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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
PRAISE FOR THE MENTEE'S GUIDE
"The Mentee's Guide inspires and guides the potential mentee, provides new insights for the adventure in learning that lies ahead, and underscores my personal belief and experience that mentoring is circular. The mentor gains as much as the mentee in this evocative relationship. Lois Zachary's new book is a great gift."
Frances Hesselbein, chairman and founding president, Leader to Leader Institute
"Whether you are the mentee or mentor, born or made for the role, you will gain much more from the relationship by practicing the fun and easy A-to-Z principles of The Mentee's Guide by the master of excellence, Lois Zachary."
Ken Shelton, editor, Leadership Excellence
"With this deeply practical book filled with stories and useful exercises, Lois Zachary completes her groundbreaking trilogy on mentoring. Must-reading for those in search of a richer understanding of this deeply human relationship as well as anyone seeking a mentor, whether for new skills, job advancement, or deeper wisdom."
Laurent A. Parks Daloz, senior fellow, the Whidbey Institute, and author, Mentor: Guiding the Journey of Adult Learners
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Seitenzahl: 262
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009
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Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
The Authors
Chapter 1: The Power and Process of Mentoring
What We Know About Good Mentoring Relationships
The Power of Mentoring
The Process of Mentoring
Mentoring Can Happen Any Time and Any Place
Is Mentoring Right for You?
Chapter 2: Preparing Yourself to Make the Most of Mentoring
Mentoring: A Reflective Practice
Creating a Personal Vision
How You Function in a Mentoring Relationship
Knowing Your Learning Style
Chapter 3: Finding and Getting to Know Your Mentor
Choosing a Mentor: A Criteria-Based Decision-Making Model
Going Through the Steps
Talking with Potential Mentors
Making Your Final Choice: Some Things to Think About
Preparing the Relationship
Chapter 4: Establishing Agreements with Your Mentor
SMART Goals
Success Criteria and Measurement
Accountability Assurances
Protocols for Addressing Stumbling Blocks
Mentoring Agreement
Mentoring Work Plan
Chapter 5: Doing the Work
Getting the Most Out of Your Mentoring Time
Keeping the Focus on Learning
Getting the Support, Vision, and Challenge You Need
Maintaining a Good Relationship with Your Mentor
Chapter 6: Coming to Closure with Your Mentor
Why Closure Is Often a Challenge
What You Miss Without Closure
How to Plan for Closure
Closure Conversations
When It’s Time for Closure
Chapter 7: Making the Transition from Mentee to Mento
The Role of Mentor
Are You Ready to Mentor?
Making the Transition
Appendix: Digging Deeper: An Annotated List of Helpful Resourc
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Exhibits
Exhibit 2.1: From Vision to Goal Setting: Mary’s Gap Analysis
Exhibit 2.2: Selected Learning Style Descriptors
Exhibit 3.1: Criteria-Based Decision-Making Steps
Exhibit 3.2: Using the Criteria-Based Decision-Making Model to Select a Mentor
Exhibit 3.3: Initial Mentoring Conversation: Preparing the Relationship
Exhibit 4.1: Establishing Agreements
Exhibit 4.2: Joan’s First Draft
Exhibit 4.3: Sample Mentoring Partnership Agreement
Exhibit 4.4: Gordon’s Mentoring Work Plan
Exhibit 5.1: Feedback Tips and Strategies
Exhibit 5.2: Tips for Mentees in Engaging in Feedback
Exhibit 6.1: The Closure Conversation: Core Elements
Exhibit 7.1: Mentoring Cycle: Questions for Mentors
List of Exercises
Exercise 2.1: Personal Reflection Exercise
Exercise 2.2: Beginning with the End in Mind: Visioning Checklist
Exercise 2.3: From Vision to Goal Setting: Gap Analysis Exercise
Exercise 2.4: Mentee Skill Inventory
Exercise 4.1: SMART Mentoring Goals Worksheet
Exercise 4.2: SMART Goal Checklist
Exercise 4.3: SMART Goals: Success Criteria, Measurements, and Milestones
Exercise 4.4: Confidentiality Checklist
Exercise 4.5: Discussion Guide: Boundaries
Exercise 4.6: Sample Mentoring Work Plan
Exercise 5.1: Mentoring Partnership Accountability Checklist
Exercise 5.2: New Learning Opportunities
Exercise 5.3: Goal Audit
Exercise 7.1: Mentoring Motivation Checklist
Exercise 7.2: Reflection on Your Experience as a Mentee
Exercise 7.3: Listening Dynamics Profile
Exercise 7.4: Feedback Checklist for Mentors
Exercise 7.5: Mentor Attributes
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Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
More Praise for The Mentees’ Guide
“Lois Zachary and Lory Fischler’s book confirms the importance of providing newly appointed leaders the support and tools they need to maximize the learning opportunities available through a mentoring relationship. Principals and vice principals in Ontario currently value Zachary’s books on creating a culture of mentoring and her guide for mentors in facilitating effective relationships. This new resource completes the collection and provides a comprehensive resource for establishing successful mentoring programs.”
