faqs
What are the differences between mentoring and coaching?
Mentoring and coaching are often confused as they are related but
not the same. A mentor may coach, but a coach is not a mentor. Mentoring
is about the relationship while coaching is about function and specific
skills transfer. Other differences include:
Mentoring
- Takes place outside of a line manager-employee relationship,
at the mutual consent of a mentor and mentee
- Focuses on the professional development of the mentee
- Provides personal and professional support
- Relationship is usually mentee driven
- Relationship crosses job boundaries
- Relationship may last for a specific period of time (i.e. 12
months) in a formal program, the pair may continue in an informal
mentoring relationship afterward.
Coaching
- Is a key management skill
- Often takes place within the formal manager-employee relationship
- Focuses on developing individuals
- Is functional, arising out of the need to ensure employees
perform to the best of their abilities
- tends to be driven by the person initiating the coaching conversation
- Relationships are for a specific period of time (usually short-term)
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Mentoring
What is mentoring?
Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship
in which an experienced person (the mentor) assists another (the
mentee) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will enhance
the mentee’s professional and personal growth.
What are the
benefits?
Organisation
- Support for strategic business initiatives
- Encourages talent attraction and retention
- Improves morale, productivity and performance
- Encourages knowledge sharing
- Helps retain corporate knowledge
- Promotes knowledge transfer and retention
- Grows internal resources—employees develop mentoring skills
- Support diversity goals
- Over time, creates a mentoring culture, which promotes individual
employee growth and development
Mentee
- Gains from the mentor’s expertise
- Receives feedback in areas, such as communications, interpersonal
relationships, technical abilities, change management and leadership
- Develops a sharper focus on what is needed to grow professionally
- Learns specific skills and knowledge that are relevant to personal
goals
- Develops and grow networks
- Gains knowledge about the organisation’s culture
- Has a sounding board to share ideas, challenges and successes
Mentor
- Gains insights from the mentee’s background and history
that can be used in the mentor’s professional and personal
development
- Gains satisfaction in sharing expertise with others
- Gains an ally in promoting the organisation’s well-being
- Learns more about other areas within the organization
- Personal growth and satisfaction
- Learning through teaching
- Broadens networks
- Gains acknowledgement and recognition
- Enhances global leadership perspective through mentoring skills
and behaviours, Cross-cultural learning
Why do organizations
choose a structured mentoring program?
Organisations are finding it difficult to recruit and retain qualified
personnel and are looking for effective ways of challenging them
to provide sufficient growth opportunities for employees.
On the plus side, organisations find today’s employees exhibit
a more flexible approach to work. On the minus side, employees may
feel less loyalty to the organizations for which they work.
Organisations now look to mentoring to implement a strategic game
plan that includes:
- Recruitment
- Retention
- Professional development
- Development of a multicultural workforce
Doesn’t
mentoring happen naturally?
In many organisations informal mentoring occurs naturally. The
problem is that informal mentoring is often accessible only to some
employees and its benefits are limited only to those few who participate.
Structured mentoring programs take mentoring to another level so
the organisation, mentees and mentors benefits—and over time
a mentoring culture develops.
Contact us for further information.
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Coaching
What is coaching?
There are many definitions of coaching. Coaching is most often
about professional development and skills transfer. The coaching
approach we use focuses on developing a coaching culture where a
coaching conversation model is used. Most often organisations use
the coaching program to develop coaching skills of their managers.
Our programs focus on developing the core coaching conversation
competencies of; Active listening, Questionning and giving and receiving
feedback.
Our coaching programs are based on an internationally proven coaching
model. The model uses a simple framework for coaching conversations
that has been developed and used globally in different forms.
What are the benefits?
The coaching approach we use has proven effective as a simple
and practical tool for managers to provide feedback, establish goals
and coach their staff to enhance performance. The coaching conversation
model can be used effectively for formal and informal conversations.
Additional benefits of the model include the development of more
effective relationships between managers and their staff and the
skill and will of managers to use coaching to develop their staff.
Why would we use
coaching in our organisation?
See coaching section for further information.
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Contact us to discuss options for
your organisation,
or arrange a complimentary needs-analysis consultation.
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