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TWO
KINDS OF MENTORING CONVERSATIONS
© 2003, Barry Sweeny
Highly effective mentoring programs don't 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 the most 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, accountability driven, 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, these two
core concepts must be implemented at every level of the program
and for each stakeholder.
For info on how to do that, read the paper on this
web site titled "The Strategic
Mentoring Culture". |
