Coca Cola Case

Introduction Mentoring is one of those programs adopted by the companies to assist the employees in developing their leadership capabilities. “Mentoring is an attempt to transfer experience and expertise from experienced individuals in an organization to the less experienced” (Gregson, 1993, p. 19). Most of the cases it has been used for fast catching the work environment by the employees. Gregson (1993, p. 19) elaborate the process indicating that by this activity senior manager overseas the activity and performance of a more junior colleague who is allocated for fast development. According to Scandura, Tejeda, Werther, & Lankau (1996, p. 50), in the mentoring process, mentors speedup nurturing environments wherein protégés may grow faster and more professional than their peers and are therefore better prepared to compete in the organization and as leaders. This gives a clear indication that the process is ought to give strength of the company by having a valuable human capital. In 2011, Coca-cola becomes the number one world’s most valuable brand by Interbrand’s analysis (Interbrand, 2011). It is not only because of their product offering to the mass people but also their renowned corporate practice. Human resources plays a vital role in Coca-cola’s strategic decision implementation. Similar to other big industry leaders, Coca-Cola also have mentoring program in their management practice. So, as a world’s number one valuable brand it is interesting to see, how they are working on this program Coca-Cola Company in brief With a mission to strive for refresh the world, inspire moments of optimism and happiness, create value and make a difference (Mission Statement by Coca-Cola Global), Coca-Cola started its non-alcoholic beverage product offerings on 1886 in Atlanta, USA. Since than Coca-cola is one of the most renowned company in

the world, leading the soft drink sales. Coca-Cola produces and distributes a number of brands in the United States and internationally. The company also produces and markets many fruit juices and other non-soda beverages. The Coca-Cola Company is based in Atlanta, Georgia. Coca-Cola’s soft drinks include its flagship product Coca-Cola which is popularly known as Coke, Diet Coke, Tab, Sprite, Fanta, Fresca, Mello Yello, and Barq’s root beer. The company’s non-soda beverages include Minute Maid fruit juices, PowerAde sports drinks, and Nestea iced tea drinks (Muris, Scheffman & Spiller 1993). In 1986 The Coca-Cola Company consolidated all of its non-franchised U.S. bottling operations as Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. The new company began acquiring independent bottling companies, a venture that grew into the world’s largest bottler of soft drinks by 1988. While Coca-Cola Enterprises distributes over half of all Coca-Cola products in the United States, small franchise businesses continue to bottle, can, and distribute the company’s drinks worldwide. In 1987 the Coca-Cola Company was listed in the prestigious Dow Jones Industrial Averages index of stock market performance. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products occupied nine of the top ten spots in the U.S. soft drink market. Worldwide, Coca-Cola ranked first in soft drink sales, and the company earned almost 80 percent of its profits from international sales. The goal of the company is simple, yet effective. The goal is to produce growth for the company. It intends to not only reinvigorate the company but inspire the people working for them. Question 1 Discuss the differences between mentoring and coaching based on the information in the case. Coaching and mentorship both are focusing on the development of human capital. Some companies use coaching as formal tool and mentorship as an informal tool. In Coca-cola, the management practice both of the technique as a formal program. It might create some confusion to differentiate these

management techniques. Coca-cola indicate some issues which can make the program unique from each other. Focus: Coaching focuses on achieving specific objectives, usually within a preferred time period whereas, Mentoring focuses on open and evolving agenda and deals with a range of issues. Relationship: The main difference of coaching and mentoring is the relationship between two people. In mentorship the process is focused on the building a good formal relation between two person to communicate effectively in-depth each other. It help the protégés to understand the organization and do their job better. The mentor helps to learn more about the organization culture, company mission and how things are getting done in-depth as it is a one-to-one interaction. On the other hand, coaching do not consider the relationship. Coca-cola consider coaching as an interactive process by providing goals, techniques, opportunities to practice and feedback to enhance the performance. It consider the element of coaching is critical rather than relationship. In coaching, the relationship is not of utmost importance; rather the agreement that the coaching is valuable is the critical element. Position of the host: Typically, in Coca-cola, the host person of the mentorship process is in higher position having experience as well as knowledge on the culture and the dynamics of the organization. It means, the information flow is from upper direction to lower direction. On the other hand, the person who is hosting coaching might be in senior or junior or in the similar position with knowledge of specific area. The information flow might be from any direction. Background of the host: In most of cases the mentor and the protégés are from different departments. So, there is no direct reporting relationship involved in between both persons. It might encourage to share more in-depth understanding between both the parties in lies with company’s goal and protégés’ future

development as a leader. In contrast, in the coaching process all the parties are from the same department. The main focus lies in the learning of the technique to manage the business for effectively focusing on the department’s activity. A coach and a mentor: Coaching is concerned primarily with performance and the development of definable skills. It usually starts with the learning goal already identified. The most effective coaches share with mentors the capability to help the learner develop the skills of listening to and observing them, which leads to much faster acquisition of skills and modification of behavior. Coaches also share with mentors the role of critical friend – confronting executives with truths no one else feels able to address with them. Whereas the coach is more likely to approach these issues through direct feedback, the mentor will tend to approach them through questioning processes that force the executive to recognize the problems for themselves. Mentoring is usually a longer-term relationship and is more concerned with helping the executive determine what goals to pursue and why. It seeks to build wisdom – the ability to apply skills, knowledge and experience in new situations and to new problems. Coach

