Strategic Mentoring

Published in the Human Resources Association of Calgary: February 2006 Newsletter

This article outlines some ways to strategically mentor a protégé. Listening for the whole message, determining what is most important to the protégé and delivering feedback that can be heard are three ways to be more strategic with your mentoring efforts.

Listening for the whole message: By observing body language, tone of voice and what the protégé is saying you can determine what is really occurring for the person being mentored. People often say one thing and their body or tone can say another. The mentor can get a total picture by observing the whole message the person is conveying and question mixed messages to get at the true story.

Determine what is most important to the protégé: An assessment of values, vision, and purpose are important in a mentoring relationship because aligning the protégé’s actions to their core motivations raises the meaning and importance of their actions.

Our values determine who we are at the core. Our vision states where we are going. Our purpose is the core reason we exist.

Defining our core values helps people define who they are. Helping a protégé determine their values requires having a list of potential values and having them choose the most important values to them. Asking them to look at their day timer also would help them determine their lived values. What they spend their time doing determines what they think is important. There may be a discrepancy between espoused or stated values versus lived values.

Vision has us look beyond the present at what could be and can create boundless constructive tension. What does the protégé envision as an ideal future?

Our purpose is defined as the core reason a person exists. What special talents/strengths do they have that they could brag about? What are they deeply passionate about?

Delivering feedback that can be heard: When you are working with the protégé it is important to assess what is working for them and what is not. Talking about what is working well is easy and important enabling the person to define and build on what they are doing that is working. Discussing areas for improvement is also very helpful however it is not as easy to deliver as positive feedback.

People are often defensive about external feedback and input. Martin Seligman past president of the American Psychological Association says that we often resist external messages. To counter this tendency a mentor can ask permission to give constructive feedback prior to delivery.

A mentor can also talk about constructive feedback being a gift. We are so dualistic in our culture what’s good is good and bad is bad. When you really think about it though how any times have you learned a lot from a negative experience? Talking about non-duality, the gift in what we perceive as the negative message can help the protégé take constructive feedback more positively.

Sharing with a protégé an example of when we as mentors were given some constructive feedback and how we successfully internalized the feedback for our betterment can also help pave the way. This sharing can help the protégé be less defensive and open to the commitment of improving themselves further.

We all want to ensure our mentoring efforts have impact. These three practices, listening for the whole message, determining what is important to the protégé and delivering feedback that can be heard, help us to be more strategic when mentoring.

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