Mentoring – A Brief Guide: What is it? What are the Benefits?

Brownlee & Associates are pleased to announce access to our bilingual (English & Spanish) Communication and Management Mentoring Service to new clients. In order to provide more details about Mentoring we have prepared this short guide for you.

1. What is Mentoring?
2. How should I choose a Mentor?
3. Who should receive Mentoring?
4. What is the Mentoring process?
5.What are the benefits of Mentoring?

1. What is Mentoring?
Mentoring is a highly personalized, individualized and time & cost-effective form of helping a client with specific and clearly-defined communication or management objectives.  Unusually, It is the individual client who, through discussion with the Mentor:
– Defines the objectives to be achieved.
– Decides what work-based activities are to be used to reach these objectives.
– Identifies the sequence of activities to be used.
– Determines when the activities take place.
– Sets time limits.

Mentoring involves a one-on-one Directive relationship between the Mentor and the Client. In other words, the Mentor provides SPECIFIC feedback regarding the activities carried out and how to improve.

Please do not confuse Mentoring with Coaching: Coaching is non-directive and “internal” while Mentoring is Directive and “External”.

2. How should I choose a Mentor?
In order to choose the right Mentor, it is vital that there is a very clear identification of the objectives to be achieved, the time available, the contexts involved and other factors that can influence the results. The Mentor should be a highly-trained & experienced educator, preferably with psychological qualifications and, more importantly, be a recognised SPECIALIST in the material to be covered.

3. Who should receive Mentoring?
Anyone can be a Mentoring client. However, in most National & Multinational companies, the clients are normally Top Management, Senior Executives, Managers, High-flyers with great potential and other employees who need to improve their communication skills with individuals and both small & large groups while operating within the organization and externally.

4. What is the Mentoring process?
The Mentoring process is as follows:
1.    An initial interview to identify areas of weakness; needs, wants and lacks; determine objectives; the selection of possible activities and, should the client require it,  the scheduling of the first Mentoring session.
2.    A summary report of the meeting used as the basis for developing the Mentoring plan is sent to the client and, if necessary, his/her sponsor (Human Resources, Manager, etc.).
3.    The acceptance of the plan by all of the involved parties.
4.    Implementation of the plan with a report being issued after every intervention, if required.
5.    A review of the objectives after every session to ensure that they are being met and, if necessary, how they need to be adjusted.

5.What are the benefits of Mentoring?
1.     Totally personalized real-time feedback & training for the client.
2.    Flexibility: Mentoring adapts to the schedule of the client.
3.    Objective-oriented: Meets the specific needs, wants and lacks of the client.
4.    Clear real-world application using the clients own work context, environment & people.
5.    Non-lineal: since it is not a training course, mentoring is, or can be, done in isolated segments.
6.    Cost & time effective.
7.    The client can stop being Mentored at any time.
8.    No pre-training is required for the client.

If you feel that Mentoring might be the best way to meet your needs, wants and lacks or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ian Brownlee at Brownlee & Associates (tel) 91.526.2505 or by email at brownleeassociates@gmail.com.

Please feel free to visit our bilingual (English & Spanish) web page:

http://www.brownlee-associates.com

(c) Brownlee & Associates, 2011.