Coaching and Mentoring are high value, high yield development options which allow you to support your HR strategy by tackling key people issues in a very focused way.

Coaching and Mentoring offers the opportunity to talk in a confidential environment and to be listened to in an open and constructive way. The coach or mentor encourages the client to focus on his or her development challenges and explore the opportunities, anxieties, barriers and feelings that change inevitably triggers. The process allows the mentee to gain insight into the current situation and, through the skill of the mentor, develop innovative, realistic solutions to key challenges.

Enhanced performance is achieved through developing skills, increasing knowledge and gaining insights. Mentees understand themselves, their colleagues and the organisational dynamics better, allowing more effective and productive performance.

We see coaching and mentoring as activities structured in a way to enhance creativity and possibility. They do not need to be neatly prescribed activities. Rather, they can be adaptable and flexible, and can be used for a range of purposes. This range includes helping coachees to:

• Absorb and work towards organisational goals
• Understand the culture of the organisation
• Develop specific competencies
• Change attitude and behaviour
• Develop insights
• Manage change in themselves and others
• Creatively confront personal challenges, crises and opportunities
• Develop and implement a career plan.

Why are coaching & mentoring so important?
What benefits can you expect from coaching & mentoring?
Starting points for coaching & mentoring
What are the aims of coaching & mentoring?
Coaching & mentoring approaches
Designing coaching & mentoring programmes

Counselling, coaching, mentoring & consulting differences & similarities

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Why are coaching & mentoring so important?

The rate of internally and externally driven change for organisations is likely to continue to increase at an exponential rate. Organisations will continue to move in the direction of not offering a 'job for life' but still wanting to attract and retain high quality staff and managers who can perform in changing circumstances. Employees will need to equip themselves with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to manage change effectively whilst in a job, and with the vision and insight to be able to manage their careers in a more proactive way.

Coaching and mentoring help both organisations and employees to address organisational change initiatives by paying full attention to the part people play in this process. Specifically, coaching and mentoring can help to achieve the following necessary elements of an organisational change process:

• Reconciling individuals' goals and attitudes with organisational goals and culture
• Providing a challenging but supportive environment for exploring options
• The opportunity for individuals to achieve real learning at all levels.

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What benefits can you expect from coaching & mentoring?

Typical benefits observed by client organisations running coaching & mentoring programmes are:

• Managers understand themselves, their colleagues and the organisational dynamics better, allowing more effective and productive relations to occur.
• Managers typically report greater clarity of vision and direction in relation to their current job role and future career path.
• There is a shift in thinking from purely operational into a more strategic mode.
• Attitude and behaviour is shifted to be more aligned with the preferred management style and working relationships are enhanced.
• When all the members of a team are coached or mentored there is a resulting shift towards greater efficiency and effectiveness.
• Team attitudes to team tasks are more focused, healthy conflict is exhibited and the group functions on a more creative level.
• When a critical mass of individuals are mentored in an organisation there is a greater alignment between the organisation's constituent parts and a movement towards a corporate feel.
• There is a greater ability to manage change and learning is more likely to become a way of life.

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Starting points for coaching & mentoring

The coaching or mentoring solution used by an organisation must be carefully chosen. It depends on a combination of the results hoped for, the people involved, the resources available and the organisation's starting point. The starting point can be defined by the pressures, opportunities and changes facing the organisation right now. For example coaching & mentoring can be used to great effect by organisations experiencing any one of the internally or externally driven environmental conditions featured below:

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What are the aims of coaching & mentoring?

Organisations may decide to use coaching or mentoring to achieve a number of aims, which are derived from the organisation's starting point, and therefore from the current needs for change and development. The diagram below illustrates the range of possible directions that mentoring can take:

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Coaching & Mentoring approaches

Once the coaching and mentoring starting point and aims have been established, the mentoring approach can be identified following the route below:

What is the purpose of the mentoring?

• PROTÉGÉ MENTORING
  For introducing new starters and finding new talent
• ISSUE-BASED COACHING and MENTORING
  Tackling and solving specific issues
• GOAL/CHANGE LED COACHING and MENTORING
  Enabling alignment to organisational goals or enabling change
• TOP TEAM COACHING and MENTORING
  Used to promote teamwork, enable goal setting and enhance communication at top team level
• SKILLS DEVELOPMENT COACHING
  Used to develop specific skills
• CAREER-BASED MENTORING
  Used to help individuals to plan their careers

What type of mentors/coaches will be used?

• INTERNAL MENTORS/COACHES
  Appropriately trained and qualified staff from inside the organisation
• EXTERNAL MENTORS/COACHES
  Specialists from outside the organisation

What mentoring format will be used?

• INDIVIDUAL COACHING/MENTORING one-to-one
• GROUP COACHING/MENTORING facilitated groups

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Designing coaching & mentoring programmes

In order to design, run and benefit from a coaching or mentoring programme those responsible for delivery need to be able to answer the following questions:

• How can coaching or mentoring support the current challenges facing your organisation?
• What are the aims of the coaching/mentoring process?
• Who needs to be coached/mentored?
• Is coaching or mentoring required?
• What are the guidelines for coaches and mentors, and coachees and mentees?
• What should the policy be on confidentiality?
• What should the policy be on referral?
• What kind of training do coaches/mentors need?
• What kind of briefing do mentees/others in the organisation need?
• How should coaches/mentors be matched?
• How should coaches and mentors contract with their coachees and mentees?
• How often should coaching/mentoring take place and for how long?
• Which coaching/mentoring tools will be most useful e.g. self-assessment questionnaires, psychometrics or 360 degree feedback?
• What activities should be monitored?
• Should and how should coaches and mentors be supervised?
• How should the process be evaluated?

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Counselling

Coaching

Mentoring

Consulting

Scope and limitations

Deals with emotional problems

Deals with performance problems and specific challenges

Deals with organisational, career or personal transitions

Addresses organisational issues predominately

Central focus

Problem centred

Task centred

Possibility centred

System centred

What is worked on?

Works on the client’s embodiment of the problem

Works on developing and selecting options for behaviour in specific situations

Works on the interface between the individual’s identity and the bigger picture

Works on the system, structure and processes within the organisation

Time frame

Past and present

Short to medium term

Past, present & future

Short to medium term

Areas for discussion

How the client feels

How the client acts

The client’s thoughts, feelings & actions

What could be improved

Who does it?

Professional 3^rd party

Line manager or professional personal coach

Professional unconnected to day to day life (off-line)

Professional 3^rd party

Areas for potential benefit

Insights

Knowledge & skills

Knowledge, skills and insights

Organisational improvement