Successful Mentoring Programs Continued

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Glendale, Arizona, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) December 13, 2011 -- A learning organization values its workforce as its NUMBER 1 resource and refuses to be compromised by the competition.

 What is Mentoring?
 What is a Mentor?
 Why is a mentor important?
 Who benefits?
 What do Mentors and Protégés DO?

These questions and, more importantly, their answers are making an impact on the way organizations are doing business. Global competition and a rapidly changing workplace are causing organizations to rethink how they develop, retain and utilize their employees. Organizations are discovering that the workplace is changing at such a rapid pace, that they must be ready with the technology and the talent to meet these changes or they will be left in the dust by their competition.

WHAT IS MENTORING?

Mentoring is a deliberate pairing of a more skilled or experienced person with someone with less experience and designed to unleash the full potential of an individual. It is a series of processes designed to help and guide less experienced employees by someone with more knowledge (a Mentor). Mentoring is an active and sincere effort designed to unleash the full potential of an individual through the development of KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS and ORGANIZATIONAL INSIGHT.

Types of mentoring usually experienced by others are:

 Supervisory
 Informal
 Formal
 Spontaneous
 Role Model

Supervisory mentoring is the natural personnel development based on needs observed and addressed by the supervisor.

Informal mentoring is when one individual helps another with a specific skill or knowledge area and is infrequent or a one-time event.

Spontaneous mentoring is teachable (or learnable) moment when a new set of information is gained without pre-planning on the part of the teacher or the learner. It does however have significant and lasting impact on the way the learner moves forward with the knowledge.

Role model mentoring is related more to the professionalism, communications and personnel interaction that are observed by another. These characteristics are integrated into one’s own attitudes and behaviors about the workplace and co-workers.

Facilitated mentoring moves the mentoring relationship from the informal to the formal. It takes the key elements of solid relationship building and combines them with a strategically planned design for empowering employees.

WHAT IS A MENTOR?

Simply put, a mentor is someone who offers you the wisdom of his/her experience. A mentor helps someone else (the protégé) learn something the learner would otherwise have learned less well, more slowly, or not at all. A mentor provides that safe environment where a person can ask questions and make mistakes while learning without fear of being perceives as incompetent. A mentor serves as:

 A COUNSELOR to provide career strategy advice.
 A TEACHER to transfer knowledge to the protégé.
 A GUIDE for understanding the organizational culture.
 A CHALLENGER for enhancing the learner’s performance.
 A ROLE MODEL for the protégé to follow.

WHY IS MENTORING IMPORTANT?

There is no mystery in organizations today that changes will continue to be a part of the corporate culture. Reorganization, right sizing and reinvention are words that run rampant as mergers, take-overs and business development occur. For most employees that translates into “Will my job or workload be affected?” or ultimately, “Am I losing my job?” Management faces the never-ending challenge of responding to changes while maintaining industry integrity. Employees are doing more with less, which translates into less people to fulfill the same business requirements. Budgets, specifically money for training and development, are impacted. Even if budgets are intact, the additional challenge is presented when an employee wants to attend developmental training and there is no one to “cover” their functional responsibilities while they are away.

To avoid sounding the GLOOM and DOOM bugle, cutting edge organizations have found that facilitated mentoring is a mechanism for rejuvenating itself from within and preparing the workforce for the challenges of tomorrow. Matching people skills with on-the-job requirements and moving people from one level of responsibility to another creates a focused management style. No longer will people happen into jobs. Advancement by seniority or obligation is replaced with advancement by skill, knowledge and organizational savvy.

WHO BENEFITS?

EVERYONE!!

For the PROTÉGÉ:

 Improved performance
 Career guidance assistance
 More realistic career goals, strategies and options
 Special leadership training
 Networking opportunities
 Increased visibility
 Greater understanding of the organization, its culture and values
 Access to a role model
 Opportunities to participate in challenging developmental assignments
 Encouraged growth beyond usual expectations

For the MENTOR:

 New perspectives
 Sharpened leadership and interpersonal skills

 Expanded business contacts
 Greater appreciation of workforce perspectives
 Personal satisfaction helping protégé
 “Docemur Doscendo”: he who teaches, learns

For the ORGANIZATION:

 Highly skilled and professional workforce
 Enhanced leadership potential
 Retention of “corporate memory”
 Improved transfer of knowledge and skills
 Tool for recruitment and succession planning
 Improved flow or organizational information and sharing

WHAT DO MENTORS AND PROTÉGÉS DO?

Mentors:

 Share knowledge and experiences
 Offer guidance, encouragement and support
 Serve as a teacher, coach, counselor, confidant and challenger
 Participate in training and business forum meetings.
 Assist protégés with goal setting
 Share the “unwritten” rules for success

Protégés:

 Take responsibility for own career; seek out mentor
 Seek guidance; listen actively; accept development assignments.
 Participate in training and business forum meetings
 Set goals; prepare development plans
 Implement development plans

 biz

The first requirement of a successful mentoring program is that Senior Management must embrace the philosophy of a “Learning Organization”. They must support with visible actions the belief that employees are a valuable resource and that investing in them creates a win-win situation. The “Corporate Culture” must include information sharing at all levels within the organization from top management to entry-level employees.

Employees may see mentoring as “just another fad” unless both mentors and protégés are given the freedom and on-going senior management support to initiate and fulfill a career development plan designed specifically for the protégé.

Let me stress that a formalized or facilitated mentoring program is not a training event but rather a long-term process that focuses on:

1. Up-leveling the knowledge, skills and expertise of all employees.
2. Succession planning as a tool for keeping a competitive edge in the marketplace.
3. Recruiting and placing personnel based on targeted strategic initiatives.
4. Short and long-term return on investment for those in the mentoring program.

It offers a cost effective approach to growing and grooming a seasoned workforce. As organizations are being tasked to do more with less, the need to clone corporate knowledge becomes a strategic issue. Mentoring employees is no longer just a “nice thing” to do but is key to building a solid foundation for change, transitions, growth and innovation.

Management Training Systems, Inc. assists organizations with formalized mentoring programs. With over 30 years of experience, we can provide faciliation, resources and mentoring materials. Contact us at 623-587-7644

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