Training mentors is not an easy task if the one being trained to be a mentor does not take it serious. I Think this is the really the heart of being a mentor. Their has to be a desire to see someone succeed. Whether that is the success of your own subordinate, or the success of someone else, the desire to assist the less experienced person succeed has to be a genuine desire. I was personnally mentored on more than one occasion. Sometimes it was worthwhile sometimes it was an attempt to make me a clone of the mentor. That then is the next key to being a mentor. A desire to see a less experienced individual succeed in their own way. What should be important to the mentor is the outcome not necessarily the technique. Don’t get me wrong, teaching a technique may be the most important part of the mentor/mentee relationship but if your technique is not going to work for the person you are mentoring, than be ready and willing to help the mentee adjust to their own style. This is where knowledge of personality styles and types can come in handy. But more on personality in another post. A mentor that is not willing to allow the mentee to try different things is not helping the situation. They might as well be in a static classroom environment then. The Mentor/mentee relationship will not last long this way.
Training Mentors – What an interesting idea. I have not thought about mentoring as a clinical concept. My view is that it is more of an organic ability. I thought through some Mentor requirements, at least as it applies to my view. A Mentor:
1) Shows a passion for the work he is doing. this allows him to,
2) Establish the awareness among potential Mentees that the Mentor is available for imparting knowledge and learning. The Mentor then,
3) Imparts knowledge from his experience. Allowing the Mentee to skip some of the trials of learning through trial and error.
So this view of Mentors implies that trying to train a brand new person to be a Mentor while being new to the workforce will not be successfull. That is, what kind of experiental knowledge does he have to impart?
Dennis, I have to agree with you about mentors. I do not see this training as something for someone new to the workforce being trained to be a mentor when they may not have anything to provide. The idea is that the mentor is more experienced than the mentee and therefore has the knowledge and or skill to impart. The problem as I see it comes from those that while they have the information and knowledge needed to be a mentor do not have the soft people skills needed to impart that knowledge in a manner that is beneficial to the mentee.