MentorShip partner of Emotional Intelligence
is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger, but have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn.
The person in receipt of mentorship may be referred to as a protégé (male), a protégée (female), an apprentice or, in recent years, a mentee.
"Mentoring" is a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. One definition of the many that have been proposed, is Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)"
Mentoring techniques
The focus of mentoring is to develop the whole person and so the techniques are broad and require wisdom in order to be used appropriately.[6]
A 1995 study of mentoring techniques most commonly used in business[7] found that the five most commonly used techniques among mentors were:
Multiple Mentors A new and upcoming trend is having multiple mentors. This can be helpful because we can all learn from each other. Having more than one mentor will widen the knowledge of the person being mentored. There are different mentors who may have different strengths.
We can look in the sub-groups of formal and informal mentoring relationships.
Peer mentoring relationships are relationships where individuals are at the same skill training, similar positions and stages of career. However, one person may be more knowledgeable in a certain aspect or another, but they can help each other to progress in their work. A lot of time, peer relationships provide a lot of support, empathy and advice because the situations are quite similar.
Situational mentoring relationships are generally short term positions where a person mentors for a specific purpose. This could be a company bringing an expert in regarding social media, or internet safety. This expert can mentor employees to make them more knowledgeable about a specific topic or skill.
Supervisory mentoring relationships are 'go to' people, they are supervisors. These are people who have answers to many questions, and can advise you to take the best plan of action. This can be a conflict of interest relationship because many supervisors don't feel comfortable also being a mentor. [12]
What are the benefits?
Especially in the workplace, there are many benefits to developing a mentorship program for new, and current employees.
is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger, but have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn.
The person in receipt of mentorship may be referred to as a protégé (male), a protégée (female), an apprentice or, in recent years, a mentee.
"Mentoring" is a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. One definition of the many that have been proposed, is Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)"
Mentoring techniques
The focus of mentoring is to develop the whole person and so the techniques are broad and require wisdom in order to be used appropriately.[6]
A 1995 study of mentoring techniques most commonly used in business[7] found that the five most commonly used techniques among mentors were:
- Accompanying: making a commitment in a caring way, which involves taking part in the learning process side-by-side with the learner.
- Sowing: mentors are often confronted with the difficulty of preparing the learner before he or she is ready to change. Sowing is necessary when you know that what you say may not be understood or even acceptable to learners at first but will make sense and have value to the mentee when the situation requires it.
- Catalyzing: when change reaches a critical level of pressure, learning can escalate. Here the mentor chooses to plunge the learner right into change, provoking a different way of thinking, a change in identity or a re-ordering of values.
- Showing: this is making something understandable, or using your own example to demonstrate a skill or activity. You show what you are talking about, you show by your own behavior.
- Harvesting: here the mentor focuses on "picking the ripe fruit": it is usually used to create awareness of what was learned by experience and to draw conclusions. The key questions here are: "What have you learned?", "How useful is it?"
Multiple Mentors A new and upcoming trend is having multiple mentors. This can be helpful because we can all learn from each other. Having more than one mentor will widen the knowledge of the person being mentored. There are different mentors who may have different strengths.
- Profession or Trade Mentor: This is someone who is currently in the trade/profession you are entering. They know the trends, important changes and new practices that you should know to stay at the top of your career. A mentor like this would be someone you can discuss ideas regarding the field, and also be introduced to key and important people that you should know
- Industry Mentor: This is someone who doesn't just focus on the profession. This mentor will be able to give insight on the industry as a whole. Whether it be research, development or key changes in the industry, you need to know.
- Organization Mentor: Politics in the organizations are constantly changing. It is important to be knowledgeable about the values, strategies and products that are within your company, but also when these things are changing. A organization mentor can clarify missions and strategies, and give clarity when needed.
- Work Process Mentor: This mentor can speed quickly over the bumps, and cut through the unnecessary work. This mentor can explain the 'ins and outs' of projects, day to day tasks, and eliminate unnecessary things that may be currently going on in your work day. This mentor can help to get things done quickly and efficiently.
- Technology Mentor: This is an up and coming, incredibly important position. Technology has been rapidly improving, and becoming more a part of day to day transactions within companies. In order to perform your best, you must know how to get things done on the newest technology. A technology mentor will help with technical breakdowns, advise on systems that may work better than what you're currently using, and coach you through new technology and how to best use it and implement it into your daily life.
We can look in the sub-groups of formal and informal mentoring relationships.
Peer mentoring relationships are relationships where individuals are at the same skill training, similar positions and stages of career. However, one person may be more knowledgeable in a certain aspect or another, but they can help each other to progress in their work. A lot of time, peer relationships provide a lot of support, empathy and advice because the situations are quite similar.
Situational mentoring relationships are generally short term positions where a person mentors for a specific purpose. This could be a company bringing an expert in regarding social media, or internet safety. This expert can mentor employees to make them more knowledgeable about a specific topic or skill.
Supervisory mentoring relationships are 'go to' people, they are supervisors. These are people who have answers to many questions, and can advise you to take the best plan of action. This can be a conflict of interest relationship because many supervisors don't feel comfortable also being a mentor. [12]
What are the benefits?
Especially in the workplace, there are many benefits to developing a mentorship program for new, and current employees.
