Coaching and Mentoring
Posted by Melanie in 
Chris Brooks and I led a lively facilitated discussion last night at AITD’s NSW professional development evening. It was inspiring to hear the level of knowledge and experience in the room. Lots of bright ideas and tons of interpretations, views and ongoing questions.
One of the pervading issues revolved around trying to tease coaching and mentoring apart. Perhaps one of the great learnings from the evening were:
- coaching and mentoring are about the learner, not what we call the initiative
- fundamentally we still need a needs analysis to identify the issue and the best approach
- mentoring involves coaching conversations and coaching may use mentoring
- there are more similarities than differences
- each organisation needs to contextualise their own definition of coaching and mentoring
- coaching and mentoring need a structure and process to enhance effectiveness
- evaluation is likely to be soft (eg feedback and observation) unless there are specific outcomes which are measurable
- the stickability and practicality of the learning is dependent on defining clear outcomes and expectations, the level of commitment of the parties and the capability of the mentor/coach to empower the learner
- educating the coaches and mentors is critical to the success of the program
In terms of read more
Learning and Quality
On a networking site I belong to there was a great question recently so I thought I’d post the question as well as one of the top answers.
Q
Anyone with experience applying quality principles to the learning process?
Looking for ideas on how quality can be used to reduce time, waste and variability in how people learn.
What I’m looking for are more specific examples such as used Kaizen to reduce classroom time by 20%. Used six sigma to measure learning outcomes. Used lean principles … read more
Action Learning
In my role as President of the NSW Division of the Australian Institute of Training & Development, I am involved in the wide array of learning that takes lace in the adult world, especially at work. I stumbled upon this short paper by Bob Dick and have reproduced it here as it makes quite clear what Action Learning / Research is about. It’s an area which is gaining favour these days especially after the visit by Michael Marquardt. read more
Success is …
“Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successfulâ€
Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965
Medical Missionary, Theologian, Musician, and Philosopher
“Success is simply a matter of luck.
Ask any failureâ€
Earl Wilson, 1907-
Newspaper columnist
“The key to success is to focus our
conscious mind on things we desire, not things we fearâ€
Brian Tracy
Trainer, Speaker, Author, Businessman
“Successful people are successful
because they form the habits of doing
those things that failures don’t like to doâ€
Albert Gray
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