Beyond Mentoringalso includes a wider scope and diversity of the mentoring that people can experience in their lifetime. The book shows the impact and value of mentoring not only for the participants themselves but also on the situations in which mentoring occurs and the reverberations, positive and negative, on others outside this relationship. Learning through others shapes the past and future.
Mentoring is a vehicle for reflection and analysis to assist mentees to build resi- lience through positive relationships; reconstructing them as they go.
Everyday people demonstrate human courage and endurance as they go about their daily business, unnoticed by most and certainly uncelebrated. The ten chapters of this book show the importance of relationships with people, individually and collectively and how relationships are the DNA for an inspiring and indeed, a creative personal and professional life for people and the communities in which they engage. A distinctive feature of mentoring is revealed in each chapter.
Mentoring provides a profound sense of hope and control. People, supported in their everyday life have an opportunity to see through the randomness of life; steer it on a course, contribute and give back in some more significant way to their community, family, school or at work and that is the pathway to their achievements.
It is this aggregation that contributes to positive relationships. Yielding to the unpredictability of life and believing that surrender leads us to freedom, is self-destructive. Submission leads people to become marooned on their “own island”, unable to get off, stuck until someonefinds them, or they succumb.
1.8.1 Insights
A rich understanding of the mentoring relationship is the focus of Chap.2. Being insightful is an important part of this, acquiring knowledge and understanding derived from developing a capacity to observe even that not immediately apparent.
Being insightful is developed over time through experience and consciously taking the time to find things beneath the surface. Insight needs to be purposeful, a conscious process. The next step for both the mentor and mentee is to shape the
‘lens’they are going to use to achieve insight. The lens or lenses will influence how each perceives the issues, working out the what, when, where, why and how of attitudes, actions and events without initially evaluating them. The more open to insight, the more expansive the observation, the more information gleaned and the
more robust will be the analysis. Knowledge and understanding are gained and used for further insights and strategies for the mentee. Chapter2offers practical insights for establishing, understanding and improving mentoring relationships. Several issues are addressed ranging from self-confidence, using influence through to dif- ferent approaches to mentoring as well as their outcomes.
1.8.2 The Mentoring Conversation
Chapter3assists the reader to work through a framework as a mentor to initiate and respond effectively in difficult conversations with the mentee. Some of the ques- tions addressed include:
(a) What is the purpose of the discussion in this meeting today?
(b) How does it relate to the last conversation?
(c) What will be the issues covered? In what order?
(d) What approach is taken?
(e) What does the mentee hope to accomplish?
(f) What does the mentor hope to accomplish?
(g) What would be the best outcome for the mentee from this conversation?
1.8.3 The Paradox of Mentoring
Relationships are seldom what they seem. People want to develop relationships built on openness and trust. However, in truth, relationships do not always work that way. Secrecy and deceit are as much part of relationships as truth and honesty.
This reality is the paradox of human nature. People are always subject to similar motivations albeit in varying ways and time: power, liking, assurance, etc. They seek to avoid the opposite of these drivers: powerlessness, disliking, fear, etc.
Mentoring relationships need to be rewarding offering integrity, learning and support to mentees. It is necessary for the mentor and mentee to know and trust each other (Cole and Teboul2004) so as to attain the benefits that mentoring can provide. It is not possible to create beneficial outcomes in a close relationship without a great deal of shared knowledge and understanding.
A further paradox is the fact that mentoring is all about the mentee. However, selflessness is an important part of what is learned in mentoring—getting outside oneself to see how others may be seeing things and us. In so doing, there is a contradiction. As the mentee becomes the centre of attention within the mentoring relationship, this assists their internal locus of evaluation, and in so doing, becomes a catalyst for transformational learning.
Mentoring relationships work by the mentor managing a diplomatic balance of openness, critical reflection and support. How candid should the mentor be? Candor is
attained through the critical guidance of the mentee so as to minimise confabulation as far as this is humanly possible. If all relationships have elements of secrecy and even deceit, though, what does this mean in a mentoring relationship? At what point does too much honesty affect the support required in mentoring? These questions will be addressed in the following chapters, see particularly, Chap.5:Blame.
