We've got the global economy, the Internet, and downsizing and restructuring all coming together in a furious blend. It's a hard fact of business life we'd all better get used to because it's here to stay. In this decidedly turbulent atmosphere, unsuspecting managers and anxious employees alike are fearful about what the future holds.

The future, however, is daunting only for those who don't fully appreciate that these tumultuous twenty-first-century business realities can in fact be harnessed. Tamed, that is, by a fresh way of thinking and managing people called coaching and mentoring. Coaching and mentoring are the modern workplace's shock absorbers.

As a coach and mentor, you're responsible for placing these shock absorbers in the engine of the workplace. Indeed, if you've got coaching and mentoring tools and techniques at your disposal, the inescapable shocks — problems and obstacles — that will come your way can be both competently and calmly managed without going into the crisis mode or sounding a red alert.

Big-shot companies are often out in front of so many important business trends. Hence, they understand that by instilling coaching and mentoring from top to bottom in their organizations, they're preparing themselves for the inevitable breakneck changes that come with the territory of conducting modern-day business. They also know full well that their competitors, who view on-the-job learning as finite experiences, will in short order be swept away by the winds of change.