02-Better_Mentoring

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Five tips that will help you mentor your team better

Contact White Paper: 02

Five secrets to help you

Become a Better Mentor

James MarshHead of Consulting, Symposium Events@jamesmmarshhr



Introduction

Welcome to your free copy of ‘Five secrets to help you become a better mentor.’

Mentoring is offering advice and guidance to help an individual develop and learn. The mentoring relationship is one that is mutually formed outside of the line-management structure and that goes beyond functional, professional coaching in specific skills related to a person’s role. It is the provision of both career and personal support on an ongoing basis.

Mentoring relationships occur both within organisations of all sizes and through schemes that provide business mentors to entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses to help them grow.

Many companies have introduced mentoring programmes to support organisational learning, providing access for new or less experienced employees to selected people in more senior roles.

These relationships can often be for a fixed period of, for example, one year, after which mentoring relationships are often maintained on an informal basis.

At Symposium Consulting, we work with businesses of all sizes and sectors to help them understand the importance and potential impact of mentoring. Having assisted businesses with creating the right foundations for HR success for more than a decade, we’ve learned a lot along the way, and we know that the existence of a strong mentoring culture within an organisation can provide people at all levels with confidence, support and new skills that can increase productivity. In this guide, we’ve identified some of the key skills we feel mentors need to have in order to provide effective and productive support to your employees.



The history of mentoring...

The term ‘mentor’ originates from Greek mythology. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus, King of the island of Ithaca, was called to fight in the Trojan War. On his departure, he entrusted the care of his household to his most wise and trusted friend and advisor, a man named Mentor, who served as teacher and guardian to Telemachus, the King’s young son.

After the war ended with the epic battle of Troy, Odysseus’ journey back to Ithaca took ten years. During this time Telemachus, who had now become a man, left Ithaca in search of his father. On his travels the goddess Athena often appeared to Telemachus in the physical form of Mentor to offer the young prince guidance whilst

concealing her true identity. Eventually father and son would be reunited and return to Ithaca to quell the unrest that had grown in their absence and re-secure the throne.

Thus the word ‘mentor’ evolved to mean trusted advisor, friend, teacher and guide, someone who would offer wisdom and support to aid someone on their journey and help them attain their goals or realise their potential.

“The goddess Athena often appeared to Telemachus in the physical form of Mentor”



Why is mentoring important?

The existence of a mentoring programme is fast becoming a good indicator of an organisation that is committed to providing opportunities for their employees to grow. Much has been written about how career opportunities and development are bigger motivators to generation Y and millennial workers than financial rewards. The opportunity to have someone that takes an interest in their careers, outside of the traditional management relationship, is highly valued and can be key to attracting the best talent.

Furthermore, it can offer experienced employees the opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise. They can form rewarding relationships that can focus and

re-energise them, providing them with a sense of perspective within the organisation as well as pride in the achievement of their mentees.

Many now believe that mentoring represents the single most effective and efficient means of encouraging learning and development, at both an individual and organisational level, and can be a key part of creating a learning culture. Those with the right knowledge, skills and behaviours to provide effective mentoring can be huge assets to any organisation.



guidance and support. They do this in the knowledge that their mentor is purely interested in helping them improve and that these insecurities will never be revealed to others in the organisation.

Therefore the ability to provide a safe environment and develop that trust is crucial to improving the performance of the individual.

Create a safe environment

A successful mentoring relationship is built on trust. A mentor should not be the person responsible for the mentee’s performance, appraisal or any formal monitoring, and must treat every discussion with their mentee with confidentiality. The mentee must feel able to be open and honest without any fear of reproach.

