In thinking about potential data sources for your TNA, you may have considered the options depicted in Figure 2. You may also have found yourself drawing on more informal sources of information, such as your own judgement and instincts about priorities, and your own experience of what works well within the particular context you have chosen. You might think that the formal methods depicted in Figure 2 are relatively intensive in terms of time and effort, and that the pragmatics of organisational life sometimes require a ‘quick and dirty’ approach instead. However, if you do have to do TNA work more quickly, be prepared for robust challenge from organisational stakeholders who want to know what data your work is based on. Training and development interventions can be expensive, and sponsors will need to be persuaded that the design is based on a trustworthy analysis of the organisation and its needs.
Throughout the previous activity, you may have started to wonder whether training is always the best answer to an organisation’s or an individual’s capability gaps. Traditionally, HRD professionals have reached for the training ‘solution’, almost irrespective of what the performance ‘problem’ actually is. This assumption is increasingly being questioned; and this is the focus of the next section.
The key learning point to be derived from this exercise is that the increased agency of learners is likely to result in decreased control for HRD professionals, and hence the organisation. This decrease in control relates both to the identification of needs, and to the proposed ways of tackling these needs. Although critical and experiential theorists love the shift from training to learning, from skills to skilfulness, etc., the practical and political dynamics of organisational life mean that it might not always be viable. Organisational stakeholders may not embrace the self-managing, self-monitoring aspects of the (empowered) learning discourse, however attractive the rhetoric of ‘the learning organisation’. Two areas that get more complex (and hence require more nuanced work on the part of HRD professionals) as we move from training to learning are: facilitation and evaluation.
A popular way of distinguishing between coaching and mentoring is to identify that mentors usually have more experience than the person whom they are mentoring, while this is less often true in coaching. However, this is complicated by the fact that many successful coaches, particularly executive coaches, are, or have been, successful senior executives themselves and draw on this experience in their work as coaches.
There is a continuing debate between coaches about how much experience they need of the work context of those whom they are coaching, and how much they can rely on the generic skills of facilitating and supporting learning, which you will practise later in this course. In relation to mentoring, however, there is no real debate about the importance of the mentor having relevant workplace or other experience; this is normally assumed to be necessary.
You may have mentioned in your own definitions that the techniques and skills of coaching and mentoring can also be similar; for example, in terms of goal setting, questioning and exploring options for action. Part 2 of this activity will explore similarities and differences a bit further.
In the video, the practitioners mention the following differences and similarities:
Research consistently shows that the key ingredient for the effective coaching lies in the quality of the relationship between coach and coachee. Being able to build good rapport is therefore paramount, as this will facilitate the other key stages in the process, including the setting of realistic and achievable goals.