Mentoring process ..

Mentoring is a process where the mentee (person who undergoes mentoring  by the mentor) is guided to achieve great success in life or achieve short-term goals by meeting the mentee frequently, giving advice on career decisions, higher studies, growth and guidance in job etc and evaluate progress at short intervals.

Mentor possesses the skills, knowledge and experience and the mentee is seeking to increase his skills, knowledge and experience.

The benefits are manifold, in an academic setting it helps the student to do well in academics and in his future life  helping him get a good job to start with and for an industrial employee it affects the employee success, ensuring career satisfaction and longevity of stay (retention) within the organisation.

Mentoring is unique in the sense that each partner is aware of the inequality in the levels of skills, knowledge and experience of the partners, while at the same time, both the partners being equally committed to the success of the partnership.

At a structured level, mentoring  could be undertaken by answering these six basic questions.

1. what do both the partners want to gain from the relationship ?
2. what do each partner have to offer ?
3. how frequently will the partners meet ?
4. will contact be in-person or online. ?
5. how long will the mentoring partnership last ?
6. what is the level of confidentiality agreed to by both the partners in their dealings with each other ?

Stage I : It is essential that the partners need to know where they are at the start.

- whats going well with each of them?
- what are they looking forward to change in the coming few months or years ?
- what all can they together try to influence to change ?
- what are they prepared to do something about ?
- how will taking action help ?

Stage II: Where do the partners want to be ?

- what is defined as success in this constructive engagement ?
- how and when to know that success has been achieved, what are the metrics that will be assessed ?
- what visible change would be observed by others and what intangible change would be felt by the partners ?

Stage III : How to get at the place the partners want to reach (from stage II)

- what progress is already made
- what are the knowledge and skills acquired till now that will help them ?
- what extra ideas and options are available to reach at the place (from stage II)

Stage IV : what actions are they prepared to jointly take ?

- what are they prepared to do the end result (from stage II)
- how confident are the partners of doing it ?
- what (external and internal) support is needed ?
- who could finally help to enable the partners reach their goals in this constructive engagement ?

Some of the tools that can be used in this process are listed here.

1. note taking (both mentor and mentee)
2. learning log (only mentee)
3. noting feedback from stakeholders (what all to continue, stop and continue afresh)
4. Keeping a record of achievements (congrats messages, feedback notings, positive strokes received at different points of time)

Mentoring is a very beneficial process both in an academic and non-academic setup.  It helps the mentor use his vast experience and the mentee to grow into his full potential..

 

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Ge (with inputs from oglethorp)