Coaching & Mentoring
Coaching and mentoring are powerful ways of supporting individuals to develop their potential. We believe that coaching and mentoring are about mindset and organisational culture as much as specific skills. That means it works best when you are in control and largely self-sufficient. We'll support you to get there with best practice advice to set up and manage your programmes, find the right internal coaches and mentors and deliver training to start and keep them on the right track.
Our services
You'll probably have gathered by now that we make the effort to understand your particular environment and adapt our content and delivery to match your needs. However, we don't reinvent the wheel every time so you'll find details here of our standard workshops and services which give you an indication of our approach. Of course, for further information please email us or call +44(0)1488 638119. We're passionate about coaching and mentoring and happy to give general guidance over the phone or email even if you don't have a specific training requirement at this time.
Coaching
Coaching skills workshops
One day, two day and follow up sessions aimed at managers who want to improve their skills in managing, developing and motivating their teams, both individually and collectively.
"The course was excellent, well structured, well presented and
useful in all areas"
Coaching skills workshop delegate
Speed coaching for Managers
How do you make every contact with your team count? However short? Most managers struggle to juggle 'getting the job done' with developing and supporting their team. On top of this, the flatter management structures and team 'empowerment' promoted today tend to discourage micro-management and attention on the detail of what team members are doing. So how do managers support their team to move outside their comfort zones and adopt new practices which will deliver the team's targets?
This workshop takes a pragmatic and highly practical approach to enhancing team performance. It's ideal for sales managers and can dovetail into our sales training workshops to directly equip Sales Managers to support the team to adopt the skills learned.
"Very worthwhile. Learnt enhanced processes and advice on supporting the team"
Speed coaching for sales managers delegate
Mentoring
Mentoring programme support
We support organisations to design and launch internal mentoring programmes. Most organisations have minimal budgets for mentoring and don't want to end up with a programme that's complex and over-engineered so we provide the robust structure to allow you to keep it simple.
We provide good practice guidelines and support you to design and implement your programme - whether it's a small, informal 'toe in the water' or a large, formal scheme. We then tailor our standard, proven training programmes to reflect what you want your programme to deliver.
Mentoring skills training
It's important for mentors and mentees to understand not only the personal skills and approaches that create successful mentoring relationships but also the organisational framework in which these pairings take place. We provide one day, two day and follow up sessions, as well as supporting self-study packs, for both mentors and mentees. Courses can be run separately for mentors and mentees or combined. We often encourage the latter so that everyone shares in a common foundation.
"I feel more confident and knowledgeable in the area now. The
most useful parts were role playing and testing out the theories plus
the "mentoring framework" quadrant. [The trainer was] very knowledgeable
and personable, easy to understand".
Mentoring skills delegate
Our Credentials
We've been directly involved in coaching and mentoring for over a decade. Leading Edge Principal, Anna Britnor Guest, and colleague Pauline Willis, co-founded the Coaching & Mentoring Network back in 1999 to encourage information sharing and best practice - and it's still going strong today. We've written many articles on coaching and mentoring and been widely quoted in the press. Pauline has helped drive best practice adoption through roles on many standards bodies and professional associations, including the BPS and EMCC.
Zulfi Hussain, meanwhile, established British Telecom's Ethnic Minority Network E-mentoring programme in 2001 and is a major proponent of mentoring both in business and to improve communities and the wider world and Rob Hunt has a long track record of coaching and mentoring senior executives.
Over the last 10 years, we've worked with organisations large and small, public and private sector, to help them establish coaching cultures thorough their management teams and implement robust and effective mentoring programmes across their organisations.
What's the difference between coaching and mentoring?
That's probably the most commonly asked question on our coaching or mentoring courses. The literature doesn't help - some say mentoring is facilitative whilst coaching is about specific guidance, some say it is the other way round!
We have a unique model which answers this question in a simple, straightforward way and gives delegates a clear framework in which to work.
We're happy to talk you through it - just give us a call on 01488 638119.
"Excellent pre-course assignment. Thought provoking skills practice and learning exercises. Anecdotal illustrations from actual experience and lots of facilitated sharing to build trust and rapport". Coaching skills workshop delegate
"By employing your company I have achieved several objectives…the real pleasing aspect of the entire exercise was that the changes seem to happen transparently as if [team member] had changed his whole approach to work; indeed I believe this to be the case and a direct result of coaching" Sales manager
"Excellent facilitator. Fully knowledgeable in coaching and mentoring. Shared experiences which as a future mentee is extremely beneficial". Mentoring skills workshop delegate
"An excellent session from a great trainer". Speed coaching for sales managers delegate