Coaching vs. Mentoring in Organizations

The concepts of coaching and mentoring and how they differ from other learning and development methodsExecutive summary:

The methods of learning and development of individual working personnel within organisational framework are mostly two in number. These are identifiable as Coaching and Mentoring. The objective is to assist in the development of learning processes of employees. These two processes are mostly utilised in the interchangeable manner (Garvey, Strokes and Megginson, 2010).

According to Parsloe and Leedham (2009), the policies, principle and practices of coaching are to be considered as the fundamental constituents on which the purpose and impartation of organisational services could be premised upon. From a definitive perspective, the coaching process asserts the significance of the organisational guidance for competency development through case specific approaches.

The primary techniques and skills in coaching and mentoring are listening, enquiring, clarification obtainment and reframing of the learnt lessons.

The primary emphasis in coaching involves goals, targets and outcomes achieved by the coached personnel. Defining the capabilities of individuals is integral to coaching. Mentioring is focused on formulation of informal associations between the mentees and their mentors. The fundamental difference is in the utilisation of a formalised and structured approach.

The emphasis is on the optimisation of learning inculcation by the coached personnel through task oriented approaches associated to issues regarding management of working responsibilities in the most effective manner (Bokeno, 2008).

Contrary to coaching, mentoring involves support provisioning to personnel through extension of learning processes with the assistance from effective guidelines. The underlying factors are knowledge and experience of particular mentors and an informal nature of collaboration and co-operation between the mentor and the mentee.

According to Bearman et al., (2007) both coaching and mentoring overlap in terms of their basic beliefs and values regarding instituting behavioural changes through emphasising on the learning process in an equal measure with those of gaining of skills and knowledge. The emphasis is on the transformation and reinvention of the individuals. While coaching involves current development objectives, mentoring highlights long term relationship management and future goals obtainment (Garvey et al., 2017).

The potential benefits of coaching and mentoring for coach/mentor and coachee/mentee

According to Bozer, Sarros and Santora (2013), the potential benefits of coaching could be multifarious in terms of their implications and number. Improvement of employee competence becomes significant with the enhancement of competitive contingencies within the market based functionalities. The emphasis is always on imparting specific knowledge and skills upon the talented individual employees so as enable them to meet the organisational expectations in this context. This is generally achieved at particular operational junctures and thus is related to specific organisational functionalities and disciplines such as, for instance, sales or marketing management. Introduction of new programs in the working patterns of the companies could also require coaching the existing and newly recruited employees for familiarisation and performance improvement purposes. Such coaching is always performed as field specific approaches where particular skills of employees are encouraged (MacLennan, 2017). Proper coaching involves utilisation of unambiguous learning plans to complete the learning exercises of the employees in the most systematic manner. Scheduling the coaching process is vital to manage the time constraints (Parsloe and Leedham, 2009). Coaching could be perceived to be a form of regimentation as well in terms of efficiently working within any systematic structure. Furthermore, other benefits could be identified as improvement in the ability of the individuals to achieve their targets, goals and performances, greater ability enhancement in the individuals to inculcate development through learning, expansion of the abilities within organisational individuals to better identify the solutions to particular issues, better sense of responsibility and ownership development, self-awareness development and providing opportunities to avail correctional guidance regarding resolving difficulties in performance. These benefits are mostly associated with the individual perspectives of development. From the organisational perspective, the benefits of effective coaching could be understood as the complete utilisation of potentials of any individual, demonstration of the required measure of commitment to the individual employees, productivity improvement in terms of the overall organisational work outcomes, facilitation of adoption of new management and working cultures and enhanced levels of employee motivational levels.

Coaching: three different types of coaching and two different styles of coaching

According to Gilbert and Whittleworth (2009), three fundamentally different types are utilised in terms of the coaching practices and the initial type consists of Performance Coaching. The theoretical underpinnings could be derived from general psychological theory and sports psychology (Horn et al., 2011).

