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Mentoring and Coaching
Jovan Petkovic, Andrew Runge, Thomas Hurley
AET 560
Joseph Walters
May 28, 2015
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Mentoring and Coaching
Mentoring others requires trust and is important for employee retention, for company
alignment, and for the redesign change processes. Specific examples of where coaching and
mentoring can assist will be reviewed. The examples will include poor job performance, how
feedback to the employee would be provided, and how future behavior would be monitored for
improvement and organizational renewal.
Example
A uniformed armed security guard is tasked with greeting entering employees and
visitors into a secured federal facility, provide directions to desired offices, and direct employees
and visitors through a security screening checkpoint.
The security screening checkpoint includes the task of direction employees and visitors to
empty out their pockets into a provided plastic tray, place all bags and containers through a x-ray
machine, including the plastic tray with their pocket contents, then have the person walk through
a magnetometer to detect any further concealed metal on their person.
The poor performance observed in this example included the armed guard standing with
their back towards entering employees or visitors, while having casual conversations with other
employees that are non-work related, failing to thoroughly screen persons that did walk through
the metal detector and setting of the alarm for the presence of metal, and failing to thoroughly
observed the contents displayed on the x-ray machine.
The employee was initially provided with the verbal instructions in the performance of
their assigned task, show the assigned task performed, explained why the task needed to be
performed in the manner described, and presented with written instructions.
Mentoring
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As a coach and mentor, the employee was pulled aside, informed of the observed poor
performance observations and advised that those infractions are considered gross negligence that
are placing other persons in the facility in great harm, including his fellow co-workers. The
employee was asked if the role was reversed, how would he feel about the unsafe work
performance and infractions, and what action he/she would take with the employee.
The employee was provided with a past performance evaluation and questioned if there
was anything going on that as a supervisor he/she could be assisted with to improve his work
performance without using disciplinary action that would result in a termination.
Coaching Cycle
The coaching cycle as used in this example uses assessing, setting goals, preparing,
implementation, and reflection stages. In the assessing stage, the employee’s poor performance
was identified and measured. The setting goals stage involved the creation of steps to obtain
desired results. The preparation stage involved the planning on how to correct the poor
performance observed by the employee and how to share the information with the employee.
Implementation stage is the direct contact with the employee, presenting the observed
performance issues and addressing them as planned. The reflection stage is the review of the
outcome. (Spector, 2013, p. 41)
Example
I used to be a supervisor at a Game Stop. Every week our District Manager would come
in and tell exactly what we needed to do and point out everything that was wrong. There was no
coaching, she would just come in bark orders, make everyone angry and uncomfortable and then
leave. It created an atmosphere of hatred towards this person. Every store that I went to would
call her a particular name that is not appropriate to mention here.
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Mentoring
The mentoring in the situation, actually came from our store director. He would take as
much of the heat as he could each week, and then translate that back to the rest of the store. He
would hold meeting to see what each employee thought they could do to try and fix the problems
that were happening each week. He would utilize the ideas, and then we would create game plans
to accomplish the goals each week. This manager was level headed and able to keep the store
running with each employee, who ended up happy with their job each week. We only dreaded
the time when this district manager would come in. She eventually created enough tension that
every person I worked with, including that store director left the company.
Coaching Cycle
As a coach and mentor, this store manager strongest points: Not just being a boss, but
being a leader. He was willing to take all the negativity that the district manager would have and
was able to keep his employees happy, and the atmosphere positive. He also had patience, he
would allow his employees to come up with a plan, and with his leadership execute them so the
objectives that needed to be completed would be in a timely manner.
Summary
A reason why coaching and mentoring can be more effective is that it can be a nonabrasive method of providing direction to others in a non-threatening manner. Sometimes, direct
leaders can be a bit intimidating because it is almost natural to feel like when a manager or
supervisor is providing extra-direction, the person that he or she is providing direction to can feel
as if there is something wrong. When that direction is provided by someone who is not officially
in the employee's chain of command, the person receiving direction may be more open to trying
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new ideas, especially if it is coming from a well-respected member of the workforce who can
demonstrate why the new idea, whatever it may be, is positive in nature.
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References
Cox, E., & Jenkins, S. (2013). Coaching Understood: A Pragmatic Inquiry into the Coaching
Process. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 8(1).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1260/1747-9541.8.1.265
Spector, B. (2013). Implementing Organizational Change: Theory into Practice (3rd ed.).
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