Contents
Contents
Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zachary, Lois J.
The mentor’s guide : facilitating effective learning relationships / Lois J. Zachary.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-90772-6 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-10330-2 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-10331-9 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-10332-6 (ebk.)
1. Mentoring in education. 2. Learning, Psychology of. 3. Interpersonal relations. I. Title.
LB1731.4.Z23 2011
371.102—dc23
2011024034
The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series
EXERCISES, EXAMPLES, TABLES, AND FIGURES
EXERCISES
| 1.1 | Your Personal Journey Time Line |
| 1.2 | Reflecting on Your Experiences as Mentee |
| 1.3 | Your Mentee’s Time Line |
| 1.4 | Journey Worksheet: Implications for Facilitating Learning |
| 1.5 | Reflecting on Your Experience |
| 1.6 | Reflecting on Facilitation |
| 2.1 | Reflecting on Your Own Cultural Assumptions |
| 2.2 | Intercultural Communication Checklist |
| 2.3 | Cross-Cultural Mentoring Skills Inventory |
| 2.4 | Reflecting on Generational Differences |
| 2.5 | Your Self-Awareness Reflection |
| 3.1 | Progoff’s Reflection Triggers |
| 3.2 | Sentence Stem Reflection Triggers |
| Part Two | The ROS Tool |
| 4.1 | Mentoring Motivation Checklist |
| 4.2 | Identifying Mentor Motivation |
| 4.3 | Am I Ready for This Mentoring Relationship? |
| 4.4 | Mentoring Skills Inventory |
| 4.5 | Establishing Learning Priorities, Measures of Success, and Milestones |
| 4.6 | Assumption Hunting |
| 4.7 | Preparing: A Readiness Checklist |
| 5.1 | Mentor’s Worksheet for Evaluating Mentee Goals |
| 5.2 | Checklist for Assumption Testing About Confidentiality |
| 5.3 | Mentoring Partnership Agreement Template |
| 5.4 | Mentoring Work Plan |
| 5.5 | Negotiating: A Readiness Checklist for Moving Forward |
| 6.1 | Facilitating Learning Through Support: Self-Reflection |
| 6.2 | Identifying Learning Opportunities |
| 6.3 | Mentoring Partnership Accountability Discussion Guide |
| 6.4 | Monitoring the Quality of the Mentoring Interaction |
| 6.5 | Mentoring Partnership Check-In |
| 6.6 | Reflection: How You Use Your Mentoring Time |
| 7.1 | Feedback Checklist for Mentors |
| 7.2 | Journaling for Mentors and Mentees |
| 7.3 | A Readiness Checklist |
| 8.1 | Closure Preparation: Steps and Questions |
| 8.2 | Self-Reflection: Turning Closure into Learning |
| 8.3 | Mentor Self-Reflection on Learning |
| 8.4 | Coming to Closure: A Readiness Checklist |
| 9.1 | Self-Reflection: What You Learned from Mentoring |
EXAMPLES
| 2.1 | Darra’s Reflection |
| 2.2 | Harry’s Reflection |
| 2.3 | George’s Reflection |
| Part Two | Using the ROS Tool to Reflect on the Preparation Phase |
| 4.1 | Lou’s Motivation for Mentoring |
| 4.2 | Simone’s Personal Learning Plan |
| 4.3 | Conversation Accountability List |
| 5.1 | Completed Mentor’s Worksheet for Evaluating Mentee Goals |
| 5.2 | Sample Mentoring Partnership Agreement |
| 6.1 | Marc and Nina’s List of Possible Learning Opportunities |
TABLES
| Elements in the Learner-Centered Mentoring Paradigm | |
| Questions to Consider About Emotional Intelligence | |
| Levels of Competence and the Mentor’s Role in Learning | |
| The Facilitator’s Reference Guide | |
| Generational Do’s and Don’ts | |
| Seven Points of Connection | |
| Getting Ready: Initial Conversation | |
| Establishing Agreements | |
| Evaluating Mentee Learning Goals: Conversation Guide | |
| Common Mentoring Ground Rules | |
| Responses to Crossed Boundaries | |
| Accountability Assurance: A Summary | |
| Facilitating Growth and Development | |
| Tips for Giving Feedback | |
| Feedback Processes, Components, and Discussion Points | |
| How to Help Your Mentee Get Better at Feedback | |
| Signals That It Might Be Time to Come to Closure | |
| Summary of Closure Steps and Action Strategies |
FIGURE
| Part Two | The Mentoring Cycle |
Years ago, a friend sent me a drawing by artist Brian Andreas with a quote sketched into it: “Most people don’t know that there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life.” Since the publication of the first edition of The Mentor’s Guide, these words have resonated in my ears, and a few more angels have been added. I dedicate this edition to my “angels,” Ed, Bruce, Lisa, David, Talia, Emily, and Lory, whom I can always count on to make sure I don’t get too comfortable, fall asleep, and miss my life.
