TWO
KINDS OF MENTORING CONVERSATIONS
© 2003, Barry Sweeny
Highly effective mentoring programs doní'
just assign mentors and then hope quality relationships, effective
learning, and performance improvement will happen. The most effective
programs create structures and strategies to ensure their desired
results will occur.
The fundamental truth is that effective mentoring is a mutual learning
situation. At the foundation of all effective mentoring, is the
core requirement that each individual is BEING MENTORED, and at
the same time is MENTORING others.
- Mentors must be positioned to give their
own experience and the wisdom that comes from such experience.
It is the access to that wisdom and experience which accelerates
protege learning and development. You know that. What you may
not have considered is that...
- Mentors need to be mentored and supported in
their own learning too. Mentors don't have all the answers,
especially not in today's fast paced, competitive, ever changing,
performance and results-oriented environment!
Adjoining this text is what this concept looks
like in graphic form. In that graphic, the P represents
when I am a Protege, learning from my mentor in areas where I
want to grow. The M is when I am a Mentor, sharing with
others what I have learned to support their growth. Of course,
every other mentoring relationship above and below the one being
discussed repeats this pattern.
So if mentors need to be continual learners too, from whom will
they learn?
- Their PEERS - Other practicing and growing
mentors
- EXPERT Mentors - Someone we call the Mentor
of Mentors, (MoM).
Therefore, there are two kinds of mentoring relationships in which
we should all be involved, expert-to-less experienced, and peer-to-peer.
Here are some examples of how this can look.
Examples of Expert - Novice Mentoring are:
> New employee induction mentoring
> An experienced employee mentoring another experienced
employee who knows less about a topic
> Supervisor - employee mentoring
> Leadership development or promotion-oriented mentoring
> Adult - student mentoring.
Examples of Peer-to-Peer Mentoring are:
> Peer follow up support for implementation
of training
> Peer mentoring to support reflective practice among experienced
employees.
IF YOUR program expects improvements in individual
performance and results to occur and to be sustained, this core
concept must be implemented at every level of the program and
for each stakeholder. When you do that, you will have a mentoring
culture.
For info on how to implement this model, read
the paper on this web site titled "The
Strategic Mentoring Culture".
