Mentoring
Published: 08/09/2009 by WIMBIZ
Mentoring has been identified as a key tool for addressing individual and organizational development in the modern organisation. It can help individuals identify and achieve their personal and organisational objectives; and facilitates the acquisition of requisite knowledge and skills for the management of a successful organisation or business.
Mentoring is an organised process linking a less skilled and experienced person with someone from whom they willingly accept advice, knowledge, analysis and feedback on how they can achieve their goals. Mentoring also has benefits for the expert since it can reignite commitment and optimism that can re-energise and establish new priorities. (Kirner & Rayner 1999).
There are no hard and fast rules to a mentoring arrangement, it is a flexible arrangement between the mentee and the mentor, determined by the individuals involved. In this respect mentoring differs from other learning and development initiatives such as job shadowing and training courses. It is often beneficial for the mentor to be outside the mentee’s line management arrangements so that the mentee is able to discuss any work related issues they may have and the mentor is able to remain objective. This may be a cross team, cross organisational or cross sector arrangement. Mentors will be more experienced in workforce, finance or service planning and be operating at a more strategic level.
Mentoring is self directed learning therefore the mentee is responsible for driving the agenda to ensure that they get what they need from the arrangement. The mentee sets the topics of conversation and how often they meet with the mentor.
As part of WIMBIZ’s network of programmes and commitment to the development of women's potentials, and as part of it's Mentoring Infrastructure, WIMBIZ has committed to a quarterly dinner with the Mentors from our monthly Business Roundtable Lunch and Mentees with which we intend to build generational bridges and serve as an avenue for the Mentors to give back to society by teaching oncoming generations the ropes in their respective fields of endeavour.
