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Five tips that will help you mentor your team better
Contact White Paper: 02
Five secrets to help you
Become a Better Mentor
James Marsh
Head of Consulting, Symposium Events
@jamesmmarshhr
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Introduction
Welcome to your free copy of ‘Five secrets
to help you become a better mentor.’
Mentoring is offering advice and guidance to help
an individual develop and learn. The mentoring
relationship is one that is mutually formed outside of
the line-management structure and that goes beyond
functional, professional coaching in specific skills
related to a person’s role. It is the provision of both
career and personal support on an ongoing basis.
Mentoring relationships occur both within
organisations of all sizes and through schemes that
provide business mentors to entrepreneurs, start-ups
and small businesses to help them grow.
Many companies have introduced mentoring
programmes to support organisational learning,
providing access for new or less experienced
employees to selected people in more senior roles.
These relationships can often be for a fixed period
of, for example, one year, after which mentoring
relationships are often maintained on an informal
basis.
At Symposium Consulting, we work with businesses
of all sizes and sectors to help them understand the
importance and potential impact of mentoring. Having
assisted businesses with creating the right foundations
for HR success for more than a decade, we’ve learned
a lot along the way, and we know that the existence of
a strong mentoring culture within an organisation can
provide people at all levels with confidence, support
and new skills that can increase productivity.
In this guide, we’ve identified some of the key skills we
feel mentors need to have in order to provide effective
and productive support to your employees.
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The history of mentoring...
The term ‘mentor’ originates from Greek mythology. In
Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus, King of the island of Ithaca,
was called to fight in the Trojan War. On his departure,
he entrusted the care of his household to his most wise
and trusted friend and advisor, a man named Mentor,
who served as teacher and guardian to Telemachus, the
King’s young son.
After the war ended with the epic battle of Troy, Odysseus’
journey back to Ithaca took ten years. During this time
Telemachus, who had now become a man, left Ithaca
in search of his father. On his travels the goddess
Athena often appeared to Telemachus in the physical
form of Mentor to offer the young prince guidance whilst
concealing her true identity. Eventually
father and son would be reunited and
return to Ithaca to quell the unrest that had
grown in their absence and re-secure the
throne.
Thus the word ‘mentor’ evolved to mean
trusted advisor, friend, teacher and guide,
someone who would offer wisdom and
support to aid someone on their journey
and help them attain their goals or realise
their potential.
“The goddess Athena often
appeared toTelemachus in the
physical form of Mentor”
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Why is mentoring important?
The existence of a mentoring programme is fast
becoming a good indicator of an organisation that is
committed to providing opportunities for their employees
to grow. Much has been written about how career
opportunities and development are bigger motivators
to generationY and millennial workers than financial
rewards.The opportunity to have someone that takes
an interest in their careers, outside of the traditional
management relationship, is highly valued and can be
key to attracting the best talent.
Furthermore, it can offer experienced employees the
opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise.They
can form rewarding relationships that can focus and
re-energise them, providing them with a sense of
perspective within the organisation as well as pride
in the achievement of their mentees.
Many now believe that mentoring represents
the single most effective and efficient means of
encouraging learning and development, at both an
individual and organisational level, and can be a key
part of creating a learning culture.Those with the
right knowledge, skills and behaviours to provide
effective mentoring can be huge assets to any
organisation.
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guidance and support.They do this in the knowledge that
their mentor is purely interested in helping them improve and
that these insecurities will never be revealed to others in the
organisation.
Therefore the ability to provide a safe environment and
develop that trust is crucial to improving the performance of
the individual.
Create a safe environment
A successful mentoring relationship is built
on trust.A mentor should not be the person
responsible for the mentee’s performance,
appraisal or any formal monitoring, and must
treat every discussion with their mentee with
confidentiality.The mentee must feel able to be
open and honest without any fear of reproach.
Most of us, through our working lives, attempt to
present the best version of ourselves.We try hard
to always look as if we know what is happening
and that we have everything under control.
Having a mentor in whom the employee is able to
place trust allows them to reveal things they may
be struggling with or not understand and receive
1
“The delicate balance of
mentoring someone is not
creating someone in your image,
but giving them the opportunity to
create themselves”
Steven Spielberg
Film Director,
Screenwriter and Producer.
