Secret 3 of Award-Winning Mentoring - Preparing Participants

People will say: “I’ve been mentoring for years!” Or “It’s a natural process” Or “I don’t have time to come to training”. Yet both mentors and mentorees need education if mentoring is to be successful. People have very different ideas of what mentoring is and how to go about it. If their roles and expectations are not made explicit and if you don’t give them a framework for the kind of mentoring that will achieve the outcomes you’re aiming for, then you risk failure.

Even experienced mentors need an orientation to the objectives of a particular program and it is useful for them to meet and become part of the network of mentors and mentorees.

Participants also need the opportunity to raise issues and concerns and have their questions answered. It is particularly important for mentors to understand the strategic value of the program and that their contribution not only benefits the individual but also contributes to building the capability of the organization.

All participants need to know the aims mentoring will achieve, why it’s important to the organisation and individuals and what they, themselves, may expect to gain. Participants need to understand their roles and responsibilities, who does what? What are reasonable expectations to have of one-another? Where are the boundaries and what’s outside the scope of mentoring?

A workshop allows you to facilitate the first mentoring meeting and discuss expectations. It creates an environment that gives the best chance of mentoring relationships getting off to a good start and a productive relationship.

The biggest reason to train mentors is that although people understand, intellectually, the value of mentoring, they don’t know its real power until they experience an actual mentoring conversation. You can tell them and they can read about the process and techniques. However, until they experience being listened to without being judged or told what to do, see for themselves the amazing ability of people to find their own answers when given the space and support to do so, and feel the synergy that can occur when people are attuned to one another, they may not have the wherewithal to be the mentor they could be.

Preparing people for mentoring begins as you promote the mentoring strategy. It is critical once you match mentors and mentorees and continues as part of your program support. Most mentoring programs provide a workshop each for mentors and mentorees, separately then bring them together to get them off to a good start. Follow-up group sessions are a feature of best practice programs. If it is not feasible to get people together regularly, webinars can be very effective.

Training builds on people’s experience and natural skills. It focuses them on the outcomes desired of mentoring and equips them with tools and techniques to do it well. Training demonstrates a serious commitment to your mentoring strategy. Train people so that mentoring works!