Coaching y mentoring

El vídeo de hoy, para subir un poco la adrenalina, es de The Clash, tocando "Janie Jones"


An excerpt from "Empowerment thru coaching"

Two of the most widely and known practiced strategies for personal development are coaching and mentoring. Right now, two very fashionable terms and commonly in the mouth of almost all the professionals who integrate our companies. But, do we have an accurate idea of the existing difference between those two models?

Coaching is a process sometimes led by an immediate superior, acting as a coach, who tries to improve the performance of someone at his workplace, with the intention of reaching some shared goals. Sometimes, large companies have a whole team of full-time coaches. Sometimes coaching is led by external individuals.

In some of our clients, large IT companies for instance, both approaches exist in parallel.

Mentoring, on the other hand, is a process by means of which someone with more experience, the mentor, shows, advises, guides and helps with the personal and professional development of his interlocutor, the coachee, or pupil, investing time, energy and knowledge.

The situations where it’s required to apply a process of coaching and / or of mentoring are similar enough. The great difference is that while the first one is more adapted to developping some already existing skills in the person, mentoring´s main goal is the grabbing, retention and development of the existing talent inside the company.

But, what are the tangible benefits of mentoring for the company?
People are kept more positive, participative and integrated. It heightens performance, productivity and the motivation of the interlocutors and, consistently, generates a major attraction and retention of the personnel. Besides, we can reduce the cost of training and development because the individuals learn at their own workplace.

A mentoring program, when the process is satisfactory, can be extended to other individuals in the company. As a general rule, the recruitment is often simpler, as that process shows the commitment that the company has with the individuals who integrate it.


Frase del día
312. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Mark Twain