically more time, rather than assuming better guidance always requires more sessions, opens a more sustainable approach.
A mentor assumes more personalized guidance requires many more sessions, without questioning whether some standard, generic parts of the process could be cut to make room for the genuinely tailored parts.
Identify one standard part of your mentoring process you could shorten or cut, and use the freed time for something genuinely tailored to this mentee.
Question what your industry has always competed on
Treating the standard set of coaching topics and methods as fixed, rather than something you could eliminate, reduce, raise, or add to, limits how differently you could help a specific mentee.
A mentor accepts a standard curriculum of topics as the baseline, without ever asking whether all of them actually matter for this specific mentee's situation.
List the standard topics you typically cover, and identify one that could be skipped entirely for this mentee without them actually missing it.
Look beyond your current customers to people you aren't serving at all
Paying attention to what a mentee actually needs, beyond the standard goals most mentees are expected to pursue, is often where the most valuable guidance is found.
Covering today's standard topic and tailoring your guidance to this specific mentee aren't opposites — tailored guidance on standard topics tends to land better than generic advice on either.
Name one thing, honestly
Is there a standard piece of advice you give that doesn't actually fit your specific mentee's real situation?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
List the standard topics you typically cover, and identify one that could be skipped entirely for this mentee without them actually missing it.