GIVING BACK AND MENTORING

“It’d be great if successful people did their part

and mentor budding entrepreneurs.

There is also such thing as peer mentoring

where entrepreneurs going out and talk to each other”

              Give back to those who has given or chip-in to your success.  Recognising all the parties that have contributed to your success reinforces a virtuous cycle of gratefulness and good deed.  People say that part of being successful is to be likable.  Likeable people will attract others.  Likeable people are humble, willing to learn, hardworking and persistent.  They do their research beforehand and ask intelligent questions. They also offer help or add value, before they ask for help.

              There’s always this misconceptions that we need mentoring to be successful.  The several issues that often comes to surface are:

-       There aren’t enough successful entrepreneurs to help mentor

-       The ones that are around are too busy building their next big thing.

-       Most prefer to remain in the background because that modest Asian culture tends to miss construe talking about success as bragging or wanting attention

-       Others don’t want people to think they’re rich successful because they want to avoid being discovered and being asked for help

  But the truth is that we don’t always need successful people to mentor us.  Peer-mentoring do actually worked.  In this case, mentees should not expect mentors to give miraculous answers that will solve all their problems.  Mentoring is really about building a two-way relationship where both parties derive something from each other and gain the satisfaction of knowing they’re added or derived value.

Generally, good “mentors” subscribe to the Socratic Method and will ask deliberate question so that the other person can ponder and think from different perspectives to help with decision making.  What entrepreneurs really need is people who are willing to bounce ideas of each other, leverage different experience and perspectives, and share challenges.  Verbalising the problem is already half the problem solved.

Instead of asking someone to be your mentor, just establish an on-going relationship with a person you respect and make a point of asking educated question or advice.  Then follow up with your progress.  Mentors get excited and want to know if their advice actually helped.  They will likely help more if they hear feedback and progress.

MENTORING AND GROWTH

BY NATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE CENTRE MALAYSIA

MANAGEMENT, SMEBIZ, MONDAY 13 JULY 2015

When done right,

mentoring is a beneficial process

in which both the experienced person and the person being guided

gain in terms of

morale, sense of accomplishment,

transference of knowledge and

building of contacts

Mentoring is a professional relationship in which an experienced person assists another in developing specific skills and knowledge that will enhance the lee-experienced person’s professional and personal growth.  Mentoring is a growing trend in organizations as business leaders note its positive influence in their own lives.

Being mentored can be considered one of the better ways to advance in career.  Many employees, managers, and entrepreneurs these days build informal relationships with an experienced advisor or coach to help them achieve their career goals.  Mentoring programs can shorten one’s learning time, speed up managerial capabilities and develop leaders.

Mentoring can be beneficial for both mentor and mentee.  Mentees have noted that mentoring relationships have helped raise their:

·         morale,

·         increase their functional capabilities, and

·         contribute to knowledge sharing

While mentors get to:

·         polish their coaching skills

·         expand excess to information,

·         build contacts, and

·         gaining sense of well-being

Many are still confuse with the terms ‘mentoring’ and ‘coaching’.

COACHING

A set of systematic steps to empower the person being coached to gain courage, capabilities, and commitment.

It is a means of providing feedback to sustain and improve performance

MENTORING

A process by which a wise and helpful guide or advisor uses experience to show a person how to avoid mistakes made earlier in his career or otherwise help advance the individual’s career.

A mentor need not be older than the mentee.  Someone becomes a mentor because that person has the knowledge and experience that the other party can benefit from.  The learning process is both ways.  They are individuals who are willing to invest their personal time to help others achieve something more.

Mentoring is an ongoing process, thus traditionally, the nature of mentoring has several key characteristics:

1.      focus on career advancement

2.      mentor as a protector

a.      advocate

b.       using network to support mentee’s progress and mobility

3.      a desire to clone look-alike leaders

4.     mentoring base on selected few

a.      to take in high potential employees into the inner management circle

5.      lack of corporate mission or strategy

6.     development of hidden talent

Mentors can teach the ‘unwritten rules of the organization’ as well as skills, abilities and knowledge.  Organizations use mentoring programs for variety of reasons:

1.      cater to the interest of special groups

2.      support knowledge management

3.      learning technical skills for senior executives

4.     prepare expatriates for overseas assignment

Key points to ensure the quality of mentoring:

1.      understanding when mentoring is appropriate, and effective intervention in relation to other people learning and development option

2.      oversee, train and develop pool of appropriately qualified mentors

3.      consider how mentors can be matched to those who are in need of mentoring

4.     be clear about the different types of mentoring

5.      take responsibility for setting up contractual arrangements and

6.     develop mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring activities

Mentoring is ultimately about individual relationships and how they enable participants to transfer knowledge and experience.