Coaching is always personal and one-to-one. However, coaching driven within organizations should meet both individual and organizational goals. I would like to get views on how the coaching engagement is conducted and opinions on whether organizational needs should be included in such engagements.
From India, Pune
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There are four things we certainly have to understand before deciding whether to provide coaching to employees or not. From a management point of view, there is a huge difference between counseling, coaching, managing, and mentoring.

Understanding the Four Aspects

Before making any decision related to employee skills and coaching, one must consider these four aspects. Let's understand these four simple steps that help enhance your business:

Managing

"Managing your employees means damaging your employees." Never try to manage your employees by pointing out their mistakes. When you tell your employee about his or her mistake/problem, you are reducing their inspiration. It kills their power of taking ownership, initiative, and responsibility. It will never solve their problem; instead, it will increase it. So, never talk about their problem. Managing is only required in discipline issues. Never try to manage your employees' skills and habits. Try to use their skills and habits positively.

Mentoring

This works only in skill deficit issues. If you have an employee who knows what to do, where to do it, why, when, and how to do it, but is not willing to do it, providing skill training can damage their performance, as they lack the internal willpower to do the work. Don’t tell a solution to your employees if they already know the solution; it will damage your relationship. Mentoring is all about functional training.

Counseling

It is the best way to interact with your employees and understand their concerns about a particular problem. If your employee has a problem, just ask them about it; don't tell them the problem. Telling the problem is outside-in, and asking the problem is inside-out. "Asking" always solves problems, while "telling" creates problems. Ask your employee questions like, "Why do you think this defect is occurring?" or "Where do you think the real problem is?" They will provide answers to all your questions.

Coaching

Counseling reveals the real problem of your employee, and through coaching, you can solve that problem in the future. Coach your employees by increasing their willingness. Ask them for the solution: "What do you think we can do to remove the defect?" "What are your top three ideas to remove the defect?" "What changes would you like to bring into your life?" Ask about their experiences, knowledge, and information. When they start speaking, it increases responsibility, ownership, and initiative. Involvement is directly proportional to commitment; when they provide the solution, they are more committed because it is their solution, not yours. Now, increasing their willingness will be very easy. When your employees are willing to help solve problems, you don't have to focus on the solution.

Coaching is the process of asking questions that are solution-oriented.

Find more details on:

https://youtu.be/GLCqg8etTWI

From India, Gurgaon
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Dear Amitraj, I do not know what to write about the definitions that you have invented. What is the source of your information? If you had provided it, it would have helped us to understand how these wrong notions have crept into your mind.

Managing: Your opening statement is quite a sweeping one. You say that "Managing your employees means damaging your employees." Managing need not be just "telling." Managing is also about giving the right job to the right person. It also involves the management of resources. The very first lesson of management teaches us that the five basic functions of management are planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. Do you have evidence to prove that these basic functions "damage one's employees"?

Mentoring: It appears that you do not have an iota of understanding about mentoring. Mentoring is not about providing solutions to workplace problems. A mentor need not be a solution provider. Mentoring is not for building skills among subordinates. You say that when a junior employee knows how to do something and if you tell him/her what to do, then it is mentoring. This is against the very concept of mentoring as explained in Wikipedia.

I have conducted training on how to establish a mentoring program in the company a couple of times. To refer to my past replies on this subject, you may refer to the following links:

https://www.citehr.com/523760-mentor...ml#post2222360

a) Assessment of the ppt on mentoring:

https://www.citehr.com/60452-mentoring.html#post621606

b) How to establish a mentoring program in the company:

https://www.citehr.com/136301-traine...tml#post578667

c) Observation on the Mentoring program:

https://www.citehr.com/152868-mentor...tml#post758782

Coaching: You have defined it as a process of asking questions that are solution-oriented. However, this is against the definition of coaching given in Wikipedia.

Counselling: No comments as I have not read sufficient books on the subject.

Additional Comments: The following link provides exhaustive information on Coaching and Mentoring:

Everything you ever wanted to know about coaching and mentoring | The Coaching and Mentoring Network

As stated earlier, I have helped my clients in establishing mentoring programs. To handle the assignments, I have read many books on mentoring. However, I wish to quote two books. Your views are totally contrary to what is being said on the above website and in the following books:

The Mentoring Manager by Mr. Gareth Lewis, Pitman Publishing

Coaching, Mentoring and Managing, A Career Guidebook by Micki Holiday, Published by Career Press, Inc


Gentleman, I was appalled at the assertion with which you have stated your views. For your convenience, I have attached one handbook on Mentoring. Go through it. The sooner you remove your misconceptions, the better!

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

From India, Bangalore
Attached Files (Download Requires Membership)
File Type: pdf Complete Guidelines for Mentoring.pdf (119.3 KB, 228 views)

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Dear Amitraj, The YouTube presentation at the link you have provided is by Vivek Bindra. Did you attend his lecture? Did you do any independent research to verify whether what Vivek has professed is correct? In this day and age, when Google Search provides us with information, it is essential to fact-check what someone says.

