The Value Of Mentoring

Helping business start-ups is a rewarding activity for many retired entrepreneurs and (since selling his own company) it has even become the principal activity for Derek Barr, a business angel with a keen interest in early-stage ventures. Having grown his own specialist engineering concern into an international business, with turnover of £25 million, he sold out to international engineering group GEA in 1996.

Barr has vast experience in training and developing successful executives and his involvement with the London Business School Entrepreneurship Summer School goes right back to the beginning. He has seen the Summer School change in form and scope to what it is today. For him, however, one key part of the programme has not changed – namely the role of mentors.

mars 17, 2010januar 20, 2011

Your Achievement Management System

Wow! We have covered some incredible ground thus far! You have your ambitious and appropriate goals that are based on your strengths and opportunities and have been whole-life balanced. You know who you want to become, who you want to serve and you have the strategic plan of action to achieve all your worthy goals.

Now it is time to create an execution system to implement your plan in the real world—your world.

Some of the best of intentions and greatest plans have failed because there wasn’t a system of execution to see them through. When it comes down to it, your new plans, your new actions, your new behavior, have to be implemented into your monthly, weekly and ultimately daily routine. A routine is something you do every day without fail… and eventually without thinking about it.

mars 17, 2010mai 14, 2012

Why You Need To Train People For Mentoring

The purpose of training is to enable mentors and mentorees to establish effective relationships. Some programs simply introduce people and leave them to «get on with it». Occasionally, this works. But people need to know what is expected of them, how to go about it and why it is important and you need to be confident they have the skills for mentoring.Why Train?

Building a relationship of rapport and trust can be tricky when there are many individual differences;
Managing people is different from mentoring people; and
Motivation will be critical to success.

Mentoring is different from other workplace relationships. It is professional and personal, it deals with rational and emotional motivation and it non-directive but offers guidance and advice! The paradoxical nature of mentoring needs to be understood and the key skills developed.
In addition, participants usually need ongoing personal support and reassurance. Establishing an interactive network of participants will add value. This is most likely to happen when participants meet and work together in training sessions.

Training Mentors and Mentorees

The role of the mentor, communication styles, strategies and practical techniques for applying the mentoring process can be explored in workshops. It is usually beneficial to provide mentors with an initial session separately from the mentorees so that they are able to discuss any issues candidly.

Mentorees need to be primed to make the most of the mentoring experience. Their responsibilities, communication and goal setting are topics you want to cover in their training.

Bringing mentors and mentorees together for a workshop is highly desirable. This way you can enable them to identify expectations of each other in a non-threatening group process. You can also ensure that they have a common understanding of mentoring etiquette, procedures and reporting. Being part of a group reduces the feeling of isolation and you can set up a mechanism for ongoing group contact. Within this workshop mentoring pairs can have a structured first meeting to break the ice. Debriefing the meeting as a group, you can draw out do’s and don’ts for effective future meetings.

The author of this article is Ann Rolfe, and was first published 04. februar 2010 on www.mentoring-works.com.

mars 17, 2010september 30, 2021

Getting Lucky

Do you think you are lucky—or unlucky? Your luck lies in whether you believe you are or not. You have to believe in luck to see it, and to realize it.

Richard Branson says: “Yes, of course, we are all lucky. If you live in a free society, you are lucky. Luck surrounds us every day; we are constantly having lucky things happen to us, whether you recognize it or not. I have not been any more lucky or unlucky than anyone else. The difference is when luck came my way, I took advantage of it.”

“I have not been any more lucky or unlucky than anyone else. The difference is when luck came my way, I took advantage of it.” —Richard Branson

Wow, this is straight from Sir Richard Branson.

The old adage we hear too often, “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation,” isn’t enough. I think there are two other critical components to “getting lucky.”

The (Complete) Formula for Getting Lucky: Preparation (personal growth) + Attitude(belief/mindset) + Opportunity (luck) + Action (doing something about it) = Getting Lucky

Preparation: You must constantly improve and prepare yourself—improve your skills, knowledge, expertise, relationships and resources—so that when luck strikes, you have the wherewithal to take advantage of it.

Attitude: This is where luck evades most people. As Sir Richard says, lucky things happen to all of us all the time, but that isn’t true unless you orient yourself to see situations, conversations and circumstances as fortuitous. As with most things in life, it begins with a mindset or an attitude. You cannot see what you don’t look for, and you cannot look for what you don’t believe in.

