by Francis Harris

Created on: May 04, 2010

THE BASICS OF MENTORING

What is mentoring? Mentoring is an approach to personal developmental in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. Mentoring is a very ancient approach to learning although it is regaining popularity across the post-modern world. 

Today mentoring is found in businesses, educational professionals, health care professions etc., and even among children in schools who are mentored through older "buddies" in the school. It is used in the church for both training those who are learning to take up leadership roles, and also for helping people with personal problems. You can even find mentors on Helium!

Mentoring is very different to instruction and coaching. Instruction deals largely with imparting knowledge and information. While some people do benefit from personal tutors this is not mentoring. Neither is mentoring coaching - that skill building that we often find in sporting circles - and it is not an apprenticeship, although in the ancient world many mentoring relationships started with apprenticeships.

Mentoring is far more unique. It helps shape the outlook or attitude of the individual.  At the heart of mentoring is relationship - discussions, communications, reflections, a "Socratic" dialogue where the mentor and mentee exchange thoughts and perspectives. Mentoring gives the mentee scope to reflect and perceive things in new ways.

In mentoring the mentee usually drives the relationship. Mentees are often encouraged to be in control of organizing meetings - as and when they have a need. This presupposes that the mentee has a clear understanding of what they hope to achieve from the mentoring. Establishing goals - and returning to whether these are met or not - will help gauge the success of the mentoring program.

BENEFITS FOR THE MENTEE

The mentee has many benefits from a mentoring relationship. Primarily they are given the chance to have a more mature, experienced, successful and knowledgeable person come along side them and offer to communicate and share knowledge, points of view and ideas etc. The wisdom of the mentor is a priceless resource for the mentee who is brought into a position where they can learn from the mentor.

Mentoring is of benefit at any stage of a career but especially so when starting a new job or a new task in a given job. The mentee will have lots of questions and, through mentoring, a personalized source of knowledge to answer them.

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