Coaching Vs Mentoring

                                        Coaching Vs Mentoring

COACHING IS A PERSONAL (USUALLY                              ONE-TO-ONE) ON-THE-JOB                 APPROACH TO HELPING PEOPLE     DEVELOP THEIRS KILLS                AND  LEVELS OF COMPETENCE.

   

  Measures Performances 

   Coach drives the relationship

  Coaching can be standardized

Introduction

HR professionals need skills in coaching and mentoring to fulfil their important responsibilities for enhancing the knowledge and skills of employees and for providing guidance to line managers on conduction.

Coaching

Coaching is a personal (usually one-to-one) approach that enables people to develop their skills and knowledge and improve their performance. As Whitmore (2002: 8) suggested: ‘Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.’ Clutterbuck (2004: 23) noted that: ‘Coaching is primarily focused on performance within the current job and emphasizes the development of skills.’ Coaching is often provided by specialists from inside or outside the organization who concentrate on specific areas of skills or behaviour, for example leadership. But it is also something that HR professionals have to be prepared to do as part of their normal learning and development duties, and this means deploying the skills described below.

The approach to coaching

To succeed in coaching you need to understand that your role is to help people to learn and see that they are motivated to learn. They should be aware of the advantages to them as well as the organization of developing their present level of  knowledge or skill or modifying their behaviour. Individuals should be given guidance on what they should be learning and feedback on how they are doing and, because learning is an active not a passive process, they should be actively involved with their coach. Coaching is sometimes informal but it has to be planned. It is not simply checking from time to time on what people are doing and then advising them on how to do it better. Nor is it occasionally telling people where they have gone wrong and throwing in a lecture for good measure. As far as possible, coaching should take place within the framework of a general plan of the areas and direction in which individuals will benefit from further development. Coaching plans should be incorporated into the personal development plans set out in a performance agreement. Coaching should provide motivation, structure and effective feedback. As a coach, you should  believe that people can succeed and that they can contribute to their own success.

Coaching styles

Clutterbuck and Megginson (2005: 52) identified four coaching styles:

1. Assessor – this is akin to instruction and involves telling people the way to do something.

2. Demonstrator – this is less directive than the assessor style. It involves showing learners how to do something and then getting them to do it with guidance and comments from the coach as required.

3. Tutor – this involves encouraging learners to find out how to do things for themselves. It is still relatively directive as it is the coach who suggests what learners should look for.

4. Stimulator – this helps learners to teach themselves by guiding their thinking through the use of insight-provoking questions.

Criteria for effectiveness

The following criteria for evaluating the performance of a coach were listed by Gray (2010: 379):

●●Establishes rapport;

●● Creates trust and respect;

●●Demonstrates effective communication skills;

●●Promotes self-awareness and self-knowledge;

●● Uses active listening and questioning techniques;

●●Assists goal development and setting;

●● Motivates;

●● Encourages alternative perspectives;

●● Assists in making sense of a situation;

●●Identifies significant patterns of thinking and behaving;

●●Provides an appropriate mix of challenge and support;

●● Facilitates depth of understanding;

●● Shows compassion;

●● Acts ethically;

●● Inspires curiosity;

●● Acts as a role model;

●●Values diversity and difference;

●● Promotes action and reflection.

MENTORING IS THE PROCESS OF USING SPECIALLY

SELECTED AND TRAINED INDIVIDUALS TO PROVIDE GUIDANCE, PRAGMATIC (SENSIBLE) ADVICE AND CONTINUING SUPPORT THAT WILL HELP THE PERSON OR PERSONS ALLOCATED TO THEM TO LEARN AND DEVELOP.

  Doesn’t  Measures Performances

   

    Mentee drives the relationship

    Mentoring is personalizes

Mentoring

Mentors offer guidance, pragmatic advice and continuing support to help those allocated to them to learn and develop. It is a method of helping people to learn as distinct from coaching, which can be a relatively directive means of increasing people’s competence. Mentors may be line managers. They are often appointed and trained by learning and development specialists who therefore need to be aware of the skills required. L&D professionals may act as mentors themselves, although experienced managers are best if they have the skills and enthusiasm required.

Mentors provide people with:

●● Advice in drawing up self-development programmes or learning contracts;

●●General help with learning programmes;

●● Guidance on how to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to do a new job;

●● Advice on dealing with any administrative, technical or people problems individuals meet, especially in the early stages of their careers;

●● Information on ‘the way things are done around here’ – the corporate culture in terms of expected behaviour;

●● Coaching in specific skills;

●● Help in tackling projects – not by doing it for them but by pointing them in the right direction, helping people to help themselves;

●● A parental figure with whom individuals can discuss their aspirations and concerns and who will lend a sympathetic ear to their problems.

 Mentors need to adopt a non-directive but supportive approach to helping the person or persons they are dealing with.

 

References

Clutterbuck, D (2004) Everyone Needs a Mentor: Fostering talent in your organization, 4th edn, London, CIPD

Clutterbuck, D and Megginson, D (2005) Making Coaching Work: Creating a coaching culture, London, CIPD 

Gray, D A (2010) Building quality into executive coaching, in (eds) J Gold, R Thorpe and A Mumford,

Gower Handbook of Leadership and Management Development, Farnham, Gower, pp 367–85

Whitmore, J (2002) Coaching for Performance,