And finally:

The best mentoring happens when you are fully present to your mentee and in the moment. Too much methodology, technique and structure will pull you out of that zone. Not knowing what's going to happen next is a good place to be. Remember 1-word story.

Good luck!

Mentoring in the light of professional registration

Mentoring supports the registration process as a clear demonstration of professional development. The mentor can also stimulate the registration process. Here are some resources:

Professional Development

IET Resources (see pdfs bottom right of web page)

Their guide to best practice supports much of what we said yesterday. However their point that: understand that the role of the mentor is to challenge and encourage, but not to provide answers is moot. The mentor, more than the coach, is in a position to encourage a particular approach especially in an engineering context - even more so when it comes to avoiding big mistakes.

Setting Objectives

In a word: SMART

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Time-bound

Solving problems - the importance of reflection

This was quite a powerful exercise in which you used active listening to reflect on a delegate's problem/challenge whilst suspending the urge to resolve it.

You noticed how easy it is for the mentee (one of you in this instance) to depersonalise their statements using they, we, it... even you! But not I. When that happens, just ask but what about you?

Another favourite is to abstract (literally, pull away from) or generalise. Invite an example. Frequently, a real instance will put the generalisation in very different light.

Being a good listener

Use open questions (closed questions like 'did you...' have yes/no answers)

Probe, affirm, challenge - be alert to catch inconsistencies, abstractions, vagueness, disingenuousness (or is that disingenuity?) and get clarification.

Suspend judgement - be aware how insidious judgement is - fine when you need, not when you don't.

Elicit your mentee's feelings - the other half of their psyche.

Essentially, be curious...without judging.

Programme & Session Design

The mentoring relationship is essentially informal so no hard and fast rules here. But initially scheduled meetings of 1 hour every few weeks (or more if required) will get the ball rolling. Our 1st session design went like this:

neutral ground

time-based

introductions

mentee to bring agenda

discussion

agree next meeting time and agenda

meeting room

mentor open about themselves

find mentee's interests

round off meeting with future structure

set groundrule(s)

We agreed that where ever possible, the meeting should be off-site. But that's not always possible, so a neutral meeting room may have to do - the canteen or refreshment area perhaps. Don't use your/their office.

We liked the idea of the mentor opening up about themselves as well - two-way traffic.

I'm keen on minimising groundrules (as you discovered) - confidentiality is crucial however. But starting the meeting with a series of rules and regulations is not helpful - I've been in meetings when someone's phone going off has been the best thing that could have happened - everyone woke up!

The 1st meeting needs to explore what the mentee wants as well. Although you may not get the chance to explore any issues in depth during the 1st meeting, it is good for the mentee to leave with some actions that can be reviewed in the next meeting.

After the 1st meeting a good structure is as follows:

Reflect: explore, probe, question, clarify, challenge but do not look for solutions!

Aspire: how do you want things to be?

Plan: what are you going to do about it? (how, when, and with who?)

Practice suspending your engineers' instincts to solve any problem that comes your way!

Mentor/Mentee - are you right for each other?

On the basis that mentoring is not managing, I think mentors and mentees should have some discretion over who they partner. As we discussed yesterday, having a line manager as a mentor is likely to eventually create a conflict of interest and compromise the relationship. Having said that, there's no reason why a manager shouldn't adopt a mentoring/coaching approach when appropriate - and good ones do.

Mentoring vs Coaching

Tricky one this, as we found out. For me the main distinguishing feature is that the Mentor will have direct experience of the mentee's job function - been there done that. The coach won't. So there will be input on operational issues that the Mentor can bring to the party.

There are many statements and definitions on this chestnut - the CIPD's is as good as any. Here is one of their articles on mentoring/coaching.

My advice is: don't get hung up on definitions and differences; practice and see what works for you.

Good and Bad Mentoring

Our discussion on what makes a good mentor was stimulated by examples of what makes a bad one! Here's what we came up with:

encouraging

bright

doesn't know it all

seeks understanding

challenges

listens

has time

gives space to think

generates open atmosphere

helpful

patient

reflective

self-aware

well-networked

Now if every human being were like this!

Clarity Mentoring Workshop 14th Oct 2009 - EIC

A very good day yesterday with Preeya, Adam, Roger, Garth, Andy and Neil. A big thank you to you all for your whole-hearted engagement without which...

I'm posting some of the content and learning from yesterday on this blog as promised. The good thing about a blog is it's interactive (like yesterday!). So you can ask for more stuff if I've left anything out. It's very quick to update and we can have conversations on it. The only downside is the order - last post first - so you'll have to read it backwards... well not quite backwards, but you know what I mean.

So here we go...