Mentor

Protégé’s

learning

is

primarily

Learning is focused on attitudes

focused on abilities

Focus on personal and professional

Technical or professional focus

development

Effective

Helps the protégé realize his/her

use

of

the

protégé’s

existing competencies. Professional

potential

interaction

with

the

protégé Inspires

More interaction with an affective component

respect

for

professional competencies

his/her

Is a role model

The orientation: Coaching is a little bit like having the professional equivalent of a fitness trainer – a specialist dedicated to working with you on specific goals and objectives you would like to achieve for whatever reasons. Mentoring, on the other hand, are more likely to have followed a career path similar to the one on which you are embarking. They are, therefore, charged with passing on their knowledge and expertise. Importantly, the knowledge transmitted in this way will contain invaluable details about organizational values, beliefs and culture that are hard to acquire through formal training. Most definitions emphasize that the difference between coaching and mentoring is in the length of time they take but that is somewhat of a fallacy. Both are finite relationships, the average lifespan being six to eighteen months. Mentoring can develop into a friendship and, therefore, last much longer, but there are inherent dangers in blurring the role boundaries which are discussed later in this briefing.

Question 2 Evaluate the ten part mentoring process used by COCA-Cola Foods Coca-Cola Foods believes that human resource development (HRD) is a key to building competitive advantage through people and to the creation of a highperforming organization. The struggle at Coca-Cola Foods has been to maximize and/or optimize HRD's contribution to business success. The approach at CocaCola Foods has been threefold: 1 to strengthen the link between business strategy and developmental focus; 2 to involve leadership of the organization in all aspects of development; 3 to use a variety of developmental tools to match personal and organizational needs better. So Coca-Cola Foods uses to develop their people through mentoring and coaching. These developmental "tools" clearly involve leaders in the organization which helps considerably to strengthen the link between development and business strategy. Coca-Cola adapts basic programme to their own needs and objectives. A case study of Coca-Cola (Veale and Watchel, 1996), established mentoring programme follows a ten-point procedure which is evaluated below: 1. Protégé identified:

In this step Coca-Cola need to identify people for the

mentoring programme. They would have to identify people those who are eligible for responsible of the company.

2. Identify developmental needs: After identifying protégé they need to prepare a developmental plan for the protégé. In this step protégé need to interact with the mentor to find out where they need to develop. 3. Identify potential mentors: After finding protégé and their problem potential mentors are need to be selected so that they could mentor them in the programme. In this step mentor could be selected by the protégé or could be recruited by the senior managers. 4. Mentor-Protégé matching: While recruiting or selecting mentor protégé need to match their personalities with them So that there is understanding between them. The relationship between protégé and the mentor must be compatible. 5. Mentor and protégé orientation: In this step there would be introduction between the mentor and the protégé. Mentor would welcome the participants and thank them for their interest in Mentor-Protégé program. The purpose of this program is to help protégé grow from within and to strengthen the critical areas in the organization. The orientation would cover time commitments, types of activities, time and budget support, relationship with the organization, schedule of meetings etc. 6. Contracting: In this step an agreement should be created between the mentor and the protégé. In the agreement, everything would be written regarding the program i.e. schedule of the program, invest of mentoring activities by each party. 7. Periodic meetings: In this step mentor and the protégé will sit for discussion about the program progress. They will discuss about their performance planning, coaching and feedback sessions.

8. Periodic reports: There should be evaluation of the program by both mentors and protégé. In this step mentor as well the protégé will make report of the program. 9. Conclusion: After developing the entire above step they would come to conclusion whether they could continue to go for the program or not. This could be understood through the relationship between mentor and protégé. 10.Evaluation and follow-up: Finally in the end when they would find that their relationship and their program planning is well structured then they would do interview with each other regarding timing, logistics, time constraints and other related to mentor program.

Reference Gregson, K. (1993). Mentoring. Work Study , 42 (6), 19-22. Interbrand. (2011, October). Best-Global-Brands 2011 Ranking. Retrieved October 18, 2011, from Interbrand: http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/Best-GlobalBrands-2011.aspx Scandura, T. A., Tejeda, M. J., Werther, W. B., & Lankau, M. J. (1996). Perspectives on Mentoring. Leadership and Organization Development Journal , 17 (3), 50-56.