We've all heard about it before, but what is coaching per se? And how does it differ from mentoring, training, etc???

I've always thought that they are one of the same. Aren't they?

Well coaching for one is developing your employees' knowledge and skills so that their performance improves.

Yup, that's right. Coaching usually focuses on a specified set of skills and aims to improve the performance.

So how does it differ from mentoring?

Mentoring is very much like coaching, but it happens over a long period of time. And unlike coaching, mentoring relationships could also be two-way, meaning both the subordinate and the boss learns from each other.