I am looking into mentoring and coaching, what is the difference and how can it help my organisation?
The key difference between mentoring and coaching is that mentors can give you guidance and answers to problems using their experience, whereas coaches get you to think in a way that allows you to come up with the answer. Mentoring can help in situations where experienced advice is required to teach new skills for an unfamiliar or new role and provide ongoing advice and support. Coaching focuses on motivating an individual to reach their potential, overcome problems themselves and perform to the best of their ability. In this way it helps the organisation as they have key members of staff working to their capacity. Organisations always need individuals who are skilled at achieving results through others. This is even more the case in times of economic difficulty. Staffing levels may be reduced and work patterns changed, meaning teams are left coping with the after effects of change. Managers who are able to coach their staff are also more likely to adapt to change quickly and overcome
