The focus of mentoring is to develop the whole person and so the techniques are broad and require wisdom in order to be used appropriately.
A 1995 study of mentoring techniques most commonly used in business found that the five most commonly used techniques among mentors were:
Accompanying: making a commitment in a caring way, which involves taking part in learning process side-by-side with the learner.
Sowing: mentors are often confronted with the difficulty of preparing the learner before he or she is ready to change. Sowing is necessary when you know that what you say may not be understood or even acceptable to learners at first but will make sense and have value to the mentee when the situation requires it.
Catalyzing: when change reaches a critical level of pressure, learning can jump. Here the mentor chooses to plunge the learner right into change, provoking a different way of thinking, a change in identity or a re-ordering of values.
Showing: this is making something understandable, or using your own example to demonstrate a skill or activity. You show what you are talking about, you show by your own behavior.
Harvesting: here the mentor focuses on “picking the ripe fruit”: it is usually used to create awareness of what was learned by experience and to draw conclusions. The key questions here are: “What have you learned?”, “How useful is it?”.
Different techniques may be used by mentors according to the situation and the mindset of the mentee, and the techniques used in modern organizations can be found in ancient education systems, from the Socratic technique of harvesting to the accompaniment method of learning used in the apprenticeship of itinerant cathedral builders during the Middle Ages. Leadership authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner advise mentors to look for “teachable moments” in order to “expand or realize the potentialities of the people in the organizations they lead” and underline that personal credibility is as essential to quality mentoring as skill.
Tips on Mentoring
For all mentors:
Let the employee learn from you.
Whenever possible, give encouragement.
Point out alternatives.
Remember that mentoring also takes place in phone calls, e-mail, etc.
For mentors in a formal program:
Introduce the employee to people who would be helpful.
Keep your program administrator informed, and seek assistance when needed.
At the end, allow the employee to keep in touch.
Objectives of a Mentoring Program
To retain and advance talented employees.
o retain and advance women and minorities.
To give mentors satisfaction and a rewarding experience.
To open up new channels of communication, information, and education.
To demonstrate that the organization invests in people and encourages opportunity for a diverse workforce.
Non-goal: The program is not intended for sponsoring anyone for a particular position in the
organization.
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