A Simple Guide to Mentoring

12 min readApr 21, 2020

Mentoring process — Source: https://frntofficesport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/mentoring-dr.-sara-taylor-1024x784.jpg

Background

Mentoring partnerships once forged will be a big part of professional and personal development for professionals within a company.

The program aims to connect experienced senior professionals within a company with their junior peers to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship where insight and experiences can be shared and discussed with confidentiality.

The term ‘mentoring’ describes a relationship that sets out with the intent to support a Mentee’s learning or developmental journey. It’s about reflecting, encouraging and advising through the learned knowledge of the Mentor, guiding the Mentee on a pathway that bypasses the solo, trial-and-error approach.

Mentoring is a two-way relationship that is based on mutual trust and respect between the Mentor and Mentee. Personal and professional development is gained by both parties as each has different experiences with unique takeaways.

Every mentoring relationship is different, but each presents the opportunity for both the Mentor and Mentee to learn from each other.

We will now look at the process in more detail and explain how to get the most out of your mentoring partnership.

What is Mentoring?

Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person (the Mentor) assists another (the Mentee) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will enhance the less-experienced person’s professional and personal growth.

A mentor is a trusted friend, usually with more career experience who provides a listening ear, career advice and guidance, feedback and example. Mentors share knowledge and the perspective of their years of experience, nurturing the growth of the Mentee as a professional and as a leader. The experience of mentoring fosters leadership and interpersonal skills, enhances creativity and professional synergy, ignites a sense of fulfillment, and inspires self-reflection of the lessons learned along the chosen career path.

A Mentee is usually described as a more junior professional who has a strong desire to learn, develop, and grow professionally. Being a Mentee means receiving the gift of experience-based knowledge and wisdom. It can help build confidence and interpersonal skills, creating a pathway to personal and professional growth.

Every mentoring relationship is unique, is based upon the personal styles of each participant, the commitments they have agreed to, and the strengths both bring to the relationship. The topics of discussion will largely depend on the Mentee’s needs and the issues that the mentor feels are important for the Mentee’s long-term professional development.

Mentoring is:

A relationship in which the Mentee takes active responsibility for their own learning and development, and the Mentor serves as a facilitator or supporter of that growth.
A relationship built on the history, experience, and knowledge of both participants.
A relationship in which the Mentor facilitates the Mentee’s growth and development by asking meaningful questions and providing insight.
A relationship based on honest, two-way communication.

Mentoring is not:

A relationship in which the Mentee receives instructions from the Mentor with the Mentee having no say in the matter.
A relationship in which the Mentor tries to mold the Mentee into a version of themselves.
A relationship in which the Mentor solves the Mentee’s problems for him or gives him all of the answers.

The Mentor

A Mentor is someone who has more experience and who acts as a trusted confidante over a flexible period of time. A true mentoring partnership is a mutually beneficial learning experience where the Mentor shares their experienced-based knowledge and promotes through a self-discovery approach. Mentors must be willing to accept the commitment of time and energy to provide support to their assigned Mentee. Mentors should have a clear understanding of the mentoring process and must commit to spending an appropriate amount of time to establish an open, trusting relationship with a Mentee.

Roles of a Mentor

A Mentor should:

Meet at scheduled times.
Listen, confidentially, to the concerns that are worrying or confusing the Mentee.
Provide a third party unbiased perspective.
Help by sharing their own experience of both failures and successes.
Give friendly, unbiased support and guidance.
Provide honest and constructive feedback.
Listen to Mentee ideas.
Assist decision making by suggesting alternatives based on personal experience.
Pave the way to connect with other peers to further personal and professional development.
Promote Mentee creativity and skill development; encourage the Mentee to accept challenges and overcome obstacles.
Work with the Mentee to shape goals and develop action strategies.
Support the organization’s mission, vision, and goals
Stay accessible, committed, and engaged during the length of the relationship
Share “lessons learned” from their own experiences
Help the Mentee learn how to alter behaviors that might hinder their professional growth and advancement
Let HR know as soon as possible if you are having a problem connecting with your Mentee.

A Mentor should avoid:

Minimize distractions, multi-tasking, or interruptions when meeting with your Mentee; focus on giving them your undivided attention
Don’t allow the Mentee to be too dependent on you.
Don’t assume responsibility for your Mentee’s issues/problems.
Don’t complain about your own problems.
Don’t trivialize the Mentee’s thoughts, feelings or concerns.
Take the full responsibility for making the Mentee successful — the majority of the responsibility for making the Mentee successful is down to the Mentee.
Canceling mentoring meetings at the last minute.

