National Mentoring Day

National Mentoring Day takes place on 27 October and provides a timely reminder of the benefits of mentoring.

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National Mentoring day was launched to celebrate mentoring with a key focus on recognising excellence and raising awareness on the significant benefits of mentoring to encourage more people to get involved in mentoring. The day was founded by Chelsey Baker, an award-winning business mentor to help recognise and celebrate mentoring in all its forms. For more information about National Mentoring Day visit nationalmentoringday.org.

 Mentoring is a one-to-one relationship, usually over a set period of time, in which an established professional (mentor) provides consistent support, guidance and practical help to another person (mentee). 

It is a voluntary relationship, which the mentee or mentor can end at any time.

Mentor’s role:
The traditional view of a mentor is someone who shares their experience and imparts knowledge. In contemporary mentoring, a mentor does a lot more listening than talking. A mentor’s role isn’t to tell a mentee what to do, it is to act as a guide. A mentor asks questions and draws out the mentee’s own thoughts before offering advice and providing additional options. A mentor also challenges, offers a different perspective, another point of view and provides support. While no two mentoring relationships are the same, all mentoring relationships should start with the same solid foundations.

Mentor's pull – They don't push
A mentor never “pushes”, whether by telling, instructing or giving advice.

A mentor's pull

• They listen to understand
• They ask questions
• They will paraphrase and summarise discussions
• They can suggest options
• They will give feedback
• They can offer guidance
• They help mentees to solve their problems

Mentee’s role:
Mentoring is a way of enabling the mentee to gain the skills, knowledge and confidence to perform at a higher level, giving them access to impartial, non-judgmental guidance and support.

A mentee should use the following skills to maximise their relationship:
1) Active Listening
2) Questioning to clarify and make sure they have understood correctly
3) Questioning to explore additional options and consequences
4) Being prepared to act on what has been agreed with the mentor

Making a mentoring relationship work

First conversation preparation logistics
At the start of the mentoring process you should have an initial discussion around:

• How often and how long to meet for - An hour is generally considered to be the normal arrangement, but this can be adjusted to suit individual needs. Time restrictions of both parties need to be considered.
• How many meetings/how long should the process last - The usual cycle is about 6 meetings over 6 months, but this can vary depending on the complexity of the mentoring goals and individual’s needs. Dates and times for future meetings can be set at the initial meeting.
• Scheduling - At the outset of your relationship, it is worthwhile scheduling your meetings and getting them in the diary, ideally 3-6 months in advance.
• Where to meet - Somewhere neutral is usually preferable. You might want to consider “meeting” by phone or virtually using something like Skype, which can be just as effective as meeting face to face.
• Communication between meetings - Agree on how much communication is acceptable between meetings and how this communication can be done - email, telephone, messaging etc.
• Record keeping - Agree who will be responsible for note taking and actions agreed at each meeting.
• Confidentiality - Discuss your individual understanding of what confidentiality means and check that your ideas align.
• Prematurely ending the relationship - Discuss how you will manage things if either of you wishes to end the mentoring relationship before the agreed time.
• Boundaries - Clarify with the mentee how much (if any) work you are happy to do between meetings and any other boundaries you may want to set.

Goals/Objectives
The most effective mentoring conversation needs to focus on setting and achieving goals, exploring issues and making informed decisions. A good place to start the process is by defining the key challenge(s).

Define the challenge
Mentoring needs to have a purpose, so discuss broad aims from the outset and clearly identify the scope of the issues that you need to work on. At the heart of the mentoring conversation are two key questions:

1) Where is the mentee now? You can use SWOT to help you understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and goals and the G-Star Model to look at the current situation, thinking, actions and results.
2) Where does the mentee want to be?

Once you have clearly identified the issues and challenges that you are facing, the next step is to set goals and milestones that you can work towards. This will give focus and ensure that the mentoring relationship doesn’t stall or become sidetracked.

Maintain momentum
It can be difficult to maintain momentum but if you continue to do the following it will help you to achieve your goals:

1) Meetings – Even if you think you have no goals, issues or projects to discuss, it is still worth keeping to planned meetings as it helps build and nurture the relationship and ensures it lasts.
2) Agenda – Have an agenda, it doesn’t have to be formal but it will prepare you for your meetings and help you get the most out of them by being more focused and productive.
3) Agree Actions – At the end of each meeting ensure you discuss actions and give some commitment to complete agreed actions, otherwise your meetings just become chats and you will lose momentum.
4) Reviewing – Each meeting should review actions and progress towards the main goals.

Ending the relationship
There will come a time when the mentoring relationship will begin to draw to an end. Here are some tips to help you end your relationship successfully.

• Fix a date for your final discussion.
• Remind each other of the date of the final session in your penultimate discussion so that you can prepare for it.
• You might want to look at ways you can continue your learning.

As part of the final meeting, you might want to reflect on what you feel has been of value, what did you enjoy and what could have been done differently.

The ACT’s mentoring scheme is available to all members and students – visit treasurers.org/cpd/mentoring