Foreword
ECOLOGISTS TELL US that a tree planted in a clearing of an old forest will grow more successfully than one planted in an open field. The reason, it seems, is that the roots of the forest tree are able to follow the intricate pathways created by former trees and thus embed themselves more deeply. Indeed, over time, the roots of many trees may actually graft themselves to one another, creating an interdependent mat of life hidden beneath the earth’s surface. This literally enables the stronger trees to share resources with the weaker so the whole forest becomes healthier.
Similarly, we human beings thrive best when we grow in the presence of those who have gone before. Our roots may not follow every available pathway, but we are able to become more fully ourselves because of the presence of others. “I am who I am because we are,” goes the saying, and mentors are a vital part of the often invisible mat of our lives.
There have, of course, always been mentors, but our ability to name them as such is relatively recent. Psychologists discovered them only a generation ago; educators and the business world were not far behind. Since then, mentors have become a hot item, appearing in best-sellers, on television specials, and on film. Generally they are viewed as people who help us find a jewel of wisdom or a promotion at work. At bottom, however, mentors are more than that. As Zalman Schachter-Shalomi says, they “impart lessons in the art of living.” Great mentors extend the human activity of care beyond the bounds of the family. They see us in ways that we have not been seen before. And at their best they inspire us to reach beyond ourselves; they show us how to make a positive difference in a wider world.
Lois Zachary knows a lot about that. Coming from a background in human development, she has spent years of direct experience in organizational change, leadership education, and mentoring. In The Mentor’s Guide, she brings her experience, together with an impressive range of resources, to create a trove of practical knowledge and concrete exercises for all of us who seek to serve as mentors in more adequate and humane ways. True to the essence of mentoring, the activities here are artfully designed not to preach about one right way to be a mentor but rather to help readers see their own mentoring style and preferences more clearly and thus learn from direct experience and observation.
Yet this is no chocolate box of platitudes. Zachary knows that good mentoring is tough, and she peppers her numerous examples with instances of inadequate or failed mentoring. The journey of mentor and protégé runs along narrow and daunting ledges as well as high outlooks and is not for the faint-hearted or indifferent. She bluntly warns of dangers along the way even while offering priceless assistance in the form of savvy observations and solid advice. Chapter Seven alone, on feedback, is worth the price of the book, as is the annotated list of resources in Chapter Nine.
Moving beneath the superficiality and formulas that too often mark the literature on mentoring, Zachary reminds us that it is the particularity of each relationship that really matters, that human development always takes place in a larger context that mentors ignore at their peril. The exercises in the chapters invite us to explore more profoundly our own capacities for establishing genuine trust with others, listening with real respect and compassion, examining clear-eyed our own inflations and convenient delusions. Again and again, Zachary reminds us that the central skill of an effective mentor is no less than the capacity for self-awareness—a willingness to keep a relentless, if forgiving, eye on our own journey, as well as that of our companion.
There is much here for all of us to learn from. One of the speakers in the book plaintively remarks that what she really needs is “a mentor to mentor me about mentoring.” With this second edition of The Mentor’s Guide, Lois Zachary has stepped forward to start us on our way toward becoming more adept in this vital, nourishing, and profoundly human role as we open the way for those coming after us to sink their roots deeper, to grow fuller, to participate more richly in the interdependent mat of life.
Laurent A. Parks Daloz
Clinton, Washington
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
AN OLD AFRICAN PROVERB SAYS, “If you want to travel fast, travel alone; if you want to travel far, travel together.” At its core, that is what mentoring is: traveling far, together, in a relationship of mutual learning.
New mentors may be caught off guard, thrust into the role by professional obligations or a chance meeting, but with no maps to show them where the journey might go. A mentor who has traveled this road finds that the need for guidance never ends; every new mentoring relationship comes with its own set of fresh challenges. To both of these mentors, and to you—whatever your mentoring experience—I offer this book as a guide and companion. I hope it will allow you to understand your role as a mentor more deeply and make mentoring the priority it should be.
In that spirit, this book is a practical guide that lays out the processes from beginning to end and provides tools for creating an effective learning relationship. It will ground you in the predictable phases of mentoring and give you strategies and techniques to help you understand how to manage intentional mentoring relationships in a cycle that fully engages both mentoring partners—mentor and mentee.
Mentoring at its very core is a learning relationship, and the phases I discuss and explore in this book are structures and processes that contribute to learning. These phases—preparing, negotiating, enabling growth, and coming to closure—are present in both formal and informal mentoring relationships, and they are in motion even when you are not aware of them. Being able to anticipate and work with them is the key to mentoring partnership success.
