Mentoring

Mentoring is an arrangement where a mentor provides expert advice to an individual or an organisation. The mentor will need specific knowledge relating to a type of enterprise, stage of development or geographical area. We have a variety of specialised knowledge within our organisation which we offer as part of our mentoring programme.

Reverse or Bi-directional mentoring occurs when a junior member of an organisation mentors a more senior member. This tends to occur when the junior member has specific technical knowledge or may have a good working relationship with a particular customer. Although it requires an element of flexibility and a requirement that egos must be put to one side it can be really beneficial to all concerned. There tends to be a dramatic improvement in communications and a greater appreciation of the problems of working at different levels in the organisation.

Mentoring is also an excellent method of career development, improving self-confidence, retaining staff, increasing knowledge throughout an organisation and recognising contribution. The modern knowledge based organisation relies heavily on mentoring, despite what other label they might give it. Data bases, written procedures and processes and expert systems in reality hold only a small part of the knowledge an organisation uses everyday in order to function. A lot of knowledge is retained inside people's heads and one of the very few effective methods of psreading that knowledge is mentoring.

So, does mentoring have a downside - even a dark-side? If the mentoring programme is not managed properly it can become an ego trip for some individuals and can appear patronising and manipulative to the mentee.

Mentors need to be carefully selected and trained. Some people are natural mentors and, if you have people like that you are fortunate as they can mentor other people on how to become mentors. Although a mentor is looked on as being a source of advice and expertise one of the greatest skills a mentor needs to develop is listening.

Listening can be fairly difficult for someone who is used to giving orders and expecting them to be carried out. To be a really effective mentor requires a far greater depth of listening than that practised for social conversations. Listening skills are used to pick up hidden meanings and emotions associated with word patterns, choice of words and body language. If a mentee agrees to do something and as they say it they are shaking their head it may be an indication of a problem.