1. Coaching is a distinct, proven and successful strategy that bridges the path between
the manager and non-key personnel (member of a manager’s team) to gain a win-win
solution however difficult the situation might seem to be. The key element of
coaching mechanism for success, better performance and motivation is asking self-
realization questions so that the non-key personnel gets to agree/ self-realize what
manager intends to communicate about his/her performance. Coaching is not
training, councelling, mentoring or councelling and is significantly different from all
the rest of them. It is a craft and if handled subtly brings the desired result and in all
probabilities avoids conflict between the manager and non-key personnel especially
during an appraisal schedule. Most often out of every 10 appraisals at least 1 tends to
get escalated to higher up(s). It only demonstrates to the higher up(s) the inability of
the manager to handle conflicting situations though the management knows that the
manager in question is correct in his rating mechanism. In the process, the escalation
might tell upon the appraisal of the manager himself.
Coaching very well serves as a solution to avoid conflicts. As a matter of fact, if the
questions are asked as described within the coaching mechanism, there should
ideally be no room for disagreements or aggravated disagreements better termed as
conflicts. This triggers the thought of feedback in our minds. Often appraisals are
thought by both managers and non-key personnel as feedback. On the contrary,
appraisal is a tool to understand the performance of non-key personnel in terms of
actual delivery against set standards. Most of the companies compare actual delivery
of each non-key personnel against the average team performance. Coaching is a
method of feedback but does not sound like feedback or any such thing associated
thereof.
Some people tend to use the terms coaching, mentoring, and training
interchangeably. However, as I said earlier each of them is significantly different
from the other.
Mentoring is often thought of as the transfer of wisdom from a wise and trusted
teacher. He/she helps to guide a person’s career, normally in the upper reaches of
the organization. However, this perception is starting to change as organizations are
now implementing mentoring at all levels of the company's structure. Mentor comes
from the age of Homer, in whose Odyssey; Mentor is the trusted friend of Odysseus
left in charge of the household during Odysseus's absence. Origin of Mentoring -
(Greek 1699; French 1749; and English 1750).

2. Councelling is professional guidance in resolving personal conflicts and emotional
problems. It is more of a medical term mostly around Psychology and comes from
times starting 1175–1225.
Training is about teaching or instructing a particular skill or knowledge and is
normally given in a formal environment. And during the course of training the
trainer speaks mostly and the personnel listens. The idea is that the trainee listens,
understands and eventually delivers the required performance.
Coaching, on the other hand, is about increasing an individual's knowledge and
thought processes by means of self realization in association with his actual
performance. It creates a supportive environment that develops critical thinking
skills, ideas, and behaviors about performance in the areas of productivity, quality,
value addition and process re-engineering. The main difference between coaching
and training is that the former is normally done in real time every first time till the
last and is an ongoing process! The coach uses actual performance reports to help
the personnel increase his or her performance. While with training, learning is
performed either within a classroom or on the floor (on the system). Mentoring is
more career developing in nature, while training and coaching are more task or
process orientated. Also, mentoring relies on the mentor's specific knowledge and
wisdom, while coaching and training relies on facilitation and developmental skills.
Although there are these differences, you could say that the three are synergistic and
complementary, rather than mutually exclusive as most people would agree that a
good coach trains and mentors, a good trainer coaches and mentors, and a good
mentor trains and coaches.
A performance coach is also a:
 Leader - who sets the example and becomes a role model.
 Facilitator - is able to instruct a wide verity of material.
 Team Builder - pulls people into a unified team.
 Peace Keeper - acts as a mediator.
 Pot Stirrer - brings controversy out in the open.
 Devil's Advocate - raises issues for better understanding.
 Cheerleader - praises people for doing great.
 Counselor - provides personal feedback that is off the work.
For debates/arguments please write to me at harnoorsanjeev@rediffmail.com with
subject line reading “The Automobile Project Incident”.
Please keep your data ready!