Mentoring Capacity

Shamelessly piggybacking on this week's CIPD Annual Conference, which I'm not attending this year, I'm fondly remembering the four years I worked there as a Commercial Learning Consultant, and enjoyed meeting and talking with members and clients at the conference.

I've been fortunate to be a member of, and to work with, both of my professional bodies - the #CIPD and The LPI (Learning and Performance Institute). Both roles brought together the accumulated knowledge, skills and experience I gained over 35 years as a Leader in Learning & Development.

It's those years, owning and running an IT Training business, working for other training providers and developing and leading training teams in the public, private and charity sectors, that I bring to my current role as a #ProfessionalMentor.

If you're in employment and looking for an experienced, external lens on your personal and professional development, or you're looking for work in the people professions and want to understand where you could fit, and to strategise your approach, get in touch.

I offer a no-obligation introductory chat to determine where and how I could support you getting to where you want to go. If we proceed, I'll ask you to articulate what your overarching objective/s are and what success will look like in you achieving them. That's when the work starts.

Interested? Contact me in the comments here, or via my LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/niallgavin/overlay/contact-info/

Professional Mentoring Unpicked #3

This is the promised next blog in a series where I’m unpicking each of the previously defined aspects of professional Mentoring (see my earlier articles and blogs on this).

The overarching description says, “This relationship is typically characterized by trust, open communication, mutual respect, and a focus on the Mentee's goals and development”.

So, let’s unpick Key Aspect 3: Focus on the Mentee's Development

“The relationship is centred on the Mentee's specific needs, goals, and aspirations. It's not about the Mentor's agenda.”

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

And the critical Mentor skill here is listening.

For the Mentor/Mentee relationship to be fruitful and for the Mentee to get the benefit of the conversations with the Mentor, there must be a mutual understanding of why they are happening in the first place.

There must be clearly articulated ‘Success Factors’ agreed, whereby both parties are clear about the Mentee’s goals. And there must be an agreement as to what the shift will be, and how that change has moved the dial towards or has achieved the Mentee aim.

They key point here is that the Mentee owns the outcomes. The role as an independent Mentor is to help them along the path to achieving those, to suggest, challenge, support and encourage them to realise their ambitions.

How.

After an initial – and free – exploratory conversation and agreement to proceed, I share a template Mentoring Agreement document with the client and ask them to populate it before our first session, in terms of Purpose: Why are we entering into this relationship?, and Success Criteria: What will success look like?, wherein the Mentee can articulate their aims and aspirations.

I review this doc for alignment with the discussion we had in the exploratory session, suggest any tweaks and/or seek clarity about their intent, and finally we agree the number of sessions needed and over how long a period.

This is a dynamic document and is open to change at any time in the relationship, as successes are achieved or change, Mentee insights unfold and new goals are added.

As the overarching description says, “It’s not about the Mentor’s agenda”.

Then the work begins. More on this later.

Finally:

I see a lot of talk in L&D and HR about Mentoring, mostly couched in terms of colleague or manager support. i.e. internal, business/employer focus. What I don’t see so much of is the role of the external, independent Mentor, with the additional advantage of more multi- and/or cross-sectoral experience and ideas.

That would be me.

Look out for my next article on the 4^th key characteristic of the professional Mentor - Skills, Knowledge, Career, and Personal Growth, next week.

#ProfessionalMentoring #PersonalDevelopment #LnD #HR #Mentor