In order to match the changing circumstances and challenges the think-tank of the new age organization while building its organizational structure adopts the flexibility and responsiveness as the key objective. The principal holds equally well, obviously, at the time of strategizing organization renewal for the old economy sector as the industry is opening up every alternative day and the pressure is building up due to the advent of competition. The vision of a learning organization model involves creating a team and structure based on continuous assessment and improvement of the deliverables so that the human resource potential is capitalized to the maximum. Days are fast moving away from individual-oriented decision making and unit-wise accountability to the group or team accountability. The key imperative of such decision-making system is obviously an open communications culture of the organization.
The guiding factor to percolate such system is coaching and mentoring. There are both similarities and differences between coaching and mentoring. Coaching is primarily used when there is specific goal for improving skills and performance of an employee. However mentoring helps an employee to extend general guidance, to set and achieve goals, to make decisions or facilitate problem solving and handle the career development process. Thus, mentoring has its wider spectrum of coverage than coaching which is solely about employee performance. So while it is desirable that an immediate supervisor to coach an employee, a mentor is best not to be from the hierarchy. |
