This month
I want to devote my #TuesdayTRIOS to a topic that is extremely dear to
me…Mentoring!
Mentoring
is now one of the most commonly used tools for entrepreneurship, on-the-job
learning, youth employment, women’s empowerment and employees’ engagement….and
the list could go on. But it was not
always like that and I believe that many people still struggle to understand
how mentoring could help them and their organisation. So today I wish to focus
on three things you need to know about mentoring , to ensure that you
understand what mentoring is all about and why mentoring can benefit both
individuals and organisations.
#1 Mentoring is NOT coaching and is NOT
counselling and is NOT training…but at times can incorporate elements of the above. Traditionally
mentoring is a one to one holistic relationship focussed on helping individuals
grow, mostly on a personal level. The mentor is then understood as somebody
wiser, perhaps senior in age to the mentee, because he/she needs to ‘show the
rope’. Now a day, the mentor is somebody who can help in a specific area, being
the personal or professional sphere. The mentor might have a specific
knowledge, or background or experience that is helpful to the mentee at a
certain time. The mentor may or may not be older than the mentee, but the
mentor has often achieved a certain status or position or role or has gone
through a certain experience (e.g. maternity, changing job, re-training, moving
to a different country etc) the mentee wishes to know about. I have experienced
long tem as well short-term relationships. Sometimes the mentee gets everything
he/she needs to know in a call. Sometimes the relationship lasts a number of
years…or a lifetime!
#2 Mentoring can take you from GOOD to GREAT. Mentoring is at heart an empowering tool that enables individuals to tap
into their potential and achieve their best. Mentoring should never be seen as
remedial or ‘gap-filling’. Even when the mentor provides knowledge based
support, it is more about what you can do with that knowledge than the
knowledge itself. It is about exploring, discovering and taking responsibility
for the actions that follow, and ensuring that actions always follow from your
mentoring conversations!
Mentoring
is also about having the opportunity to ‘blue-sky’ in total confidence and
safety. In a mentoring relationship mentees should feel free to ask any
questions, think beyond limitations and boundaries and deploy all kinds of
scenarios. It is often from these apparently ‘impossible’ discussions that very
‘possible’ ideas begin to emerge.
#3 Mentoring comes in many shapes and forms. Traditionally Mentoring is a face
to face and one to one relationship. But having mentored hundreds of
individuals I know that this is no longer the only way. Telephone and skype are
all very easily used in mentoring so you can be on the other side of the world
and still make it happen. In-fact this
flexibility works very well for example for women with childcare needs as they
can talk to their mentor at times to suit their family needs. As well as one to
one mentoring, facilitated peer- and group mentoring can work very well with
groups within companies when a group has a common interest or purpose. The advantage
in this case is that participants learn from each others as well as from
mentors and for those who find the one
to one relationship slightly daunting, this can be an easier way to benefit
from mentoring and begin to appreciate its value without feeling ‘ under the
spot light’.
Whichever way
you look at it, mentoring is hugely beneficial to individuals and to teams.
Whether your purpose is performance, engagement or empowerment, mentoring can
support your aims!
If you want to know more about mentoring, or
how I might be able to help your organisation in setting up a mentoring
programme please get in touch!
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