Coaching and Mentoring are two things that are close to my heart. And so I picked up the book “One Minute Mentoring” by Ken Blanchard and Claire Diaz-Ortiz recently to enhance my own skillsets. It is a small book written in story form to illustrate certain important aspects of mentoring. At the end of the book, the authors provided a nice model, using MENTOR as an acronym, which would be useful for anyone who is looking to mentor others or be mentored.
Here it is in brief:
- Mission
It is essential to create a vision and purpose for your future mentoring partnership. The first step in any working relationship is to have a clear mission statement. - Engagement
Agree on ways to engage that work for your schedules and personalities. Make a commitment to regular meetings, at least, even if they are virtual. - Networking
Expand your network with that of your mentor or mentee. But remember: tread carefully on the networking contacts of your mentoring partner. Cultivating productive relationships is a major key to success. - Trust
Build and maintain trust with your mentoring partner by telling the truth, staying connected, and being dependable. Building trust takes time – and it can be destroyed in an instant. - Opportunity
Create opportunities for your mentee or mentor to grow. As a mentoring partner, you will have access to personal and business opportunities that simply aren’t available to non-mentors and non-mentees. - Review & Renewal
Schedule a regular time to review progress and renew your mentoring relationship. You will never get where you want to go if you don’t create a mission statement – and you will never know you have arrived if you don’t do regular reviews.
That’s it! Short and sweet, but I think it encapsulates many important aspects of a mentoring relationship. I hope you find it as useful as I did, and if you would like to find out more, check out the book yourself.