—Joanne Robinson, senior consultant, Education Leadership Canada
“Lois Zachary understands the essence of mentoring. Her new book, written with her associate, Lory Fischler, is another great tool for me as a leader, working with mentoring everyday, always looking to make the relationships more effective. Successful mentoring is not about a cup of coffee now and then; it is a real, committed relationship with clear expectations on both sides.”
—Pernille Lopez, president, IKEA US
“A leading authority on mentoring, Lois Zachary writes with the clarity of purpose and generosity of spirit that animate successful mentoring relationships. Based on solid research, her book presents useful exercises and juicy, real-life examples that will help you make your time as a mentee wonderfully productive and affirming.”
—Sheila Grinell, president and CEO emeritus, Arizona Science Center
“This easy-to-read, highly practical and reliable book teaches lessons that lead to successful mentoring in cross-cultural and international environments.”
—Eric Ng, president, ESSN International Pte Ltd, Training & Consultancy Services
THE MENTEE’S GUIDE
Making Mentoring Work for You
Lois J. Zachary
with Lory A. Fischler
Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
A Wiley Imprint
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The Mentee’s Guide by Lois J. Zachary.
Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zachary, Lois J.
The mentee’s guide : making mentoring work for you / Lois J. Zachary ; with Lory A. Fischler.
p. cm. — (The Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-34358-6 (pbk.)
1. Mentoring in business. 2. Corporate culture. I. Fischler, Lory A., 1947- II. Title.
HF5385.Z33 2009
650.1—dc22
2009011952
The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series
Foreword
LOIS ZACHARY HAS done it again. In The Mentee’s Guide: Making Mentoring Work for You, she and her colleague Lory Fischler have added a much-desired third volume of wisdom, direction, and inspiration about mentoring to round out a troika of books providing essential wisdom and practice. This new book joins Zachary’s acclaimed two volumes The Mentor’s Guide and Creating a Mentoring Culture. The Mentee’s Guide mentors you through the process, and it practices what it preaches.
Mentoring is a well-recognized concept in today’s world, but it is frequently interpreted in different ways by different people. When individuals use the term very loosely to describe a variety of activities and outcomes, often without much attention to specifics, they may easily think they are clearly communicating their needs and expectations when in fact these may be interpreted quite differently by someone else. By defining mentoring as a relationship, breaking it down into distinct parts, and identifying specific aspects that are associated with effective mentoring, the book provides flexible but direct guidance to support mentees and other readers in their quests to learn and find new insights and awareness.
In 2009, more than ever, individuals benefit from the learning that mentoring can provide as they develop as professionals and as global citizens. Though a massive infusion of publicity has increased awareness of the potential benefits of providing mentoring for youth, especially those considered “at risk,” there is also an increasing appreciation in the United States of the value of mentoring throughout individuals’ lives. It is this benefit to adult learning that Zachary and Fischler know and impart with such passion, clarity, and precision to their readers. As we move through rapid social and economic changes wrought by technological development and resulting globalization of markets, former employment practices and expectations related to professional and career development have all but vanished. It’s up to the individual to determine how to navigate these unfamiliar waters.
Although the documented benefits of mentoring accrue to organizations, society, and to the individual mentors themselves, as Zachary’s previous two books have so well detailed, it is the mentee in the end who is likely to gain the most from an effective mentoring relationship. Now, at last, we have a guide for those who would like to be proactive in developing a powerfully productive mentoring relationship. Taking the initiative, as the adult seeking mentoring should do in driving a mentoring relationship, is likely to bring more useful benefits more efficiently. This book provides the insights and inspiration for the mentee to do so. Truly effective learning requires adult learners to take charge of their learning experiences and own them. They need to be open to new ideas but also test those ideas’ authenticity and power to expand their own knowledge against their experiences and current understanding. Ongoing interactive communication with a mentor helps develop that process.
The Mentee’s Guide provides a comprehensive overview, with guideposts along the path from selecting a mentor to transitioning into the role of mentor. Although the guide primarily focuses on mentoring related to work and professional development, its wisdom is applicable to personal mentoring as well. It is comprehensive, accessible, and illustrated with real-life examples from those who have experienced powerful mentoring relationships.
An internationally renowned consultant and expert, Dr. Zachary is well known for her wisdom and experience in developing leaders and her prominent use of mentoring in doing so. Her approach is simultaneously compassionate and challenging, thoughtful and clear-minded. It can help us take charge of envisioning and realizing our futures, leading to better lives, more rewarding and valuable work, and an improved world.
Carol B. Muller
Palo Alto, California
• • •
Carol B. Muller is the founder of MentorNet, the E-Mentoring Network for Diversity in Engineering and Science (www.MentorNet.net), and served as its chief executive from 1997 until 2008.
Preface
MY CONNECTION to mentoring began before I was born. My maiden name was actually Menter (pronounced the same as mentor), so perhaps it was not coincidental that my work focuses on mentoring. What is certain is that my introduction to mentoring began as a Menter.
My mother seemed to be everyone’s informal mentor. She was a leader in a host of community organizations, and people would frequently call on her to share her leadership secrets, bolster their confidence, and support their good intentions. Sometimes she would be gentle, sometimes a bit stern, but she always balanced candor and compassion. Those who were privileged to call her “Mentor Menter” knew that she was there for them and believed in them and the power of their possibilities. To this day we hear stories of how enduring her impact had been and how, in her own special way, she didn’t transform those she mentored but helped them transform themselves.
My personal mentoring stories are many. I marvel at how my mentors raised the bar for me, modeled the way, pushed me beyond my personally defined limits, encouraged me to enlarge my thinking, and believed in me even when I was unsure of myself. I was grateful for their time, their stories, and their commitment to my growth. I recall one mentor in particular who always seemed to open doors of possibility for me. She saw something in me I didn’t see in myself. To be honest, I was sure that I was going to be overwhelmed as each door opened, but with her support I was able to rise to the challenge, consolidate the learning, and move onto the next one. Before I knew it, I had developed competencies that I’d never imagined. Another mentor stood alongside me as I took on a major leadership role in my community. He was there to support me, help me through the political minefields, and make sure I kept the big picture at the forefront of my thinking.
Although most of my experiences were positive, there were a few that could have gone better. I had no clue then that there were things I could have done, said, asked, and tried that would have allowed me to make the most of my mentoring relationships. I didn’t realize that as a mentee I had an instrumental role to play in shaping and defining the outcomes of the relationship.
AN INVITATION TO EXERCISE YOUR VOICE
My experience is not unique. Some mentees engage in formal and informal mentoring relationships—personal and professional—just so they can “sit at the foot of the master.” As result, they don’t find their own voice to ask for what they need from a mentoring relationship but settle on what they get instead.