- Career Development: Mentoring employees gives the opportunity to align organizational goals to personal career goals. It gives employees the ability to advance professionally. This collaboration gives employees a feeling of engagement, which leads to better retention rates.
- High Potential Mentoring: Top talent in the workplace tend to be difficult to retain. These employees have incredibly potential to make great things happen for the company, and for themselves. With a mentor program, top talent employees can be guided into leadership positions, and give them new engagement for new roles that will attract them to stay longer.
- Diversity Mentoring: One of the top ways to innovate is by bringing in new ideas. Mentors can empower diverse employees to share ideas, knowledge, experience to expand and innovate into the company. This also brings cultural awareness and a value of other cultures into the workplace.
- Reverse Mentoring: This not so obvious benefit of mentoring is incredibly important. The younger generations can help the older generations to expand and grow towards current trends. Everyone has something to bring to the table, this creates a two wy street within companies where younger employees can see the larger picture, and senior employees can see things from a different point of view.
- Knowledge Transfer Mentoring: Employees must have a certain set of skills in order to accomplish the tasks at hand. Mentoring is a great approach to help employees get organized, and give them access to an expert that can give feedback, and help answer questions that they may not know where to find answers to.
- Corporate mentorship programs : Corporate mentoring programs are used by mid to large organizations to further the development and retention of employees. Mentoring programs may be formal or informal and serve a variety of specific objectives including acclimation of new employees, skills development, employee retention and diversity enhancement.
- Formal mentoring programs : Formal mentoring programs offer employees the opportunity to participate in an organized mentoring program. Participants join as a mentor, protégé or both by completing a mentoring profile. Mentoring profiles are completed as written forms on paper or computer or filled out via an online form as part of an online mentoring system. Protégés are matched with a mentor by a program administrator or a mentoring committee, or may self-select a mentor depending on the program format.
- Informal mentoring takes places in organizations that develop a culture of mentoring but do not have formal mentoring in place. These companies may provide some tools and resources and encourage managers to accept mentoring requests from more junior members of the organization.[18]
- New-hire mentorship : New-hire mentoring programs are set up to help new employees acclimate more quickly into the organization. In new-hire mentoring programs, newcomers to the organization (protégés) are paired with more experienced people (mentors) in order to obtain information, good examples, and advice as they advance. It has been claimed that new employees who are paired with a mentor are twice as likely to remain in their job than those who do not receive mentorship.
- High-potential mentorship : High-potential mentoring programs are used to groom up-and-coming employees deemed to have the potential to move up into leadership roles. Here the employee (protégé) is paired with a senior level leader (or leaders) for a series of career-coaching interactions. These programs tend to be smaller than more general mentoring programs and mentees must be selected to participate.A similar method of high-potential mentoring is to place the employee in a series of jobs in disparate areas of an organization, all for small periods of time, in anticipation of learning the organization's structure, culture, and methods. A mentor does not have to be a manager or supervisor to facilitate the process.[citation needed]
- Matching by Committee : Protégés are matched with mentors by a designated mentoring committee or mentoring administrator usually consisting of senior members of the Training, Learning and Development and Human Resources departments. The matching committee reviews the mentoring profiles and makes matches based on areas for development, mentor strengths, overall experience, skill set, location and objectives for the mentorship.
- Matching through Self-Match Technology : Mentoring technology can be used to facilitate matches allowing mentees to search and select a mentor based on their own development needs and interests. This mentee-driven methodology increases the speed in which matches are created and reduces the amount of administrative time required to manage the program.The quality of matches increases as well with self-match programs because the greater the involvement of the mentee in the selection of their mentor, the better the outcome of the mentorship.[23] There are a variety of online mentoring technology programs available that can be utilized to facilitate this mentee-driven matching process
-
Speed Mentoring : Speed mentoring closely follows the
procedures of speed dating. Mentors and protégés are introduced to each other
in short sessions, allowing each person to meet multiple potential matches in a
very short timeframe. Speed mentoring occur as a one-time event in order for
people "to meet potential mentors to see if there is a fit for a longer term
engagement."
- Peer mentoring : In many secondary and post-secondary schools, mentorship programs are offered to support students in program completion, confidence building and transitioning to further education or the workforce. There are also many peer mentoring programs designed specifically to bring under-represented populations into science and engineering.[citation needed] The Internet has brought university alumni closer to graduating students. Graduate university alumni are engaging with current students in career mentorship through interview questions and answers. The students with the best answers receive professional recommendations from industry experts build a more credible CV.
- Blended mentoring : The blended mentoring is a mix of on-site and online events, projected to give to career counselling and development services the opportunity to adopt mentoring in their ordinary practice.
- Reverse mentoring : In the reverse mentoring situation, the mentee has less overall experience (typically as a result of age) than the mentor (who is typically older), but the mentee has more knowledge in a particular area, and as such, reverses the typical constellation. Examples are when young internet or mobile savvy Millennial Generation teens train executives in using their high end Smart Phones. They in turn sometimes offer insight in business processes.
- Business mentoring : The concept of mentoring has entered the business domain as well. This is different from being an apprentice, a business mentor provides guidance to a business owner or an entrepreneur on the entrepreneur's business.[citation needed] An apprentice learns a trade by working on the job with the "employer".
Copyright 2008-2014 © Executive Solutions. All rights reserved. Privacy and Legal Notices