The single line definitions for Coach and Mentor are; ‘A Coach is a person who teaches and trains.’, whereas, ‘A mentor is an experienced and trusted adviser.’ On a regular basis, especially in the business world, there is very little understanding about these two being different from each other and we many a times see the usage of these two terms interchangeably. And due to this apprehension more than often a mentor is expected to do a coaches’ job and vice versa.
The key to decide whether to go for Coaching or Mentoring, is first understanding your goal. Once the organization is clear with its objective, it can go for either of the two. Let us understand more about coaching and mentoring and their differences.
Business Coach:
Basically, the job of a Coach is to focus on particular skills whilst finding the areas of improvement. They often adapt the task based approach in order to achieve specific goals in a given timeline. A business coach usually identifies and prioritizes goals and helps in choosing the right path to achieve them. The various aspects that a business coach may cover are Communication skills, leadership, team building etc.
A coach openly challenges the current situation of the business, questions its choices and calls forth the organization to take a closer look at their approach, thus bringing in a fresh perspective to the business plan. He/she also guides the organization in making way for relevant growth strategies and thus helps the businesses become more accountable, goal driven and competitive.
Mentor:
A mentor is usually a senior person having very high level of knowledge, experience and expertise and he provides advice and guidance to the mentee with lesser experience than him/her. Mentor guides the mentee with choosing among various career options, in gaining confidence and improving interpersonal skills. In short, a mentor helps mentee with both personal and professional development. The relationship between them is typically informal and in such cases it is not time restricted. Whereas, in sometimes this relationship could also be a formal one, thus here the mentor needs to follow a structured approach and set realistic expectations.
Mentors possess a very positive approach, which makes it easier for the mentees to discuss their concerns with them and gradually overcome their problems. They also help employees in gaining confidence in their work and developing certain skills for value addition. Confident and skillful employees definitely are an asset for companies therefore more and more companies these days are investing in good Mentor Program to enhance their workforce quality.
Mentoring and Coaching Programs at RA Consulting:
We at RA Consulting, provide highly competent Mentoring and Coaching Programs. Our Mentoring programs have guided quite a lot of startups in understanding and attaining their goals, also we have coached many a teams in established organizations, in the domains like marketing, sales, communication, leadership and much more, in order to upskill them. We offer tailor-made programs as per the company’s requirement on Coaching as well as mentoring. You may reach out to us at marketing@raconsulting.in and we will be happy to help.