Foundational. Professional. Strategic.
With years of experience in planning and design, we know how tempting it is for the Steering Committee or Mentoring Task Force to want to jump past the Planning and Design Phase of the mentoring initiative. Doing so will undermine and weaken the project.
So why do some people want to leave out an essential element?
Generally speaking, the Planning and Design Phase is one that happens behind the scenes. However, the training of participants, the public announcements of the initiative, the wrap-up banquets are very high profile. So, this Phase does not receive the appreciation it really deserves.
There’s another reason. Much more current is the perception that a great electronic tool like Colaboro will carry out most tasks. The thinking goes: “The Coordinator won’t have to do such and such a task or pay attention to the program at this point because the computer will do it.” Not so.
Since we first began to plan and design with clients, train participants and Coordinators, create and use our mentoring tools, we have been guided by this dictum: “No matter how great the tools, the first key element is that of a good design and sufficient planning.” We compare it to the building of a bridge. If the plan for the structure is not sound, it could (and likely will) collapse.
And who needs failure as a result? Our experience suggests by almost any measure, a well-designed and executed mentoring initiative can achieve a 95%-99% success rate. And who wouldn’t want that?
Q: Why train partners together?
Q: When is a Self-Directed Mentoring initiative appropriate?
Q: When to mentor? When to coach?
Our professional services: since 1978, these have been developed, field tested, refined, updated and expanded.
Our 4-Phase Mentoring Model: our Model was first described in a journal in the early 1980s as a procedure to help other professionals.
Our public or inhouse offerings: we also offer the following:
(a) half day workshops: When to mentor? When to coach?; Mentoring Trendwatch – what’s driving your organization; Mentoring Case Studies; Coaching Improved Person-Job Fit; Mentoring Program Essentials and
(b) 60-90 talks: The NEW Mentoring Paradigm; The unauthorized biography of Mentor; The Mentor-Protégé Relationship Model; What can you teach me that I don’t already know?