Next, the Skills Coaching type is the coaching form which emphasises on enhancement of fundamental skills of employees through an adaptive, time bound and flexible approach (Ives, 2008).

Finally, the Executive Coaching type could be considered as the performance based coaching through which the most influential managerial personnel within any organisation could lead by example of their enhanced performance measures.

Furthermore, according to MacLennan (2017) the two most significant styles of coaching are Autocratic and Democratic coaching. Autocratic coaching style emphasises on compulsive and obligatory measures applied by the coach through exclusive the decision formulation with next to none input from the personnel being coached. This involves inflexible coaching features.

On the other hand, the Democratic coaching style is oriented towards the facilitation of the goal setting and decision making on the basis of the inputs from the personnel being coached. To dictations from the coaches in terms of decisions are involved and it is primarily a personnel centred approach. The involved personnel generally shape the coaching outcomes through the coaching framework provided by the coach. The underscoring aspect of autonomy formulates the core constituent Democratic performance coaching style.

Coaching process: the stages in a one-to-one coaching process and the roles of coach and coachee

Coaching could be performed in the four different phases (Cushion, 2007). . These are planning, coaching, contracting and evaluating. In the planning phase, the direct measure of coaching is employed through the coach and the coachee holding direct and introductory conversations to determine future working processes and to outline the roles and attitudes through independent reflection on the responsibility measures. This phase is also representative of the discussions regarding coaching and professional collaboration formulation. Next, the second phase of contracting involves the development of the most productive and effective professional relationships between the coach and the coachee.

Furthermore, in the contracting phase, the professional agreements regarding the identified needs of development of the coachee could be arrived upon. This involves removal of any operational ambiguity and clarification of the associated processes. The coach generally lends support to the coachee through application of different questioning techniques to formulate better understanding of goals and identification of solutions for existing problems and evaluate the corresponding events.

Furthermore, this phase involves the building of trust between the coach and the coachee. The coachee has to shoulder the responsibility of professional learning management, administration of the action plan developed under the guidance of the coach, achieve the predetermined performance goals and work towards the required behavioral change management.

Finally, the coaching techniques decided upon, are consistently evaluated in the evaluation phase. This phase also involves the evaluation of coaching process in comparison to the desired results and performance betterment objectives. This phase ensures that the outcomes of the performance coaching could be beneficial for both the coachee and the employing organization (Jones, Armour and Potrac, 2002).

Mentoring: the nature of the relationship, typical mentoring process and the roles of mentor and mentee

According to (Bearman et al., 2007), mentoring highlights the professional relationship through which any experienced mentor could assist the mentoree or multiple mentorees. Coaching primarily focuses on the development of individuals within the concurrent work designations. On the other hand, mentoring emphasises on the broader development perspectives of careers of individuals. One-on-one mentoring, functional mentoring, group mentoring and peer mentoring, are utilised. Consistent communication is of great value in this process and this is constituted through introduction, foundation, orientation, problem-solving, personal framework, professional framework and transition(Bozer, Sarros and Santora, 2013). The introduction stage involves establishment of professional connection between the mentor and the mentee. The foundation stage involves the clarification of the expectations and roles of the mentor and the mentee alike. The orientation process is indicative of the increment of motivational aspect within the mentor and the mentee. Furthermore, the problem solving stage involves the identification of the multiplicity of issues related to performance enhancement. The professional framework stage is deliberative of the strengthening of the professional relationship between the mentee and mentor through confidence enhancement. The transitional stage is indicative of the independent ability of the mentee to work properly. Overall, the roles of the mentor are being an advisor, supporter, encouragement source, role model and guide (Hudson, 2013). On the other hand, for the mentee, the roles are being those of a learner, follower and diligent plan formulator and implementer of the learnt lessons.

Models and techniques in coaching and mentoring

Models and techniques of various nature can be applied in coaching and mentoring such as GROW model and OSCAR model of coaching and mentoring. GROW abbreviates for Goal, Reality, Options (Obstacles), and Will (Way Forward) (Othman and Yee, 2015).

