Mentoring:

Notes to Guide a Relationship

From its earliest roots in Homer's Odyssey, written some three thousand years ago, Mentoring has been an integral process used world-wide, whereby one person helps another to grow and develop new skills and attitudes.

The program, in this case, will match Macklin Business Institute students with business executives who are employed in the corporate community and have an interest in working with business students. A faculty mentor will also be assigned to each student in order to maintain a similar relationship with regard to academic matters.

One of the paradoxes of formal mentoring programs is that the essence of the relationship is its informality – the ability to discuss in private a wide range of issues that will help the mentee cope with and learn from issues he or she encounters, putting aside any power or status differences that might operate outside the relationship. So the idea of measurement and review is, on the face of it, to some extent at odds with the need to retain a high degree of informality and ad hoc responsiveness.

Mission:

• To help students grow personally in the context of their understanding of the business world. ·
• To help students develop strong personal ties with a business professional whom they can trust, seek advice, foster networking channels. ·
• To forge a link from the classroom to the boardroom. ·
• To keep the Mentor Program separate from the context of internship or employment, however welcomed these may be.

What is a Mentor?

A mentor is a business professional who is willing to make a difference in the life of the mentee. A person adept at conveying a strong sense of trust in their mentee and in making that person understand he or she is there to help them. To share his or her knowledge not only on professional matters, but personal matters as well. A mentor provides a delicate balance of challenge and support. A mentor is a teacher, facilitator, friend, and role model.

What is a Mentee?

A business student who is willing to accept those challenges presented by the mentor and use these experiences in their own personal growth and knowledge.

The Student "Mentee" - Responsibilities.

The student is expected to maintain a constructive relationship with the mentor. Make frequent contact to utilize the expertise and knowledge of the mentor, while being respectful of the mentor’s other obligations and to determine the best times to make contact and always be prepared to make the most of scheduled meetings.

What is Expected from a Mentor?

Mentors should be willing to make a commitment to be accessible to their mentees. In general, mentors need to make frequent contact with their mentees in order to assist them in growth and to help them reach their fullest potential. One must listen, support, serve as a role model, and develop a relationship which fosters motivation. Mentees need to be reminded that the Mentor Program provides an opportunity beyond a pure business context. It is a process of sharing knowledge from all aspects of life and enhancing one’s vision of the world.

The Relationship: Stages of Development

Planned mentoring relationships, of necessity, have time constraints. Mentors (and mentees) want to make the most of their months together. It is found that structuring those relationships into four phases helps maximize time while at the same time following a natural developmental flow. As you start planning what you’ll do with your mentees, picture the two of you going through the following stages:

1. Developing the relationship. Take at least a month or more to get to know each other before you nail down your plans. Explain why you’ve agreed to do this and what you believe you’ll gain. Tell your life or career story. Listen to your mentee’s story, probing for his/her highs, lows, feelings, and potential dreams. Talk about interests, hobbies, travels, movies. Resist the urge to "get down to business," unless your mentee seems anxious to do so. When the time seems right, move onto the next stage. Two special notes: If you’re mentoring a young student, don’t spend a lot of time "talking about" the relationship. Let the information about what you have in common and who you both are come out of enjoyable activities you do together. If you’re mentoring an adult who is very different from you in age, culture, style, or background, take extra time on this phase.
2. Negotiating agreements. Start identifying and negotiating the expectations and desires you both have: when and where you’ll meet, how long the formal partnership will last, how you’ll give each other feedback, what’s confidential and what’s not. Have your mentee write these down and refer to them as needed. If an agreement isn’t working, negotiate a change. All the while, you’ll be helping your mentee become a skilled mentee that can also work with other mentors.
3. Developing the mentee. Here’s where the bulk of your relationship will focus: building the skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes of your mentee. Remember, you don’t have to do all the teaching. Try to be a skilled "learning broker," in which you help your mentee identify development objectives and development activities (people to meet or interview, books to read, tapes to hear, experiments or projects to try, shadowing of you and other experts to schedule). Also help your mentee identify some measures to be sure progress has been made (maybe a simple checklist or rating scale) and some target deadlines.
4. Ending the formal relationship. It has been discovered over many years of research on mentoring that formal relationships should have a "hard close," a formal official ending. Start preparing for this ending at least two months before it occurs. When it’s near, plan a celebration of your accomplishments together and negotiate the form of your relationship.

What will continue beyond being this person’s formal mentor? Will you be one of his/her informal mentors, or will you be friends? If "friends," what does this really mean? Be honest with your needs and limits, or you’ll set your mentee up for unrealistic expectations. Be certain in your last session or two to mention the value you’ve gained from the experience, and make some positive predictions for your mentee’s future.

It is thought, that by adding some of the above structure to even your very informal mentoring relationships, you and your mentee will both benefit. You’ll have a game plan, a beginning, middle, and ending. Even if you can only spend limited hours helping your mentee, you’ll make the most of this precious time.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |