Mentoring – could you be a Mentor?
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We are all Mentors at some time in our lives. Parents and teachers mentor children; bosses mentor employees, religious ministers mentor parishioners, Sports Team Coaches mentor players – quite apart from their coaching.
In my lifetime I have been mentored by a father, two amazing wives, a ploughman, two craftsmen, four good teachers, three outstanding bosses and a few of the Mentees I have been privileged to mentor. It is always a two-way process.
Mentoring is the skill of enabling disciplined thinking, commonsense behaviour and wise creativity by questioning, encouraging and infusing wisdom. A Mentor is like a ship’s pilot, there to help guide when the destination is not clear, in difficult times and through stormy weather or tricky waters. The Mentee remains in charge; the Mentor helps navigate.
Mentoring and coaching are different although there are points of overlap. Coaching addresses specific problems or opportunities and is usually for a limited time. Mentoring, too, is often triggered by a specific event happening or anticipated. But in addition to addressing the immediate problem, a Mentor also helps find solutions to the underlying causes.
Typical of this is the person who is restless in his or her job, has failing work or home relationships or whose personal self-confidence is declining. Lack of a well-defined purpose is a major contributor in these cases and mentoring helps the Mentee find ‘The Tree on the other side of the Field’. Other causes of such problems are overworking, inability to delegate, low self-esteem and over-promotion. It is seldom one stress that makes people dysfunctional.
Although mentoring inevitably deals with individuals, companies are now widely adopting in-house mentoring. This way relevant experience is on hand for the Mentee; it has to be carefully handled so that it does not become another management tool and lose its mentoring value. Companies introducing mentoring must avoid creating another structural management layer. They should seek the help of those who have experience of setting up and monitoring a corporate mentoring structure.
Group mentoring is an effective way to solve problems of differing personal objectives and financial aspirations between owners and managers. It involves more than reconciliation and compromise. Very often tensions that appear as superficial personality clashes or minor personal vendettas are only the tip of the iceberg. Underlying personal strategies have to be accommodated if today’s collegial management style is to work.
Mentoring is a key tool for developing personality and enhancing performance. Now that it is firmly established I hope we shall see more people coming forward to help with the growing demand for Mentors. There are few more rewarding ways of engaging with the current world while making a contribution to its better development.
Are you a potential Mentor?
Salman
John, I think that a good Mentor also needs a high degree of self-awareness, both about one’s own shortcomings and also key strengths. Good mentoring may therefore also be about facilitating bringing together people with complementing strengths. It also requires one to be brutally honest to oneself about oneself.
You are a perfect example of a good Mentor!
johnbittleston
Thank you, Salman, very true – the bit about self-awareness, anyway.
The interesting lesson I have learnt from training Mentors is that the Handling Quotient + Creativity Quotient are key to making the relationship work. Too often in the past teachers have belted out the same old stuff “the way they always did” and ignored the audience. (Even political parties have been known to disregard the people they have christened ‘Grass Roots’. No! Surely not!)
Since all communication is an attempt to create a useful relationship understanding how to handle the other person is a prerequisite to success.
Many thanks for your comment. Most timely.
John
Chuck Wolfe
Hi John,
Since I am interested in mentoring I did listen and read your piece. Very informative. I have always thought that a corporate structure needs to find a way to value the importance of the chemistry between a potential mentor and mentee. Very difficult to do though.
Warm regards,
Chuck
johnbittleston
Yes, Chuck, it needs careful handling but it can be very effective. a sort of white-collar substitute for the apprenticeship system that worked so well and was abandoned without thought or reason.
John
LU Keehong
Dear John
When mentoring is applied in the corporate context, the sincerity and determination of the corporate leadership to want this process to be a true success is critical.
When the mentor helped the mentee(s) to realize that he/she/they were cowed by the senior leadership to ask questions with courage and curiosity, what are the mentees to do?
To stake out his/her/their own personal course of actions to challenge the top leadership and risk getting the sack or to bit his/her/their lips to ‘fight another day’?
Just a thought.
Best regards
LU Keehong Mr.
johnbittleston
Good questions. Courage and foolhardiness are closely related. When to fight and when to flee has been man’s and every animal’s first lesson in life. Some never learn it. The answer is that when the issue is a matter of principle that cannot be ignored you must fight. But flexibility is what made the human race superior to animals and without wishing to compromise on truly fundamental matters some give and take is necessary. I have fought for the rights of women in business four times in my life. I won three times and lost once. Losing was difficult and traumatic. I’d do it again.
John