According to Ives (2008), the Goal stage of the GROW model signifies the establishment of the definitive goals which are required to be achieved. This assists in the provisioning of the sense of direction and purpose to the meaningfulness of the coaching sessions. The goals are considerably different depending on the future objectives of driving success and motivational aspirations. The points of enquiry are what could be achieved and how could the coaching be properly related to the greater operational conditions. The Reality stage involves holding of discussions between the involved sides regarding the actualities of the current situation to identify the existing barriers concerning the goal achievement. The points of enquiry are the actualities of the concurrent situation and the internal and external obstacle identification methods.

Furthermore, the Options stage involves the development of exploration of existing options on part of the coachee through outside the box thinking. Finally, the Will stage implies the formulation of agreement on part of the involved personnel concerning the particularities of actions, timeframes and accountability management regarding the entire learning and development process. The points of enquiry are what could be done and when the decided upon actions could be performed, the determination of the success indicators and the scaling measures to evaluate success.

According to Jones, Armour and Potrac (2002), OSCAR model provides individuals who are in a managerial position with a flexible developmental framework to develop skills and knowledge. It includes five factors namely, the Outcome, Situation, Choices, Actions and Review of the actions (Gilbert and Whittleworth, 2009). Through the OSCAR model, individual dare encouraged in both short and long term while regularly tracking and working towards attaining their goals.

The Outcome factor highlights the actual objectives of the coachee and expectations as well. These could be long, medium or even short term based expectations desired by the coachee from the coaching session. The points of enquiry are the methods through which the success measure of this could be realised. The desired outcome visualization is the key factor. Next, the Scaling factor outlines the clarification of the desired results by the coachee.

Next, the Choices factor outlines the route options for the coach. The Actions factor involves the detailed action plan to review the various options available and generate the operational necessities of determine the future steps. Finally, the Review factor involves the ensuring of the alignment of the actions taken so far with the predetermined objectives.

References

Bearman, S., Blake-Beard, S., Hunt, L. and Crosby, F.J., 2007. New directions in mentoring. The Blackwell handbook of mentoring: A multiple perspectives approach, pp.375-395.

Bokeno, R.M., 2008. Genus of learning relationships: Mentoring and coaching as communicative interaction. Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 23(1), pp.5-8.

Bozer, G., Sarros, J.C. and Santora, J.C., 2013. The role of coachee characteristics in executive coaching for effective sustainability. Journal of Management Development, 32(3), pp.277-294.

Cushion, C., 2007. Modelling the complexity of the coaching process. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 2(4), pp.395-401.

Garvey, R., Garvey, B., Stokes, P. and Megginson, D., 2017. Coaching and mentoring: Theory and practice. Sage.

Garvey, R., Strokes, P. and Megginson, D., 2010. Coaching and mentoring: Theory and practice.

Gilbert, A. and Whittleworth, K., 2009. The Oscar Coaching Model. Lulu. com.

Horn, T.S., Bloom, P., Berglund, K.M. and Packard, S., 2011. Relationship between collegiate athletes’ psychological characteristics and their preferences for different types of coaching behavior. The Sport Psychologist, 25(2), pp.190-211.

Hudson, P., 2013. Mentoring as professional development:‘Growth for both’mentor and mentee. Professional development in education, 39(5), pp.771-783.

Ives, Y., 2008. What is' coaching'? An exploration of conflicting paradigms. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching & Mentoring, 6(2).

Jones, R.L., Armour, K.M. and Potrac, P., 2002. Understanding the coaching process: A framework for social analysis. Quest, 54(1), pp.34-48.

MacLennan, N., 2017. Coaching and mentoring. Routledge.

Othman, N. and Yee, C.S., 2015. Empowering teaching, learning, and supervision through coaching in action research. Journal of Management Research, 7(2), p.98.

Parsloe, E. and Leedham, M., 2009. Coaching and mentoring: Practical conversations to improve learning. Kogan Page Publishers.