Most of us, through our working lives, attempt to present the best version of ourselves. We try hard to always look as if we know what is happening and that we have everything under control. Having a mentor in whom the employee is able to place trust allows them to reveal things they may be struggling with or not understand and receive

1

“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not

creating someone in your image, but giving them the opportunity to

create themselves”

Steven SpielbergFilm Director,

Screenwriter and Producer.1946-present



Be a good listener

A common problem with mentoring is the feeling that you must provide all the answers. In fact, mentoring is a process of giving someone the ability to find the answers for themselves. A good mentor doesn’t ‘spoon-feed’ their mentees, rather points them in the right direction and empowers them to find the solutions they need themselves.

Good mentors are primarily listeners who adhere to the old adage about how, due to the fact that we all have two ears and only one mouth, we should listen twice as much as we speak.

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“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing except the shape of the spoon”

EM ForsterAuthor and Essayist.1879-1970



Share your mistakes3

Your experiences are all valuable, including the times when you didn’t make a success of something. It is easy to want to inspire trust in the mentee through trying to impress them, sharing only the things you have done well, but we are proven to learn more from failures than victories.

Sharing your mistakes will also help you build that trust between you and your mentee and help them relate to you and your experience. Would you share your uncertainties or vulnerabilities with someone who you thought was perfect and who you thought had never made a mistake?

Your mistakes are your most valuable learning resource, for your mentee as well as yourself.

“Mentor: Someone who’s hindsight can become your foresight”

Peter DruckerAuthor, Management Consultant and Philosopher.1909-2005



Establish meaningful goals4

Whether in the form of a personal development plan, learning contract or other format, encourage your mentee to set themselves development goals with your help and then regularly discuss progress towards them. These goals should be completely unrelated to the performance targets of their role, but instead based on what the mentee wants to achieve for themselves.

“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction”

John C CrosbyUS Congressman, Judge, Lawyer and Politician 1859-1943

These goals may be work related, but are focussed on their individual development and their career. They can also be related to their aspirations outside of work and how that may affect their career choices.



Value the benefits for you 5

Mentoring can improve your leadership and communication skills, give you added perspective on your organisation and the sector or industry in which you work, and help you evaluate your own experiences.

Perhaps more importantly, it can be an energising process that reaffirms your confidence through the realisation that your knowledge and experience is valuable to others.

Being a mentor can be extremely rewarding. You have the chance to offer real assistance to someone and then observe the benefits first hand.

“What I think the mentor gets is the great satisfaction of

helping somebody along, helping somebody take advantage of an

opportunity that maybe he or she did not have”

Clint EastwoodFilm Actor,

Director and Producer.1930-present



At Symposium we have worked with hundreds of HR specialists over more than a decade, delivering the knowledge to HR professionals from organisations of all sizes in both the public and private sector that can help them make a real difference. We can field the right individual or team for your project from both our in-house personnel and our expert panel of independent consultants and specialists. We understand that your unique project requires a unique team to craft a tailored solution that’s right for your business.

Our consultants can help you and your organisation with your people strategy, HR support, employee wellbeing and change management. They bring with them decades of experience across the entire HR spectrum. Our aim is to deliver the HR knowledge you need; no more, no less.

In addition to consulting, Symposium is also the leading independent provider of HR conferences, training workshops and webinars.

Find out more at www.symposium-events.co.uk

A final note

About Symposium

I hope that you’ve found this guide useful, and that it’s given you plenty of pointers to help you be an effective mentor in your organisation.

If you feel like mentoring should be a part of your organisation, or you feel you need to build more of a learning culture, it pays to bring in some professional expertise. As experienced HR consultants, we can help with any aspect of the process, whether it’s creating a mentoring programme, integration with your business objectives and values, or simply mentoring or coaching advice on an individual level.

For further information, give me a call on 020 7253 0615, send an email to [email protected] or visit www.symposium-events.co.uk/hr-consulting/

If you’ve found this guide helpful, please recommend it to any of your contacts who might be looking at how to introduce

mentoring within their businesses. They can download their very own copy at www.symposium-events.co.uk.

Wishing you every success,

James MarshHead of HR Consulting



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02-Better_Mentoring