Opportunity: You can make your own luck, but the luck we are discussing here is those things you don’t plan for, or happened even better, faster or differently than expected. In this stage of the formula, it’s best not to force luck. Just let what happens happen, what shows up show up… let luck come to you. And it will—it does every day.

Action: This is your part of the deal. With the universe, God, the Lucky Charms leprechaun, whomever or whatever you associate delivering the luck just presented to you, it is now your job to act on it. This is what will separate the Richard Bransons from the Joseph Wallingtons. Who is Joseph Wallington? Exactly, you’ve never heard of him. That’s because he didn’t do anything about all the equally lucky things that happened to him.

What is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to you? What part of the formula will you focus on so you can get luckier?

mars 17, 2010januar 20, 2011

Reverse Mentoring

Based on old paradigm mentoring where a more senior person (in terms of age, position or experience) mentors a junior, reverse mentoring places the more junior person as the mentor.

Usually used when executives need to understand operations or technology that can be shared by shop floor, front-line or tech-savvy employees.

The key to success in reverse mentoring is the ability to create and maintain an attitude of openness to the experience and dissolve the barriers of status, power and position.

mars 17, 2010januar 20, 2011

The Mentoring Mindset

Traditional mentoring grew from the concept of the older and wiser guiding the young and aspiring. Masters and apprentices, patrons and protégés and mastermind (expert/novice) mentoring continue this paradigm.

Contemporary mentoring has many forms and frequently people regard each other as partners, colleagues or peers, ignoring age, status or power. This more egalitarian approach suits today’s generation and has much to offer.

mars 17, 2010januar 20, 2011

Your Strategic Plan of Action

The difference between a dream or fantasy and a goal you will achieve is: 1) writing it down (what we have already done) and, 2) outlining a specific plan to achieve the goal (what we will do in this installment).Now it is time to formulate your strategic plan of action.

I explained early on in this series how goals work (you can review here). When you know what you are looking for, it gives your mind a ‘new set of eyes’ to see the world around you. You begin to notice the people, resources and even ideas needed for achieving your goal. But if your goal is defined only by an audacious and distant destination, your mind may be thrown off by elusiveness and ambiguity. It doesn’t know what to look for to help you get there.

To read more from Darren Hardy´s "Designing the best 10 years of your life", klick here darrenhardy.success.com/2010/01/db10-action-plan8/

mars 17, 2010mai 14, 2012

Return on Investment

You may or may not have to put a dollar value on your mentoring strategy but you will need to identify some success indicators. Here are a few thought starters.

Staff retention
Return to work after maternity leave or injury
Representation of target group in grade, roles, positions, locations
Percentage of applications for internal jobs or promotions
Number in the target group who won a position or promotion
Number who participate in training, education or development opportunities
Number of external (target group) applicants for jobs
Benchmark comparison, industry average, other organisations

Some of these are easy to put a dollar value. For example, mentoring programs specifically designed to attract and retain graduates. Recruiting graduates is expensive and there is no ROI if you lose your new person within two years. Gen Y has been notoriously career-oriented and mobile. Some organisations, such as government agencies cannot pay big dollars to get or keep graduates, so mentoring is a cost-effective strategy attractive to the career development focus of this group.

Likewise, many organisations are not ready for the exodus of experience when baby-boomers retire. Being mentors can help keep them, engage them and increase their productivity while facilitating knowledge transfer.

You can probably find some figures within your organisation or industry regarding the replacement cost of staff. Obviously it varies depending on the role. But a ballpark estimate of around 2-3 times annual salary per person could be a starting point. You can’t ignore this kind of money. That’s why one of our major banks was a trailblazer twenty years ago, with mentoring as part of a suit of programs for women on maternity leave. They realised that the cost of losing their talent and experience, long-term, was unacceptable and avoidable.

One way to evaluating ROI is to look at the cost of not having mentoring. Last year one of my clients launched a career-focused mentoring program. However, the GFC meant that the program coincided with a job freeze! Yet because of the mentoring, participants spent twelve months enthusiastic about their employer and confident about their future instead of succumbing to disenchantment. That’s how mentoring works!

The author of this article is Ann Rolfe, and was first published 08. march 2010 on www.mentoring-works.com.

mars 17, 2010januar 20, 2011

GIVE what you WANT

On your journey to achieving your

goals, this one shift in your mindset

can radically change how the world

around you responds to and receives you.

The process of goal-setting can make you very myopic and ‘ME’-focused. If we really want to get what we want, we have to remember one of the oldest success principles: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or as Zig Ziglar puts it: “You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

Want to read more: Klick here darrenhardy.success.com/2010/01/db10-give-goal-setting7/