This mentoring conversation at heart of this paper occurred in a Sports Coaching Higher Education programme, full-season club placement period. The mentee has experience as school-sports athlete and is at the end of his graduation programme. The mentor is a Level 3 experienced coach and mentor and coordinates the club’s school-sports teams. The conversation focused on the second session of the week, when both analysed a learning task on game-transition. It occurred immediately after the practice, by the sports hall, in a corridor near the locker-rooms. Challenging traditional mentoring structures (Sawiuk, Taylor & Groom, 2016), the conversation is revisited considering: a) Gilbert and Trudel’s (2001) Reflection Model to provide a structured shared reflection process; b) Bandura’s (1982) Self-efficacy Sources to sustain mentoring techniques; and c) Hastie and Siedentop’s (2006) review on the Classroom Ecology approach for improved Mentee’s instruction. Following the Design Thinking approach as a data collection and analysis tool, three steps were taken. Through empathy (step 1), as the mentor starts with “[fast paced talk] "Ok, It’s like this, so we need to discuss this game that you were thinking. So the game needs to be, the maximum for the team, 3 on 3 players", the empathy mapping showed that the mentor controls the pace structure and content of the conversation, while the mentee adopts a passive and compliant role. In ideation (Step 2), through journey mapping and based on the abovementioned theoretical frameworks, high and low emotional points of the conversation were identified. During development (Step 3), the conversation is rewritten addressing low points and amplifying high points. The new conversation showed a range of techniques positioning the mentor as a facilitator using structured reflection (Gilbert & Trudel, 2001), with different mentoring techniques directed to build the mentee’s self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982) and focused on improving instruction from a balanced ecological management of the learning task (Hastie & Siedentop, 2006). Because of this, the mentee shifts towards an active disposition, by taking initiative in the conversation as an active agent of and for his own learning (Author, 2010). This paper highlights the power dynamics within mentoring relationships and how a multi-theoretical approach can redress this to restore a balance of power. It further acknowledges the potency of design thinking as a tool for analysis in research.

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