The Mentee’s Guide: Making Mentoring Work for You is an invitation to exercise your voice with full resonance and not to settle for anything less than what you need. Whether you are just starting out in your career, seeking personal or professional development, transitioning to new responsibilities, retiring, or re-careering, it is important to understand what it means to be a mentoring partner and to fully engage in the relationship.
To that end, The Mentee’s Guide presents a simple, straightforward practical approach to help you make the most of your mentoring relationship. Although there are many books for mentors, there are fewer for mentees and even fewer that focus specifically on empowering mentees to take an active, creative, and self-authored role in their own mentoring relationships. The Mentee’s Guide fills that gap. Not only a book chock full of stories, practical tools, tips, and exercises, The Mentee’s Guide is also an invitation to learning. As we take the journey together, I will guide you through the process step by step, offering straightforward and practical exercises so you can choose what works best for where you are now and where you want to go.
This book is an extension of our work at Leadership Development Services. It reflects what we’ve heard, observed, and learned in our work with thousands of individuals engaged in mentoring. The idea for the book started when six people approached me after a presentation at Google several years ago and asked me when I was going to write a book for mentees. I asked them what questions they would want such a book to address, and therein lies the inception of the process.
An important part of the process of shaping this book was undertaken by my colleague, Leadership Development Services’ Senior Associate Lory Fischler. Lory interviewed over thirty people of different ages from an array of settings—corporate, educational, nonprofit, and small business. We were interested in getting their on-the-ground candid stories and digging deeply into the day-to-day realities of a mentoring relationship, with all its exhilarations and frustrations.
The stories in this book are based on those interviews and on the experiences of individuals Lory and I have encountered in multiple settings over the years. We’ve changed many of the details to protect the privacy of the individuals, but the essence of their experiences has been preserved.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
If you are new to mentoring, I would encourage you to read chapters one through six before you do any of the exercises provided in the book. This will give you an overview of the entire mentoring process and help you fully appreciate the purpose of each phase. If you’ve had a mentor before, however, or are already engaged in a mentoring relationship, skim through the book and start out where you are right now. You can dip in and out of other chapters as needed. If you are considering making the transition from mentee to mentor, be sure to work through the exercises in Chapter Seven. If you’d like to dig deeper into the topics presented in each chapter, I’ve included an annotated bibliography in the Appendix for your reference. Also, I invite you to visit my Web site: www.leadershipdevelopmentservices.com.
My goal is to help you make excellence in your mentoring relationship a personal priority and be more reflective about your own role in that relationship. I hope you will accept my invitation to delve more deeply into understanding your role in a mentoring relationship and how you can make mentoring work for you.
Acknowledgments
STORIES have the ability to stir and teach us. Reading about them often awakens something deep within us that gives us pause to reflect on our own story. Writing The Mentee’s Guide created its own story, a story enlivened by the generosity of many people.
Lory Fischler, friend, associate, and storyteller extraordinaire—Your wisdom, talent, sense of humor, patience, and dedication enriches our partnership and collaboration every day and made this book exciting and fun to do. Know that I appreciate you and your many gifts.
Story Sharers (you know who you are)—Thank you for taking the time to candidly share your mentoring stories with Lory. Your experiences illuminated the everyday concerns, struggles, and satisfactions involved in mentoring and created the master story for this book.
Paula Stacy, my “book mentor”—You guided me in shaping and bringing to life the story I wanted this book to tell. With your quiet wisdom, attentive ear, and guiding hand you helped me zero in on what was important. I applaud you.
David Brightman, senior editor—We’ve worked together before, and now again. It only gets better. Thanks for honoring my work and encouraging me to write about it.
Marge Smith—My “critical friend,” who always asked deep probing questions and kept encouraging me to bring more of my own story to the book.
Mentors, mentees, friends, and family—You are part of my continuing story. I am very grateful for that indeed.
Lois J. Zachary
Phoenix, Arizona
The Authors
LOIS J. ZACHARY is an internationally recognized expert in mentoring and leadership. She is president of Leadership Development Services, LLC, a Phoenix-based consulting firm offering leadership development, consulting, coaching, education, and training for corporate and nonprofit organizations.
