Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Differences between Mentoring and Coaching

Differences between Mentoring and Coaching

Area

Mentor

Coach

Focus On

Individual

Performance

Role

Facilitator with no agenda

Specific agenda

Relationship

Self selecting

Comes with the job

Source of influence

Perceived value

Position

Personal returns

Affirmation/learning

Teamwork/performance

Arena

Life

Task related

   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Focus

Mentors in either a formal mentoring program or informal relationship focus on the person, their career and support for individual growth and maturity while the coach is job-focused and performance oriented.

A mentor is like a sounding board, they can give advice but the partners is free to pick and choose what they do. The context does not have specific performance objectives. A coach is trying to direct a person to some end result, the person may choose how to get there, but the coach is strategically assessing and monitoring the progress and giving advice for effectiveness and efficiency.

Mentoring is biased in your favour. Coaching is impartial, focused on improvement in behaviour.

In summary, the mentor has a deep personal interest, personally involved—a friend who cares about you and your long term development. The coach develops specific skills for the task, challenges and performance expectations at work.

Role

Mentoring is a power free, two-way mutually beneficial relationship. Mentors are facilitators and teachers allowing the partners to discover their own direction.

"They let me struggle so I could learn."

"Never provided solutions—always asking questions to surface my own thinking and let me find my own solutions."

A coach has a set agenda to reinforce or change skills and behaviours. The coach has objective/goals for each discussion. In our study, the top four words chosen to best describe their mentor's dominant style were—friend/confidant, direct, logical, questioner.

Relationship

Even in formal mentoring programs the partners and mentor have choices—to continue, how long, how often, and our focus. Self-selection is the rule in informal mentoring relationships with the partners initiating and actively maintaining the relationship. If I'm you mentor, you probably picked me. In an organization your coach hired you. Coaching comes with the job, a job expectation, in some organizations a defined competency for managers and leaders.

Source of influence

The interpersonal skills will determine the effectiveness of influence for both coach and mentor. The coach also has an implied or actual level of authority by nature of their position, ultimately they can insist on compliance. A mentor's influence is proportionate to the perceive value they can bring to the relationship. It is a power free relationship based on mutual respect and value for both mentor and partners. Your job description might contain "coach" or you might even have that job title—it's just a label or expectation. "Mentor" is a reputation that has to be personally earned, you are not a mentor until the partners says you are.

Return

The coach's returns are in the form of more team harmony, and job performance. The mentoring relationship is reciprocal. There is a learning process for the mentor from the feedback and insights of the partners.

The ability to look at situations from a different perspective, I am a Generation X and he is in his 50's.

The relationship is a vehicle to affirm the value of and satisfaction from fulfilling a role as helper and developer of others. Mentors need not be an all-knowing expert—such a position could be detrimental. In our study the most significant thing the mentor did was "listened and understood me" and, "built my confidence and trust in myself, empowered me to see what I could do."

Arena

A great deal of informal mentoring is occurring, with at risk youth, in our schools, as well as in volunteer, not for profit and for profit organizations. If I am your mentor chances are you have chosen me to be of help with some aspect of your life. Coaching even in the sporting arena is task related—improvement of knowledge, skills or abilities to better perform a given task. Mentors are sought for broader life and career issues. The partners is proactive in seeking out mentors and keeping the relationship productive. The coach crates the need for discussion and is responsible for follow up and holding others accountable.

Conclusion

Coaching and Mentoring is not the same thing. Our results and experience support the conclusion that mentoring is a power free, two-way mutually beneficial learning situation where the mentor provides advice, shares knowledge and experiences, and teaches using a low pressure, self-discovery approach. Teaching using an adult learning versus teacher to student model and, being willing to not just question for self discovery but also freely sharing their own experiences and skills with the partners. The mentor is both a source of information/knowledge and a Socratic questioner. If I am your coach you probably work for me and my concern is your performance, ability to adapt to change, and enrolling you support in the vision/direction for our work unit.

If there is still doubt in your mind visualize how the conversation and relationship would be different if your manager scheduled a coaching discussion at 2:00 this afternoon to discuss your roles, responsibilities and expectations, versus if you called your mentor to discuss some things that you have been thinking about.


 

Monday, March 15, 2010

Scope/ Needs Analysis (e-learning)

Scope/ Needs Analysis (e-learning)
Here are a few questions which can help you to do a scope analysis.

  • What is expected of the online course?
  • Are there remote students for the course?
  • Will it replace or supplement existing training?
  • What will the project cost?
  • Is an online course the best choice?
  • Who will continue maintenance?
  • Will there be regular updates and changes? Should it be designed to incorporate changes easily?
  • Who will finally approve the course? What are the expectations?

Thursday, March 11, 2010

The Beauty of English Language Undone


We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England. We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a Guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English could be running the danger of being called verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?
I would like to add that if people from Poland are called poles then people from Holland should be holes and the Germans germs!!!