National Mentoring Month is marked each January, with an annual “Thank Your Mentor Day” at the end of the month.
In a recent March 20th, 2008 Business Week article titled “Mentors Make A Business Better,” writer Emily Keller noted that “successful mentorship can be in any number of forms: online or in-person, in both formal and informal settings, on a temporary or long-term basis, and between individuals or in groups. What is essential, experts say, is direction, dedication, and openness.”
According to a 2003 Office Solutions article titled “Creating A Company Mentoring Program”, one of our Insight on Coaching guests Barton Goldsmith adds “if you’ve experienced the professional and personal growth that comes from a great mentoring relationship, then you’ll understand the value that comes from creating your own company mentoring program.”
How does Corporate America view or support the role of mentorship?
What resources are available to mentors and mentees across corporations, educational institutions, nonprofits, and other organizations?
And what is the role of a mentor versus a coach? Do the two share things in common?
Our outstanding panel of guests addressed these questions and more.
Highlights of the show included:
- Why mentoring is popular today, and the positive impact it has on retention.
- How companies can establish and cultivate a mentoring culture.
- The characteristics or qualities that a good mentor possesses.
- The success Hunter Douglas has experienced as a result of their mentoring program.
- Key factors that can influence the overall success of a mentoring program.
- The differences between coaching and mentoring.
Featured Guests:
Dr. Barton Goldsmith, CEO of Goldsmith Consulting and author of the syndicated weekly column “Emotional Fitness”
Dr. Susan Weinberger, President of the Mentor Consulting Group and author of Mentoring a Movement: My Personal Journey
Dave Williams, Corporate Director of Employee Training and Development, Hunter Douglas
Dr. Lois Zachary, President of Leadership Development Services LLC and author of Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization’s Guide
The IEC Debrief with Tom Floyd
This week’s show was fantastic, one of my favorites this year!
I felt like we could have chatted for at least another hour, and truly only covered the tip of the iceberg. That said, I am thrilled to report we’ll be doing a follow up show on this outstanding topic.
Some highlights from the first segment of the show I’d like to briefly cover are mentoring as a competency and creating a mentoring culture.
I loved hearing Lois Zachary refer to mentoring as a leadership competency. As I shared on the show, I often hear coaching referred to as a competency for leaders and managers as well, and it continues to fascinate me that both mentoring and coaching seem to play a role both externally as individual people who can help someone grow and develop, but also as skills those who manage people need to possess to grow and inspire teams.
We spent a good deal of time also discussing how to create a mentoring culture. Lois shared eight hallmarks inherent to a mentoring culture, examples including alignment to company vision, accountability, communication, and more.
From a performance consulting point of view, my ears perked up at alignment. It’s one of the factors that can be so difficult to influence in some organizations, yet people oriented or relationship oriented tools like mentoring can overcome alignment challenges very effectively.
And the information Barton Goldsmith and Susan Weinberger shared on the impact of mentoring on depression and anxiety in the workplace blew me away!
For those of you who haven’t listened to the show yet, make sure to pay attention to the information Barton shares, which says according to some studies, having mentoring in the workplace actually reduced depression.
For our listeners as well as our mentors and coaches our there – share your thoughts with us!
- How have you benefited from mentoring in the past?
- Do you feel mentoring benefits the mentors themselves as much as it does mentees?
- Do you feel mentoring could positively impact things like anxiety and depression in the workplace?
I look forward to hearing from you!
Tom Floyd
CEO
IEC: Insight Educational Consulting
Specializing in Management Consulting, Change Management, Workforce Performance, and Employee Development
The Value of Mentorship
Insight on Coaching Mentors Susan Weinberger Business Week Barton Goldsmith Emotional Fitness Mentoring Organizational Alignment Employee Training Lois Zachary Coaching Leadership Competencies Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization’s Guide Dave Williams Office Solutions Hunter Douglas Mentoring Programs Depression Mentorship Mentoring a Movement: My Personal Journey Turbo Tagger
Mentoring | tfloyd | 
June 17, 2008 9:43 pm | 
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