Zachary is the author of The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships (Jossey-Bass, 2000), a best-selling book that has become the primary resource for mentors who are looking to deepen their mentoring practice. Her second book on mentoring, Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization’s Guide (Jossey-Bass, 2005), provides a comprehensive resource for promoting organizational mentoring sustainability. In addition to books on mentoring, Zachary has written numerous articles, columns, and monographs about mentoring, leadership and board development, staff development, consulting, and adult development and learning. She is the coeditor of The Adult Educator as Consultant (Jossey-Bass, 1993) and the coauthor (with Lory Fischler) of Creating and Sustaining Collaborative Partnerships (Leadership Development Services, 2002).
Zachary was selected by Leadership Excellence: The Magazine of Leadership Development, Managerial Effectiveness, and Organizational Productivity to its “2007 Excellence 100” list as one of the 100 “best minds” in the field of organizational leadership.
Zachary received her doctorate in adult and continuing education from Columbia University. She holds a master of arts degree from Columbia University and a master of science degree in education from Southern Illinois University.
• • •
LORY A. FISCHLER, Leadership Development Services’ senior associate, is a facilitator par excellence. In her role as the company’s program-development specialist, she builds client-customized mentoring and leadership training programs. She is also the creator of Leadership Development Services’ unique Effective Meeting Model©, as well as a work style inventory that promotes self-understanding and team interaction. In addition to collaborating on the publication Creating and Sustaining Collaborative Partnerships, Fischler and Zachary developed a series of Mentoring Excellence Pocket Toolkits.
Fischler is a graduate of Lake Erie College and has studied at the University of Grenoble, Boston University, and Boston State University. She is a Master Instructor for Motorola University, and in 1991 she was the first person to receive Motorola University West’s Instructor of the Year Award.
Chapter 1The Power and Process of Mentoring
WHAT EXACTLY IS a mentor? Because mentor is often used loosely to refer to various learning relationships, it is important as you set out on your path as a mentee to understand just what mentoring is and what it isn’t. We can gain some insight by considering the origins of the word. Mentor is a Greek word stemming from the name of a character in Homer’s Odyssey. Mentor was an elderly man, whom Odysseus asked to watch over his son Telemachus when Odysseus set off to fight in the Trojan War. We don’t know much about the interactions between Mentor and Telemachus; few conversations are recounted in the story. But at one point the goddess Athena takes the form of Mentor and guides Telemachus in his quest to find his father, and the brief description of this suggests what sets mentoring apart from other learning relationships. Unlike a teacher or even a coach, who is focused on helping us learn and practice a particular set of skills, a mentor acts as a guide who helps us define and understand our own goals and pursue them successfully.
Of course, mentors in today’s world may not have a goddess’s supernatural powers to help us negotiate our struggles, but they have something else, something that I would argue is just as powerful. They—and you, as a mentee—have access to insights and research about what helps create strong mentoring relationships and what helps adults learn and grow. In the past fifteen years, as mentoring has grown more pervasive and popular and as the field of adult learning has expanded, we have learned a great deal about what both mentors and mentees need to do to build and maintain the kind of relationships that change lives.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GOOD MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS
Good mentoring depends on effective learning. We now know that the best learning occurs when there is a mix of acquiring knowledge, applying it through practice, and critically reflecting on the process. This means that the model of mentoring popular in the 1980s, in which an older, more experienced adult passed on knowledge and information to a younger, less experienced adult, is being replaced by a new model, one that is similar to the one that I first described in The Mentor’s Guide (Zachary, 2000). The new model emphasizes the value of the mentees engaging actively in their own learning and critically reflecting on their experiences.
Good mentoring therefore depends on a reciprocal learning relationship between you and your mentor. Together you form a partnership to work collaboratively on achieving mutually defined goals that focus on developing your skills, abilities, knowledge, and thinking.