1946-present
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Be a good listener
A common problem with mentoring is the feeling that you
must provide all the answers. In fact, mentoring is a process of
giving someone the ability to find the answers for themselves.
A good mentor doesn’t ‘spoon-feed’ their mentees, rather
points them in the right direction and empowers them to find
the solutions they need themselves.
Good mentors are primarily listeners who adhere to the old
adage about how, due to the fact that we all have two ears and
only one mouth, we should listen twice as much as we speak.
2
“Spoon feeding in the
long run teaches us
nothing except the
shape of the spoon”
EM Forster
Author and Essayist.
1879-1970
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Share your mistakes
3
Your experiences are all valuable, including the times when
you didn’t make a success of something. It is easy to want to
inspire trust in the mentee through trying to impress them,
sharing only the things you have done well, but we are proven
to learn more from failures than victories.
Sharing your mistakes will also help you build that trust
between you and your mentee and help them relate to you
and your experience.Would you share your uncertainties or
vulnerabilities with someone who you thought was perfect and
who you thought had never made a mistake?
Your mistakes are your most valuable learning resource, for
your mentee as well as yourself.
“Mentor: Someone who’s
hindsight can become your
foresight”
Peter Drucker
Author, Management
Consultant and Philosopher.
1909-2005
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Establish meaningful goals
4
Whether in the form of a personal development plan, learning
contract or other format, encourage your mentee to set
themselves development goals with your help and then
regularly discuss progress towards them.These goals should
be completely unrelated to the performance targets of their
role, but instead based on what the mentee wants to achieve
for themselves.
“Mentoring is a
brain to pick, an
ear to listen, and
a push in the right
direction”
John C Crosby
US Congressman,
Judge, Lawyer
and Politician
1859-1943
These goals may be work related, but are
focussed on their individual development and
their career.They can also be related to their
aspirations outside of work and how that may
affect their career choices.
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Value the benefits for you
5
Mentoring can improve your leadership and communication
skills, give you added perspective on your organisation and the
sector or industry in which you work, and help you evaluate
your own experiences.
Perhaps more importantly, it can be an energising process
that reaffirms your confidence through the realisation that your
knowledge and experience is valuable to others.
Being a mentor can be extremely rewarding.
You have the chance to offer real assistance to
someone and then observe the benefits first
hand.
“What I think the mentor gets
is the great satisfaction of
helping somebody along, helping
somebody take advantage of an
opportunity that maybe he or she
did not have”
Clint Eastwood
Film Actor,
Director and Producer.
1930-present
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At Symposium we have worked with hundreds of HR
specialists over more than a decade, delivering the knowledge
to HR professionals from organisations of all sizes in both
the public and private sector that can help them make a real
difference. We can field the right individual or team for your
project from both our in-house personnel and our expert panel
of independent consultants and specialists. We understand that
your unique project requires a unique team to craft a tailored
solution that’s right for your business.
Our consultants can help you and your organisation with your
people strategy, HR support, employee wellbeing and change
management. They bring with them decades of experience
across the entire HR spectrum. Our aim is to deliver the HR
knowledge you need; no more, no less.
In addition to consulting, Symposium is also the leading
independent provider of HR conferences, training workshops
and webinars.
Find out more at www.symposium-events.co.uk
A final note
About Symposium
I hope that you’ve found this guide useful, and that it’s given
you plenty of pointers to help you be an effective mentor in
your organisation.
If you feel like mentoring should be a part of your organisation,
or you feel you need to build more of a learning culture, it
pays to bring in some professional expertise. As experienced
HR consultants, we can help with any aspect of the process,
whether it’s creating a mentoring programme, integration with
your business objectives and values, or simply mentoring or
coaching advice on an individual level.
For further information, give me a call on 020 7253 0615, send
an email to jmarsh@symposium-events.co.uk or visit
www.symposium-events.co.uk/hr-consulting/
If you’ve found this guide helpful, please recommend it to any
of your contacts who might be looking at how to introduce
mentoring within their businesses. They
can download their very own copy at www.
symposium-events.co.uk.
Wishing you every success,
James Marsh
Head of HR Consulting
