Mentoring

Looking for help with your career? You've looked at advanced degrees and certification. While those things could move your career forward, don't forget a simple step -- find a mentor.

A mentor can provide a different perspective on your skills and competencies. He or she can provide important career guidance through coaching and feedback. A mentor can compensate for your lack of experience, organizational connections and influence throughout the many stages of your career years.

How can Mentoring help you in your career development?

1) Mentoring is the process in which successful individuals go out of their way to help others establish goals and develop the skills to reach them.

2) Mentoring can help you acquire skills, open new doors, increase your confidence, widen your perspective, avoid many errors, otherwise enhance your career and life.

However, because it is not a formalized system, a mentor and his protégé must be open, committed and ready for a dynamic, challenging and intimate relationship based upon mutual trust.

What should you look for in a Mentor?

Of course, the mentor relationship should be beneficial to both the mentor and the protégé. Here is a list of qualities for successful mentors and protégés that the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists uses in its highly successful mentoring program. Be sure to check with your own professional association about their own mentoring program.

A MENTOR:
Is willing to invest time in himself and others. Is accessible and open to others. Likes to share experiences with others. Practices tolerance. Listens and does not preach or lecture. Identifies with his protégé’s feelings and validates them. Effectively confronts negative intentions or behavior. Provides appropriate information when needed. Encourages the exploration of options. Avoids dominance, control, or over-protection Has excellent coaching and feedback skills
Generally, a mentor has at least 5-10 or more years of experience in his/her career than the protégé. If the mentor is in the same organization, s/he is generally an upper middle to top-level manager. Often a mentor is not from the protégé's immediate work environment. Protégés often find mentors because they’re successful in their profession or they are members of the same professional association as the protégé.

Here are some of the roles for your mentor that you may want him/her to take:
Help you the protégé feel more closely identified with your professional environment. Help you through difficult situations. Build your self-confidence. Establish clear, open, two-way communication to discuss problems. Compensate for your lack of experience and skills. Be a source of information and encouragement. Provide career guidance. Help develop creative and independent thinking.
You as the protégé must be willing to do the following in return:
Be open to a mentor's comments Have realistic expectations of the mentoring relationship. Be clear about expectations and outcomes. Accept mentoring relationship with "no strings attached," i.e., no employment expectations. Be able to express dilemmas, feelings, and emotions. Be willing to listen. Be capable of self-examination. Have the courage to try out new behaviors, patterns.
The Goal of Mentoring:

A successful mentoring relationship is designed to foster the professional development of the protégé through the counsel and guidance of the mentor. It provides positive outcomes for both the protégé and mentor through the expansion of knowledge, skill, energy and creativity. The mentor provides career advancement skills to guide the protégé in positioning and presenting himself in a manner which results in professional development.

The Ideal Mentoring Relationship:

The process of establishing a mentor/protégé relationship should be based upon naturalness, choice and a sense of partnership. A core value should be that of mutuality in desire to participate, expectations, and respect. Through mutual respect and liking, a reciprocally dynamic relationship may be developed, reflecting giving and receiving for both mentor and protégé. It should be viewed as a partnership, where both parties exchange openly and freely.

It is important to set goals and expectations at the beginning. The mentor drives vision and mission down to the protégé. The protégé drives reality up. Both parties should be selective as to what projects, problems or demands will be included within the relationship. In order to not become over-dependent upon the mentor, protégés must show they are capable of independent thinking and accepting of accountability for taking action. There should be a system for reporting results and planning future activities.

Summary:

Probably the best summary of mentoring and its potential for your career development are these new paradigms taken from four different mentoring experiences that were written up in the September 1998 issue of Fast Company magazine:

Old Rule: Mentors and protégés should have a lot in common.
New Rule: The best matches are mismatches.

Old Rule: Look for your mentor higher-up on the food chain.

New Rule: A good mentor is anyone you can learn from.

Old Rule: Mentoring is one-on-one.

New Rule: Mentoring works best when you mix and match.

Old Rule: Mentors pick their protégés.

New Rule: Protégés pick their mentors.

Old Rule: You are either a mentor or a protégé.

New Rule: Everyone needs mentors.

Where to find more information about Mentoring:

http://www.mentoringgroup.com includes lots of how-tos for mentors and protégés
http://www.mentoring.org is a good all around resource

http://www.mentoring.ca has tons of resources throughout North America

http://www.asaenet.org to find a professional association with a mentoring program

The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships, by Lois J. Zachary

Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning, by Chip R. Bell

Mentoring, by Gordon F. Shea offers advice for would-be mentors

Menttium Corporation's independent study mentoring program

Feel free to contact me re questions or concerns about using the Internet in your job search. Because of the impact of the tragic events of September 11, more and more folks are choosing to telecommute. Next month we’ll focus on how to work with your current or future employer to telecommute or work in a virtual office effectively. Learn the pros and cons of working from home and ways to succeed as a telecommuter.

In the meantime, I can be reached at jlommel@WorkforceAssociates.com

Happy mentoring!