Mentor Best Practices

A successful Mentor is someone who:

Come up with the mentee action plan during the first meeting itself
Have a detailed discussion with the mentee, regarding his goals and aspirations and align them with the goals of the action plan:
Personal Career Progression
Organizational Career Progression
Collaboration and Team Work
Communication
Leadership
Organization Culture Focus
Make sure you meet regularly with your mentee and send meeting minutes to HR for tracking purposes.
Make sure to keep the Mentoring Action Plan document updated with your ocmments and mentee comments.
If the mentoring plan is not going as per the schedule, the mentor should speak with the Engineering Leadership or HR for guidance, if required.
Is open to new possibilities and ideas.
Keeps connected with their Mentee.
Listens “actively” and objectively.
Questions what is important to their Mentee and explores their skills, aptitudes, and aspirations.
Creates an open and candid relationship, fostering trust.
Regards all discussion as confidential.
Brings a professional approach to the mentoring partnership.
Recognizes when alternative sources of help are needed. This is where the Engineering leadership or project management comes in.
Has appropriate training and experience for the role. If you need training on mentoring, pelase inform HR

The Mentee

A Mentee is a less experienced person who receives guidance and helpful advice from an experienced colleague. By virtue of having a Mentor, a Mentee has a chance to obtain critical feedback that could be essential to promoting his/her career growth and professional advancement.

Roles of a Mentee

When entering a mentoring partnership, a Mentee needs to be ready to contribute the following:

Time, energy and enthusiasm.
A commitment to regular and open communication with their Mentor.
Engagement in discussion and reflection of goals.
A desire and readiness to take specific actions to reach the stated goals.
Passion for growth and development.

Mentees are required to:

Assume responsibility for their own professional growth and development
Be respectful of your mentor’s time; be prepared for your mentoring session
Listen actively to the advice provided by your Mentor
Ask for honest feedback
Accept constructive feedback willingly
Maintain a positive attitude
Take initiative to follow-up on feedback given or items in your action plan
Be open to new ideas
Share knowledge and experience
Notify your Mentor of problems, concerns or questions
Meet with your mentor regularly
Prepare for meetings and come with an agenda
Let HR know as soon as possible if you are having a problem connecting with your mentor.

A mentee should avoid:

Agreeing to a time to meet, then canceling mentor sessions at the last minute
Don’t expect your Mentor to have or to be able to give you all the answers
Don’t expect your Mentor to remove all the obstacles in your way
Don’t get defensive when receiving critical feedback

Mentee Best Practices

A successful Mentee is someone who:

Is self-motivated.
Ensure that you understand the format of the mentoring action plan. If not, please seek clarifications from your mentor.
Considers and explores their skills, aptitudes, and aspirations in order to have meaningful objectives set up.
Is honest about the difficult topics (i.e. self-doubt, perceived barriers, shortcomings, etc.) which you need improvement on.
Regards all discussion as confidential.
Brings a professional approach to the mentoring partnership. Do not bring personal issues into your mentoring relationship. Any personal issues need to be discussed with HR and not you mentor.
In case you need help in any area, please reach out to your mentor.
Reaches out to HR when the partnership is not meeting expectations/needs.

The Mentoring Process

Establishing an Effective Mentoring Relationship

Relationship is the important word here. As with any relationship it is the responsibility of both parties to create openness and trust. It is crucial for the mentor and the Mentee to discuss their hopes and expectations at the outset. This is the time to discuss elements such as:

Time and place for contacts and meetings. It is important that a schedule (eg. once in two weeks) be established in advance, taking into account project commitments and availability of both the mentor and Mentee.
How differences or conflicts might be handled, should they arise
How feedback to each other will be managed. These need to be noted within the action plan or sent as meeting minutes to HR.
Who is responsible for initiating contact, other than regularly scheduled meetings. Ideally this should be the Mentee, if he has any doubts or clarifications while attending to the objectives set out.

The Introductory Meeting (1st session) — Mentor/Mentee Preparation

Before embarking on this new mentoring program directive, it can be helpful to take a few minutes to do some planning. Planning is just a way to get clear on what you hope to accomplish and then to lay out some logical steps to help get you there. A set of questions like the ones below, walks you through some common sense steps to plan a first meeting with your mentee.

Typically, first meetings allow two people to get to know a little bit about each other, attach a face to a name and gain a bit of comfort. To do so, you need to think about what setting would feel comfortable for both of you, and plan out some conversation starters — knowing that these are tools if you need them, not a formula.

Where might I meet with my Mentor/Mentee where we both would feel comfortable? List a few ideas.
What are some things I could tell my Mentor/Mentee about myself that would help us get to know each other a little bit? What about me and my career story might be interesting and relevant to them?
What are some questions I could ask my Mentor/Mentee to get to know him/her a little bit without prying? (Note down some possible open-ended questions. you need to make sure these are questions that cannot be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’)
What do I want out of the mentoring relationship — what are my hopes?
How can I find out what my Mentor/Mentee hopes to get out of the relationship — what questions might I ask?

We recommend you look over your answers to these questions shortly before your first meeting with your Mentee. You might even bring it along to offer it as a bit of a roadmap for you both to follow. Use your judgment — but remember to at least look your responses over before the meeting — this will make you more comfortable and relaxed.

