COACHING
Chtc provides coaching and mentoring so that a particular focus can be put on your needs, whether it is a learning programme for which you are the only participant or whether it is to personally enhance or expand existing skills or gain new skills. Coaching and/or Mentoring focuses on the aspect of 'HOW to do the job' rather than 'WHAT is to be done' in your work. Your Coach will act as a tutor or trainer, wheras your Mentor acts as an advisor.
In-house and external training often provide 'generic' - and sometimes standardised - courses that may provide you with the theories or knowledge to do the job. However, they do not focus on the culture that your organisation embraces. Coaching/mentoring helps you to understand how your skills can expand as a result of capacity building training and helps take 'theory' and mould it so it truly relates to your practical day-to-day work and your personality.
The Role of the Coach/Mentor is to be
- interested in you
- help you grow in confidence
- help you to reflect on the content of the training or on the job task(s) and offer ways of connecting the theory with practice
- help you apply what you have learned to everyday tasks
- help you to track your progress in the learning cycle from 'unconscious competence' through to 'conscious competence'
- help you to embrace change as a positive outcome of learning about yourself and your job
Not everyone is cut out to be a manager, so if you are thinking about whether or not to become a 'manager' then a particular focus of coaching/mentoring can be to help you examine the importance of moving up into a management post or staying at your present level and developing your skills in a way that enhances job satisfaction.
Carole Haigh is trained as a Life Coach and is presently untertaking training in the Advanced Dip[loma in Life Coaching.
Updated June 2010