Mentoring in front of us or behind us?

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.

Myth about mentoring #1 AGE

 A lot is said about mentoring, some of it is true, and some are untrue or myth. I would like to present some her.

 

Myth:
The mentor is a old man and the adept/mentee are a young person.
Fact:
It`s not about age, but a genuine interest, knowledge, experience and development.

Some of the big questions in life…

Alan Wilson remembered when he’d been told that her mother’s cancer had spread; she had taken his hand and said:  “Alan, you are my gift to the world,” she had said. “You will make a bigger difference in it than I.”

What else are there to say??? She had a big trust in him, but at the same time you are in the world to make a change, not only to survive…
And Alans sister said: “Just do what you love, and the impact will follow”
It is so beautiful. I say it all the time to my students both in universities and in mentoring program. Make a change, not only survive…

How to keep your talents?

Harvard Business Review means that the consulting industry have to start mentoring the talents more than today.

 

After many years with the focus on coaching Harvard Business Review means that mentoring is the next big topic. The consulting business up to the finance crises was “only” thinking about making the money, and not thinking about develop new talents.
 It is about time to put out the word mentoring, the ”new” buzz word. It is almost as it is create just for the purpose to hold the young talents motivated and that they want to stick to their employer.
Frustrated employer ignored are about to quit, finding a new company who appreciate them more. And not only are they leaving, and you must find a new person, but they are leaving with central competence. And therefore is it important to create mentor program inside the company for today’s young talent.

Trainings in Trondheim

Some of the adepts in TrondheimAs I told you before I went to Trondheim in Norway to hold two seminars. Both for the participants in JCI Evolutions Mentorprogram for young people in Young Enterprice Norway.

On saturday we started at 10 am and were working with strenght, posibilities and SMART-goals up to 16 pm with all the adepts in the program. They were very interesting in the subject and real active all day. This is going to be the platform for further development trough the program and especially for the AM-meetings (Adept and Mentor meetings) every month.

Oh I love to meet so many positive and active young people and spend time with them, I actually learn as lot as them.

On sunday we started at 11 am to train all the mentors, from businesses around in the county. They were also very positive and active through out the wholde session, working with «The Big Five». Tools for AM-meetings.

I look forward t be hearing from the project group next time.

The Norwegian Armed Forces

On Thursday I got a very interesting mail from The Norwegian Armed Force (www.mil.no). They wanted me to come in april and be the head speaker at a action day for all the women in the army.

My topic will be «Dream Team» and how you can build a dream team when people have different starting point, character and strenght. It would be important to talk about the attitude to people and to accept all kind of individuals.

It would be a whole day for the topic with all kinds of speakers, politicians from the defends comitee, Norways first female pilot on F-16 fighters.

I am really looking forward to the day, even if it means going away from my dreamteam (my wife) and her birthday.

Sertified D.I.S.C analyst

Today I got my sertification on using the Thomas International Personal Profile Analysis (PPA), www.thomasinternational.net. The test provides an insight into how people behave at work answering questions such as – what are their strengths and limitations? Are they self starters? How do they communicate? What motives them?

I am going to use it in matching criteria, not the whole test, but a smaller version. But it is going to be fun to have this tool to do so.

Check it out, it`s maybe something for you to.

Please if you have experience with DISC as a tool, or some other types of tools, write something here about it.

Holding seminar in Trondheim-Norway this weekend

This weekend I am going to Trondheim to train in their mentorprogram for Young Enterprice Norway. On saturday I am going to train all the students the whole day, the seminar is akind of lifeplanning. We are looking at their strenght, their weeknesses and their possibilities, and final some SMART-goals.

On sunday is it mentoring seminar for all the mentors. Learning and training «The Big Five» and prepare them for the task.

And not only that but I am also going to help them in the matching process as well.

This is going to be so much fun, I am very excited.

“The Big Five”

Right now I sit and work at my mentoring seminar, called the big five. That relate to the most important mentoring tools you can use as a mentor.

The five tools are:

  1. Active listening
  2. Effective questions
  3. Feedback
  4. Be responsible
  5. Recognition

And for the next week I am going to conduct the seminar both in Oslo and then in Trondheim in Norway. At the seminar in Oslo I have help from a good partner Kai Roer. You can learn a lot at his blog at www.bebetter.no about training. He is a very active trainer across europe.

The Big Five is also in my book for the mentors.

Success history 5

Today a funny thing happened to me when me and my wife where visiting some good friends of us. They were selling some of their big sized teddy bears online and a potential customer where coming this evening for buying them. Boy was I surprised when a previous adept appear at the door. When he saw my face at the house he was stunned, and happy to meet me again. And he told me that he have started in a new job at his mentors company. He had had several offers but the mentor “won” and he don`t regret the choice he did.

Because he had known the mentor in about a year he could say a lot about the company that she was working in. And they have hit it off so the choise was pretty easy he said.
Way to go Morten and Elisabeth.

By the way Morten bought the big sized teddy bears and went to a small girls birthday party with some big presents, she was going to be very surpriced…