The Introductory Meeting (1st session) — Mentor Tips

A successful mentoring partnership develops through a good relationship based on open communication, respect and proactive engagement from both parties. The first meeting is important because it sets the tone of the relationship which will, ideally, get off to a swift and productive start.

As the mentor who will be driving the process, you might feel a bit nervous about your first meeting but don’t worry, a lot of people do. You might be thinking ‘How will we start?’ or ‘What are we going to talk about?’. A great way to calm the nerves is to start with a topic you know well — yourself! Share a bit about yourself, both personally and professionally. It is important that you establish a good rapport in the beginning itself.

Consider sharing the following:

Your interests inside and outside of the workplace.
The history of your career and education.
The inspiration that guided you to choose your industry.
What you seek from the mentoring partnership.
Expectations and hopes for the mentoring experience.
Explain your role as a Mentor; recount your own mentoring experiences (if applicable). Discuss what worked and what didn’t.
Review the list of responsibilities and pitfalls for Mentors and Mentees.
Outline what you can and can’t do.

This first meeting is also the time to set the format of your mentoring partnership. Cover the logistics, goals and boundaries. It is recommended that you cover:

The Mentee’s ambitions and goals in relation to:
Particular issues being faced.
Achievements so far and how to build on them.
Objective priorities.
And the foundation essentials:
The frequency of meetings to come.
Where/how you will meet next.
Discuss and develop the Action Plan.

Remember, if you don’t hit it off right away don’t panic. It takes time to build any relationship and it will get easier the more you meet. If any concerns arise after the first meeting, contact HR, who will be there to provide you with all of the support you need.

Subsequent Meetings — Mentor Tips

Review and discuss the topics outlined for the meeting.
Check how things are going. Ask about stumbling blocks.
Have there been surprises? What has been great; what has been challenging? Help the Mentee by giving them ideas of resource persons they can contact to get their questions answered.
Examine wider ranges of options to solve problems
Schedule next meeting within 2–3 weeks, preferably.
Review and discuss items selected for this meeting.
Review open action plan items to gauge how the Mentee is progressing.

Mentoring Action Plan

The Action Plan template acts as a goal tracking guide. The act of writing out and developing short and long term goals help map the route to success and to maintain focus throughout the mentoring partnership.

How to Use:

Prior to first meeting — Mentee reviews and completes the first draft of the Action Plan.
First meeting — Mentee and Mentor discuss and further develop the Action Plan.
Subsequent meetings — Review the Action Plan, record progress and make changes/additions as desired.

Objective Setting Tips

Prioritize. Identify objectives that will add the greatest value and will lead you in the desired direction (eg. be it your future career aspirations or next promotion in line).
Identify steps. Be specific when identifying and recording the objectives. They will act as a map to your goals, enabling you to identify your progress and see your direction clearly.
Seek feedback and support. Working towards goals shows initiative and it is likely that your co-workers and supervisors would like to help you along the way.
Face your barriers. Identify and address any barriers that may keep you from your priorities.
Involve others. Solicit ideas and reactions from your Mentor who will provide specific, candid feedback on both your strengths and weaknesses.
Take Time to Reflect. Ask yourself what worked, what didn’t work, and why.
Transfer Learning into Next Steps. Continue to focus on mastering a specific area, and then share this knowledge by teaching it to others. Regroup and focus on new objectives and development activities as appropriate (time period may vary based on specific goals and activities).

Mentoring Action Plan Document

This is the single most important document that would be shared by the mentor and Mentee. The responsibility of the mentor is to ensure that the document is updated with meeting discussion points as well as additions/updates/removals of Mentee goals and goal objectives. The Mentee needs to ensure that he provides all required information to the mentor, to update the action plan.

The action plan is comprised of the below mentioned sections:

Mentee Information — Mentor to fill the Mentee related organization details
Mentor Information — Your organization details
Mentee Goals — This is the list of goals that the Mentee feels he needs to improve on during the mentoring period.
Status — The current status of the goal (OPEN — The initial planning state of the goal. IN PROGRESS — Once the Mentee starts working on this goal and informs the mentor, this goal will be updated to IN PROGRESS. COMPLETE — Once all the objectives related to the goal are marked as COMPLETE, then the goal will be marked as COMPLETE)
Date — The date the goal was created.
Objectives- The list of objectives to achieve a particular Mentee goal.
Action — Details on the actions that need to be addressed in order to achieve the objective.
Start Date — The date the Mentee started working on the objective.
Due Date — The estimated date for the Mentee to complete the objective.
Status (OPEN — The initial planning state of the objective. IN PROGRESS — Once the Mentee starts working on this objective and informs the mentor, this objective will be updated to IN PROGRESS. COMPLETE — Once the objective is achieved by the Mentee, it will be marked by the mentor as COMPLETE)
Mentor Notes — Date wise meeting minutes of mentor observations.
Mentee Notes — Date wise meeting minutes of Mentee observations.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like a copy of the mentoring action plan in excel form, for tracking purposes.