Coaching_and_Mentoring_Assignmen

Understanding How Management Coaching and Mentoring Can Benefit Individuals and Organisations Context The context for this assignment is introducing a coaching culture into armed forces medical training. The reason for introducing a coaching culture is to help improve the pass rate for trainee medical assistants. In the current climate improving the pass rate will make financial savings for the armed services. At present the culture is target driven with minimal coaching support for trainee medical assistants. Support for the trainees tends to be specific to technical training rather than towards the whole course. The armed forces have 2200 trained medical assistants, with 5 courses of 20 trainees being undertaken over the course of one calendar year. For the pilot a team of 5 full time coaches will be attached to the trainee courses over the course of one year to measure the effectiveness of the culture change. Ensuring Best Practice In Coaching or Mentoring Practice To ensure the coaching and mentoring is effective it is important that the right people to undertake coaching are selected to lead the program. A successful coach should exhibit certain characteristics. Hill (2004 Chapter 2) Outlines basic skills of a coach as listening and questioning. Megginson and Clutterbuck (2005 Chapter 1) outlines the basic tools needed to establish a relationship with the mentoree. To summarise, the potential coach would possess the following; • The ability to build rapport and sense of purpose with the coachee. This leads to a mutual understanding of what the relationship is about, even if there is not a fixed goal • A need to clarify objectives, goals and boundaries. Once the coachee and coach have established rapport it is essential to clarify the aims of the session. The Boyatzis technique (2004) talks about Visioning to gain the mentoree’s understanding of the goal that they want to achieve. Megginson and Clutterbuck (2005 Chapter 1) establishes the ground rules for relationship success, and outlines the coaching contract. • An ability to demonstrate varied questioning techniques. Megginson and Clutterbuck (2005 Chapter 1) outlines the seven layers of dialogue. This method represents increasing depth of reflexion on the part of the mentoree and the mentor. The coach utilises these layers to build on layer by layer understanding of the mentoree’s goals, whilst managing the session and challenging views, and provoking new ideas from the mentoree. • Listening skills. This skill links closely to the mentor’s ability to utilise question techniques. Both the coach and the mentoree need to be able to listen to both what is being said, as well as what is being said between the lines in any session. The coach should be able to utilise reflexion to show their understanding of the mentoree, and dependant on how the session is going adapt the reflexion and questions. If the mentor has poor listening skills the mentoree is likely to believe the coach is disinterested in the conversation, this having a poor result on the session. • Trust and honesty. The European mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC) states it was established to promote best practice and to ensure highest possible standards are maintained in the coaching/mentoring relationship. It lays out rules concerning integrity and professionalism of the coach. Any mentor must ensure a thorough level of confidentiality, which is agreed with the mentoree at the start of the coaching process. The mentoree must have confidence that the mentor is working to these routines at all times to ensure their trust is maintained, or a poor result in the coaching process will result. The EMCC rules state a mentor must never represent themselves as anything other than they are, and that they will not make false claims are made or implied. • Effective Communication. These are the core skills we use to interact with other people in our everyday life and indeed for the rest of our lives. Also referred to as interpersonal skills, people skills or soft skills, they are the skills we use via our words, our voice and our body language to communicate our message to others. An effective coach or mentor should be able to interpret these aspects of communication as well as utilise them to gain an understanding of the mentoree’s needs. The mentor should utilise as already discussed effective questioning and listening skills to aid in effective communication with the mentoree, and ensure the conversation flows, and help the mentoree to fully participate in the process. Coaches and mentors need to ensure they respect other people’s ethical and moral beliefs (Hill 2004, P158). The coach or mentor should always be seen as without a fixed opinion of the situation. A coach or mentor with a pre-conceived opinion may push their own opinion or beliefs on the mentoree. A mentoree who does not follow the mentor’s views may close their conversation, which will result in a non honest one sided conversation. The coachee may feel frustration and as a result, the mentor, mentoree relationship will be damaged. The coach needs to deal with is inappropriate behaviour. Megginson and Clutterbuck (2005 Chapter 1P25-27) deals with establishing the grounds for relationship success. This section dealing with the contract which will include behavioural traits. Megginson and Clutterbuck (2005 Chapter 1P29) explains the need for creating an appropriate environment for coaching and mentoring. It states some questions that should be considered to establish the environment are; • How shut off from the world do we want to be' • How important is daylight' • Do we need to spread papers' • What’s the right balance between being relaxed and business-like' • Where do you normally feel most at ease' • What kind of environment makes you feel uncomfortable' Threatened' • Do you feel comfortable about being alone in a room with me'(especially important in cross gender relationships or coaching/mentoring between an adult and a child) Finally before the programme starts it is important to ensure that all parties both mentoree and management have a clear understanding of what the coaching process will achieve, and the boundaries that are in place within the process. Strategies to Overcome Barriers to Mentoring and Coaching When considering a coaching and mentoring programme, multiple barriers need to be addressed. Debra Rasmussen states in the Business in Vancouver magazine there are three common barriers surface. Junior people are often uncomfortable approaching a potential mentor. They worry that it’s too much to ask or fear possible rejection. Senior people may not see the value they can add to a mentee. Even people who mentor informally often discount the importance of what they are doing. Then there’s the statistical reality that there are simply more junior people searching for a senior person to mentor them than there are senior people. Hill (2004,P17) also discusses some of the areas that should be considered. In summary; Senior Management What is the attitude of management to the coaching process' In the military we operate a disciplined directed management process, where senior management expect to be treated different to others. The coaching process should evaluate what is required at all levels, and match what is needed to overcome any resistance from senior