Interested in Having a New Definition of What is Mentoring?
Is It Important to Match Your Mentor's 'Style' to Your Needs?
Do You Need More Clarity re Your Options?

What is mentoring?

The answer to that question depends on which definition of mentoring you choose to use.

Your choice of which definition of mentoring you wish to work with based on what you are trying to achieve is:

You can decide to choose the traditional definition OR

you can choose a new evolved definition

The differences between them are described below so that you can compare each against your mentoring needs and choose which one you believe will match them best.

If you have a simple need to transfer the tacit knowledge and skills of a more experienced employee to a younger less experienced employee, the traditional definitions below will cover the mentoring and Mentor's 'style' you need adequately. 

Definitions: taken from  Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press

These traditional definitions emphasise the role of the Mentor as a guide and adviser using his or her experience almost like a ‘jug full of water’ which needs to be ‘poured into the glass’ that is the mentee(s).

It is largely a ‘one-way street’, from the Mentor to the mentee(s).

And that will be valid and effective in the example context set out below:

Let's say you have a long-standing employee called Eileen who is very skilful and knowledgeable and who will be retiring in the next year or so.

It would be a costly mistake to let all that tacit skill of a highly valued employee walk out of the door leaving a major weakness 'black hole' in the business.

It would be a great opportunity to use traditional mentoring as the most positive and effective means of retaining Eileen's tacit skill and knowledge by helping a mentee learn how to 'succeed' Eileen and continue to deliver her high value contribution to your business.

If you needs are more complex than the above (e.g. you need to make some culture changes) you may choose our evolved definition which states that Mentoring is:

A shared learning process to help others, to help themselves, to release and realise more of their potential (ref. Dennis Martin)

This more dynamic, focused definition emphasises the role of the Mentor as transformative in helping the mentee(s) to learn tacit skills and knowledge AND to create additional capabilities (potential) that achieve more than just ‘cloning’ the Mentor.

It emphasises the Mentor and mentee(s) working together creatively as a synergistic team, learning from each other and being jointly responsible and accountable  for self-managing the mentoring process and programme.

It is a 'two-way iterative street' using giving and receiving honest feedback for learning purposes which will develop high mutual trust, mutual respect and honest communications.

This is the more effective definition to choose for your mentoring investment if your needs are more ‘sophisticated’ and you need more than a ‘clone’ of the Mentor.

WHY is this definition more effective?

Well, from our 30 years of experience, we find that the transfer of advice and help inherent in the traditional definition is likely to focus on solutions / answers re how to do the job better and overcome problems by using the Mentor’s tacit knowledge and skills. 

We call this part of mentoring 'CONTENT', and it is valid, of course, but for us, it's only half of the job. 

In addition, mentees need help from their mentors' tacit skills to learn, for example, how to use whole brain thinking or how to create and develop more capabilities and how to release and realise more of their potential, which in total will yield major benefits of mentoring.

We call this the mentoring ‘PROCESS’, the other half of the job.

Our bespoke and different approach will help you to do the whole job because it focuses on achieving more of the mentee(s) potential and is transformative in nature.

Using the evolved definition will create a much more dynamic mentoring process than the traditional approach and this results in higher returns on investment and higher levels of realised potential. 

In many cases it can yield cost savings and profit improvements that in effect make mentoring self-financing.

That is, it achieves much more than just ‘cloning’ the Mentor, it helps the mentee(s) to transform themselves by exceeding the Mentor’s standards; creating new capabilities and releasing and realising more of their potential.

When he or she achieves this they are a ‘different’ person from the one at the start of mentoring.

They will have 'grown' personally and professionally, become more empowered and confident, learned self-management and will be highly motivated to contribute to business goals that they now feel to be in alignment with.

We define ‘potential’ as: unrealised possibilities and ‘impossibilities’ and we have learned that when the mentoring process helps the mentee to create new capabilities and capacity it begins to unlock the potential of both leaders and the business.

In summary to the question: What is Mentoring?

We have learned from our experience that:

Mentoring is an amazing opportunity to appreciate your people in both senses of the word ‘appreciate’.

It is an opportunity to create a role model microcosm of a desired future culture of ‘survive and thrive’ in which every employee will be aligned with business goals and intrinsically motivated to continuously improve everything.

Your Mentor and mentee(s) will have proved what can be done in your business when latent potential is released and realised yielding benefits to it and everyone else.

They will become a powerful positive influence for constructive change, inclusivity and diversity in your business.

The mentoring process may help ‘management’ in your company to morph into ‘leadership’ and will encourage open communications, synergy and high performance team working.

A mentoring metaphor:

Mentoring inspires us to realise our wings of potential
and soar far beyond the stars to transform impossibilities into realities

In terms of getting started, if you haven't already, one of the first things you will need to do to achieve successful mentoring in your company is to decide and choose which definition above is the ‘right’ match for your business and its needs.

The choice is yours, of course, along with whoever else you choose to involve, including us if you so wish?

We can help you to choose the best match of mentors and mentees. 

We can also help you to achieve the optimum returns on mentoring investment for your people and your business whichever definition you choose.

We have successful award winning results working with each definition.

We will be delighted to have a zero cost and no obligation discussion with you to explore the best match for your decision and where do you go from here?

Our approach is bespoke and we know how beneficial it is to create a mentoring made-to-measure programme that matches your business' and people's needs.

Zero cost and obligation: Contact me now via the Contact Help Form below with any questions, comments or feedback about this page and to discuss what will be the best decision for you: traditional mentoring with your Mentor(s) as a guide and adviser or dynamic mentoring based on your Mentor helping a mentee(s) to transform himself or herself and release and realise more of their potential.

We have covered a lot and, hopefully, we have satisfactorily answered your question, ‘What is Mentoring?’.

Thank you for the opportunity to share some of our learnings with you.

Kind regards,

Dennis