Difference Between Coaching and Mentoring

For example, I looked into the difference between Coaching and Mentoring. Please take a look at http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/...chrpt_0102.pdf. Kindly also refer to <link outdated-removed> to understand the ASK and Tell quadrant.

Regards

From United Kingdom
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This is a most entertaining thread. I have never seen such outrageous ideas pretending to be wisdom. I would suggest to all the readers of this thread to discard the ideas put forward by Amritraj. They will end up doing enormous damage to the company and the business. I am happy Dinesh has already given a detailed explanation on the matter.
From India, Mumbai
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nathrao
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Those who post replies need to be careful—wrong replies can cause more damage to someone who accepts the content, especially in a professional forum like Citehr.

Differences Between Coaching and Mentoring

Many people with superficial knowledge tend to confuse coaching and mentoring as being the same. One fundamental difference that is vital is that coaching is target-oriented, whereas mentoring is relationship-oriented.

Other significant differences include the fact that coaching is performance-oriented, while mentoring is development-oriented.

It is better not to comment if one is not sure about the topic in question.

From India, Pune
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Dear Mr Simhan,
Thanks for clarifying further and sharing two important links. Important one is "Mentoring and Coaching – An Overview". It is of immence use to me for my training purposes. Hope Amitraj goes through these two links.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar

From India, Bangalore
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Here is one more useful link on Coaching Engagement, which is the query that has not been answered yet. http://insights.ccl.org/wp-content/u...CoachsView.pdf found at https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourc...%20engagements
From United Kingdom
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If one is not sure about the topic, its meaning, its impact on the reader (especially a young, ignorant reader who is yet to understand the realities of life), postings from persons like Amitraj will cause more damage. It is high time a senior moderator goes through the postings and filters them before they go online. That will be my humble request to CiteHR Management. Let this not become another LinkedIn, where people drop their posts and go away merrily!
From India, Bengaluru
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While I really appreciate your "research/detective" work that's right on point, Saswata Banerjee, I wonder where things are moving. Do we need to do such due diligence checks now every time we respond to postings of faceless/detail-less members? I wish there's some way to put checks on such guys so that the genuine members who really need advice/suggestions from this Forum are not affected.

Regards,
TS

From India, Hyderabad
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Dear Mr. Bhaskar, At least I do not get convinced with the views of a Super Moderator like you. I wonder if there is any basis for your presumption that Mr. Pragnesh is "not at all seeing the reply posted on the thread."

I wonder further what you meant to convey—whether to take the contents of the query as negative in nature or Mr. Pragnesh as a negative person—by your statement, "Normally, I used to tell my colleagues to be away from negative people. They are smart enough to make others negative, and they will move ahead on their own way. It is up to us to decide which path to take. If we mix sugar and sand together, the ants will take the sugar and leave the sand. Like that, we must choose materials that are good and beneficial to mankind and leave harmful and negative substances available on social media."

Irrespective of the fact that Mr. Pragnesh's account remained dormant for about 3 years, his query was not dormant or very old. He posted the query only in September 2015.

The query reads, "Coaching is always personal and one-to-one. However, coaching within organizations should meet both individual and organizational goals. I would like to get views on how coaching engagements are conducted and whether organizational needs should be included in such engagements."

To me, the query is quite thought-provoking, and the views of the readers can enlighten the members. Therefore, as many views as possible from the members can definitely enhance the knowledge and capabilities of the members. So, on that count, your views cannot be understood as negativity towards the query or as harmful and negative substance to be left untouched. In that way, only your views can be considered negative, tending to discourage members from posting further views on the query.

If you wanted to convey that the author, Mr. Pragnesh, was negative-minded, I find it hard to accept that as well. I don't believe the author should start commenting frequently on the views of the members to avoid making the thread unwieldy. There is nothing wrong if a person keeps track of the views of the members on his query to form his own opinion or to clarify his concept. We should not forget that the query is only two months old, and not many members have contributed to arrive at a definite opinion, let alone the author.

Views such as those in the concluding part of your contribution can only discourage members from posting further thought-provoking views and may be seen as a negative approach, which aligns with your thinking, like, "They are smart enough to make others negative and they will move ahead on their own way."

PLEASE DON'T MIND MY FRANK OPINION ON YOUR POST. RATHER, IT WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU REVIEW YOUR OWN CONTRIBUTION TO HELP MEMBERS PROVIDE MORE THOUGHT-PROVOKING CONTRIBUTIONS ON MR. PRAGNESH'S QUERY. OTHERWISE, DISCUSSION OF YOUR OWN CONTRIBUTION MAY CAUSE THE MAIN ISSUE OF THE ORIGINAL QUERY TO BE LOST IN OBLIVION.

Regards

From India, Delhi
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