Society today is rediscovering that the process of learning and maturing needs time and many kinds of relationships.
The resurgence of mentoring in almost every occupational field and area of life is a response to this discovery. "Please mentor me," is the spoken and unspoken request
expressed by so many. What do they mean? How do people get into it? …
Mentoring is as old as civilization itself. Through this natural relational process,
experience and values pass from one generation to another. Throughout human history, mentoring was the primary means of passing on knowledge and skills in every field in every culture. But in the modem age, the learning process shifted. It now relies primarily on computers, classrooms, books, and videos. Thus, today the relational connection between the knowledge and experience giver (mentor) and the receiver (adept) has weakened or is nonexistent.
They are talking more about coaching than mentoring in my country and we have a lot of certifications in coaching, but none in mentoring. Probably is it because mentoring is based on volunteering but in the future we have to get some more structure in the business. Write articles, blogs and use the media. And then we have to make some certification rules. It is a important job.
My shortest training would be a 3 hours training in “The Big Five” and even with little time to practice the tools, the participants was very happy.
So if anyone of you have some stories about mentoring you would like to share, send it to me and I will post it on my blog. Together we can make mentoring better for more people and their careers.