To be successful, this relationship must have the following elements: reciprocity, learning, relationship, partnership, collaboration, mutually defined goals, and development. Let’s look more closely at each of these elements:
Reciprocity
This means equal engagement on the part of you and your mentor. Both of you have a responsibility to the relationship and a role to play, and both have much to gain from the relationship as well, not just the mentee. Although mentees often wonder what the mentor has to gain from the relationship, there is more than you might expect. Mentors say that they receive a great deal of satisfaction from sharing their knowledge and experience. Their own perspectives expand as a result of engaging in a mentoring relationship. Often the experience reaffirms their own approaches or suggests new ones. It helps them reconnect to the people in their organization and become reenergized. As a mentee, it is important that you keep this in mind. If you see yourself only as a grateful receiver of help and advice you may be reluctant to ask for what you need.
Learning
The purpose, the process, and the product of a mentoring relationship is learning. Your relationship may be a good one, but without the presence of learning there is no mentoring. By learning we mean more than simply acquiring knowledge, which, though important, is but one aspect of learning. The learning that goes on in a mentoring relationship is an active learning: the mentee gains expanded perspectives; knowledge about the ins and outs of the organization, field, or profession; an understanding of what works and doesn’t work; and, most important, a deepened self-knowledge and self-understanding. The process of critical reflection enables the mentee to transform and apply learning in new ways. Because mentoring is so learner-focused, it is important to understand yourself as a learner and what you bring to the relationship. Because not everyone learns in the same way, it is useful for both you and your mentor to be aware of the how you learn best. In Chapter Two, on preparing yourself for mentoring, you will find some tools for helping you better understand your own learning style.
Relationship
Relationships don’t occur by magic. They take time and work to develop. Working at the relationship is part and parcel of effective mentoring. It is difficult to learn if you don’t feel secure in the relationship. Hence it is critical that mentoring partners work at establishing and maintaining trust. Without trust a good mentoring relationship is impossible. Without trust mentoring partners tend to take things personally and make false assumptions or start blaming. They end up going through the motions of mentoring rather than the process of mentoring. This underscores the importance of having authentic and honest conversations, being committed to the relationship, and following through on commitments.
Partnership
In the past, mentoring relationships were driven by the mentor. The mentor was an authority figure who took the mentee under his or her wing; the mentee was there to receive the wisdom of the mentor and be protected, promoted, and prodded. The current paradigm calls for more involvement of both partners in a mentoring relationship. Just as in any other partnership, mentoring partners establish agreements and become knowledgeable about and attuned to each others’ needs. Each mentoring partner is unique and that uniqueness includes all of the experience, history, diversity, and individuality they bring to the mentoring relationship.
Collaboration
As with any partnership, the work in a mentoring relationship involves collaboration. Mentor and mentee engage in sharing knowledge and learning and building consensus; in the process they mutually determine the nature and terms of the collaboration. You and your mentor each bring your own experience to the discussions that take place. It is this give and take that contributes to shared meaning, and something greater emerges because of this process. Collaboration requires openness on the part of both mentoring partners.
Mutually defined goals
It is hard to achieve a goal that has not been defined. It may be defined in your mind but unless it is mutually defined with your mentoring partner you may be working at cross purposes or on different goals. Clarifying and articulating learning goals is critical to achieving a satisfactory mentoring outcome because mentoring partners must continuously revisit their learning goals throughout the mentoring relationship to keep it on track. Without well-defined goals, the relationship runs the risk of losing its focus.
Development
The focus in a mentoring relationship is on the future, that is, developing your skills, knowledge, abilities, and thinking to get you from where you are now to where you want to be. Mentoring thus differs from coaching, which is more oriented toward boosting performance and specific skills in the present.
THE POWER OF MENTORING
What can mentors help you achieve? Our research at Leadership Development Services reveals multiple reasons for individuals seeking mentors. Some are looking for a safe haven, a place to go where they can vent or get candid feedback. Others are seeking a sounding board to test ideas. Many say they don’t get the support that they need in their jobs, at school, or in their organizations to manage their productivity.