1.8.4 Blame
The focus in Chap.5 is working through some key dimensions of blame that will assist the mentor in working with the mentee along an agreed path. How to handle criticism from others and ways of understanding the role of blame in a person’s life is important for self-regulation as well as professional and personal development and ultimately a higher satisfaction with outcomes. Mentoring can assist the mentee develop an awareness and reinforce their self-esteem in dealing with criticism, uncovering deception, dealing with the loss of credibility and so on. Engaging with a mentor is like seeking a “second opinion” for the mentee in terms of their perceptions and interpretations as well as coping strategies and feelings about this.
If this is successfully worked through, mentees rebuild and gain a sense of renewed control over their social or physical environment through taking appropriate action.
Is the negativity obscuring the natural flow of mutual sympathy amongst us, the simpatico that helps us restore understanding with each other and in so doing, into our life? When people take responsibility for their part in conflicts or problems or indeed forgive others and not blame them, they are released from an unhealthy quandary or relationships andfind their way.
1.8.5 Guilt
Guilt, the focus of Chap.6, is closely related to blame. It is an emotional response and is experienced when a person feels they have transgressed in some way. The essence of mentoring mindedness assists mentees understand that many of their perceived constraints are cognitive and emotional impediments that have taken hold. In turn, these processes are self-limiting as they are held often as rigid assumptions and attitudes that underpin the issues at hand. Mentees through the relationship with a mentor learn they might move beyond this. The importance of reflection and feedback through mentoring is valuable in questioning these assumptions and attitudes underpinning guilt. The mentor and the mentee enhance their self-awareness as a way of encouraging them to achieve their aspirations and overcoming guilt along the way. Learning about emotions and how to deal with them through mentoring evokes, refines and develops approaches and, therefore, becomes a meaningful experience that transfers to other spheres of life: profes- sionally, socially and psychologically.
1.8.6 Silence
Silence takes on different shades and tones. It can be helpful at times, less so others, and often fraught in everyday communications. Silence can be difficult within the mentoring relationship itself. It is important to understand how to use silence that builds the relationship and to minimise those “stops”, which impede it.
Appreciating silence in all its nuances and purposes is the aim of this chapter.
Understanding the“culture of silence”is also important.
1.8.7 Loyalty
The focus in this chapter includes the importance of relationships for human beings, individually and collectively and how relationships are the DNA for an inspiring and indeed, creative life and community. A question that is often asked is how effective is mentoring and how do you know it is effective. What makes a difference in mentoring is the mentor’s capacity to engage with the mentee: namely the mentor’s position to gain rapport and engender trust? Warmth, empathy, and genuineness, as well as interpersonal activities, such as self-disclosure, intentions and response modes, are necessary (Sexton and Whiston1994). All these elements facilitate the mentee’s capacity to invest in the mentoring relationship and form a connection with the mentor. Loyalty is an enduring issue in all human relationships, from the time of a person’sfirst friendships through to their life-forming relation- ships such as personal, professional and business partnerships.
1.8.8 Mentoring for All Seasons
This chapter contains a series of vignettes to demonstrate the positive outcomes of reciprocal feedback used across organisational settings and in workplaces. The approach is similar to that used in one-on-one mentoring albeit in a more structured way between management and staff, especially when it is embedded within other
‘normal’procedures. In the same way that businesses invite feedback from cus- tomers and clients, a similar principle is relevant to staff, with value not only for staff but also for the organisation as a whole. These cases demonstrate how groups benefit by delivering mutual feedback. It is reciprocal in that it provides support for staff and creates less uncertainty. Feedback is a core part of all staff development as well as mentoring.
1.8.9 Mentoring for Resilience and Ensuring Its Sustainability
The focus of this chapter is on mentoring for resilience while ensuring its sus- tainability. It is a worthwhile professional pursuit with value for mentees.
Sustainability is always open to interpretation. Given this, how sustainable is mentoring, in the sense that it viable, workable and maintainable especially in workplaces? As stated at the outset of this book, conceptualising mentoring is not straightforward as it crosses over into coaching, sponsoring and even counselling in terms of the processes it employs and the skills that it draws upon. Elements of all of these processes are used in mentoring.