Mentoring is all about learning

Mentoring is often described as a key part of the development of successful people. Many such people developed, met challenges, dealt with disappointments, and shared success stories through their relationships with one or more mentors.

Through the ages, mentoring has taken on various mantels – sponsorship, guide, apprenticeship, modeling, shadowing and coaching to name a few. The model is, in the simplest terms, to learn from a person who has gone before you.

Increasingly, mentoring is seen as an important and cost effective means of accelerating the development of talent in an organization. Successful mentoring involves the sharing of experiences; learning through story-telling or the use of metaphors to bring life to lessons; and exploring ideas, problems and history to learn the lessons from our past.

A mentoring program brings value to everybody involved in its practice: protégés, mentors and the organizations for which they work. Benefits for protégés include increased self-awareness and self-discipline; an expanded personal network; a sounding board for testing ideas and plans and positive and constructive feedback on professional and personal development. Benefits for mentors include: proven methods to share ideas try new skills and take risks; increased awareness of personal biases, assumptions and areas for improvement and personal fulfillment from investing in others.

Benefit to organizations include: an environment that fosters personal and professional growth through the sharing of skills, attitudes and behaviours; accelerated processes for the identification, development and retention of talent for leadership and increased job satisfaction and engagement for protégés and mentors.

Mentors may have more than one protégé and the mentoring process often benefits when protégés collaborate as a peer mentoring group.

McKinley has developed resources and guides for organizations, mentors and protégés that are interested in implementing a mentoring program. Learning and development opportunities are a top priority for both Gen X and Gen Y and implementing a mentoring program is a cost effective way of retaining them in these turbulent times.