management to the process. A successful coach must keep an eye out for what is needed, and designed to achieve change in attitude, knowledge or skills. A coach making a mistake in this could make the process costly, and a failed endeavour. Cost Senior management will often create a barrier to coaching related to the cost of the training. A successful mentor should plan into any mentoring program an evaluation stage to ensure proof of a successful outcome. Prior to commencement of any program the mentor should in liaison with senior management clarify the full costs inc time and money to introduce the program. The mentor should where possible compare the plan against a successful previous program to justify the cost to proposed results. Coaching Participants In an environment where the premise of coaching is a new concept there may be resistance, due to negative impression from the participants of what the process seeks to achieve. With this in mind it is essential that senior management are onboard with the process, and give good briefings to participants through staff meetings and newsletters to ensure understanding of the benefits of the process. Prepare a Business Case For Using Coaching and Mentoring in Your Workplace and Suggest How Its Effectiveness Could Be Evaluated Coaching and mentoring can have positive effects to the individual and as a result the organisation. Online research via “The Sales Academy” states the following in regard to coaching and mentoring; For the individual what is coaching and mentoring for' • To develop emotional intelligence- top performers are distinguished by their self- motivation, self-awareness, self regulation and ability to influence others • To identify and improve critical skills and know-how • To build high performance Senior Management Teams • To be inspired and motivated • to obtain commitment to improve a situation • To facilitate the sharing of thoughts and concerns • To clarify aspirations • To resolve relationship and conflict issues at senior management level • To develop and retain leadership talent • To support newly appointed or promoted managers who have moved into a more senior, or different role to come to grips with the dimension and direction of the new role • To develop presence and personal power • To identify and manage critical tasks and relationships • To Improve performance • To Increase motivation levels • To develop good relationship skills • To develop leadership skill • To improve Interpersonal skills • To empower employees • To progressing projects • To solve problems • To developing careers • To overcome conflicts • To motivating staff • To brainstorm • To reinforcing learning • To initiate change • To overcoming fear of change For the Organisation the benefits are' As a result of a positive coaching experience, clients develop their potential and apply it productively in the workplace. The more they practice their new skills, the better they get. Experience shows that after undertaking Executive Coaching clients tackle bigger challenges with more skill and confidence. They also always achieve better results for their organisations and for themselves.   And because coaching is an investment in the client's own capability there is an extraordinary return on coaching fees and it continues to pay back year after year.   An organization's competitive advantage rests squarely on its ability to rapidly develop leadership capability throughout the entire workforce. Coaching is probably the most powerful vehicle available for achieving sustained results and building organizational capability. Coaching helps you increase the level of contribution within the organization and at the same time helps the individual grow and develop.   Whether the key commercial goal is maximising productivity, improving bottom-line revenues or growing sales, the best strategic plan remains just a plan until individual people understand it and value the goal enough to make their best contribution. Within the armed forces medical branch the role of coaching and mentoring is to provide a long term change to the current training support culture whilst improving overall performance. Within current armed forces medical training other strategies include set training packages with assessment systems in place. A major advantage to the coaching and mentoring system is that all levels of the medical training team will be involved in the process, so experienced trainers can gain assistance to increase their skills, as well as the trainee’s within the coaching and mentoring process. Since this is planned to be gradually phased in, it will become an embedded routine rather than a one shot wonder. An important part in the mentoring process beyond the planning and implementation is evaluation, this is planned through; • Staff feedback • Comparison within the process on previous years statistical review of results. Trainee Pass to Fail Results Currently armed forces medical assistant training consists of 5 courses of 20 students yearly. The average cost to train 1 medical assistant is £100,000 in a calendar year, this being divided over 4 periods. In each course there can be on average 1-2 failures in any period, with a requirement as a result to be moved back to the previous period. A proposed loss of up to £50,000 per session. Proposed total loss over the training period £200,000. Cost For a Coaching and Mentoring Program For the planned coaching and mentoring program it is planned that 5 coaches are hired on a one year contract for the test period with an option to extend. The cost for the program will be; Initial Training £6000 Per Coach • Wages £20,000 per Year • Travel Budget £500 Per Year (Business Can claimed from Inland revenue) Total • Wages £100000 HMS Collingwood have established a similar program for trainee Weapons Engineers with a pass improvement of 30% per course, a similar result is expected over the assessed period, This will generate an expected improvement of £15,000 per session. At end of year one once the coaching ethos has been taken onboard within the armed forces medical training environment the number of coaches will be reduced, whilst training staff are trained to replace the coaches. Staff Feedback Every four months staff and trainee feedback should be obtained through questioning and survey, to seek methods to improve coach and mentor process. A second way to evaluate the success of the coaching and mentoring programme is to conduct ongoing review of the pass rate percentage over the course of the period against the previous year when coaching and mentoring was not taking place. To summarise the recommendations are as follows; • Develop a coaching and mentoring programme with set objectives, and methods to measure effectiveness. • Training staff and students to receive in house briefings on the coaching and mentoring process. • Recruit 5 Coaches and train to appropriate level • Coaches to be allocated to medical courses and undertake fortnightly coaching sessions with trainees • Arrange feedback meetings to discuss effectiveness of the process. • Results to be evaluated as planned to confirm effectiveness. Biblography Peter Hill, Concepts of Coaching – A guide for managers, 2004, ILM London David Meggison & David Clutterbuck – Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring 2005 Elsevier Ltd http://www.thesalesacademy.com