WHY ADULT LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT IS KEY TO MENTORING
The Mentor’s Guide draws much inspiration from Laurent Daloz’s Mentor: Guiding the Journey of Adult Learners. I find his learner-centered focus compelling. By intimately focusing on the learner, the learning connection, and the learning process, Daloz reaches into the very core of mentoring.
Since the first edition of The Mentor’s Guide appeared in 2000, interest in and knowledge about adult learning and development have grown exponentially. Many major publications on the topic have been revised and updated, some several times over. The breadth of knowledge has expanded, and practitioner research and field practice have added depth and nuance to theories put forth by thought leaders like Daloz, Jack Mezirow, Stephen Brookfield, and Sharan Merriam.
We now recognize that adult learning is more than a cognitive process; it is a multidimensional phenomenon. Social networking and virtual platforms continue to accelerate the pace of learning and the dissemination of knowledge and to create cyberspace learning communities among diverse learners. Along with increasing globalization, these changes have focused more attention on the importance of context and difference. The uniqueness of the adult learner has been accentuated over the past decade as we continue to learn more about the complexities of the brain, multiple types of intelligence, and our emotional selves.
All of this has meant fundamental changes for mentoring. As the learning process has shifted from mentor directed to self-directed, the focus of the mentoring partnership has shifted from knowledge transfer and acquisition to critical reflection and application. The mentee is no longer a passive receiver but an active learner; the mentor is no longer an authority figure but a facilitator of learning.
According to Stephen Brookfield, effective facilitation is characterized by the conditions of voluntary engagement of both partners, mutual respect for the mentee’s individuality, collaboration, critical reflection, and empowerment of the learner. Over and over in my work, I have found this approach to be fruitful and compelling for both mentor and mentee: in such a relationship, everyone shares in the learning.
WHAT’S NEW IN THIS EDITION
The practice of mentoring, and knowledge about it, are always evolving—like the mentoring relationship itself. The changes in this new edition of The Mentor’s Guide reflect that understanding. The chapter on learning has been updated, and a full two chapters are devoted to context—the context of difference and the context of how people come together to connect with one another in the relationship.
In response to new understandings, the names of the four phases of the mentoring cycle have gotten more explicit and descriptive. I’ve renamed the enabling phase based on feedback that I’ve received. And I’ve divided the chapter on enabling growth into two full chapters; the first explores the components of support, challenge, and vision, and the second deals with engaging in feedback and working with obstacles. Almost all of the chapters offer new exercises, as well as fresh examples of mentors and mentees drawn from actual mentoring experiences in a variety of situations in business, government, nonprofit, and higher education.
How you use this book is up to you. You can use it as a self-help book, a compendium of resources for helping to facilitate mentee learning, an introduction to mentoring, or a workbook to refer to again and again in specific instances. However you use it, remember that The Mentor’s Guide offers a framework for informed mentoring practice. It is designed to provide insight into the nature and focus of the mentoring process so that you can facilitate learning in ways that enrich, enable, enliven, and engage the learning of the mentee.
Not all mentoring arises from an institutional base. In fact, many mentoring relationships do not. Because this book concentrates on facilitating learning relationships, you can use it independent of organizational affiliation or by community groups. Its perspective has no institutional walls.
If The Mentor’s Guide is the extent of your mentoring preparation, it will give you a solid grounding from which to proceed. It is not, however, a comprehensive reference about everything there is to know about mentoring. Rather, it presents an array of practical options, steps, and strategies for action and reflection and is useful in a variety of settings to help facilitate the mentee’s learning.
The Mentor’s Guide combines discussion and workbook-like elements to support those who are in the process of facilitating learning in mentoring relationships, formal and informal. You can use these exercises and reflections to prepare in advance of your mentoring sessions or use them as they are or modify them. Use the exhibits and exercises as discussion points for mentoring conversations. These resources are meant to be helpful reminders for you to keep the focus on the learning and the learners.
I invite you to begin the journey by starting wherever you are right now.
There are several approaches you might follow:
We all learn in different ways, so honor your particular learning style as you make your way through the book. Some exercises will mesh with your style and situation; others will not. Choose what is appropriate to your way of learning and your needs. You may find that you need time to reflect before taking action. If you prefer to focus on the concrete and practical, you might be more likely to work through the exercises yourself, as well as with your mentee. If you prefer hands-on experience, try experimenting with a variety of the options presented.
A FEW THOUGHTS BEFORE YOU BEGIN
For me, mentoring is a way of life: it’s my job, my passion, and the way I perceive the world. For you, mentoring may be a smaller part of your life, something that you pursue out of interest or curiosity or an urge to give back, or something you agreed to take on as part of your job. However you have come to mentoring, my advice is the same: if you are going to do it, do it right.
My goal is to help you make excellence in your mentoring relationship a personal priority and be more reflective about your own role as a mentor. I hope you will accept my invitation to delve more deeply into understanding your role in a mentoring relationship and how you can more effectively facilitate the learning of your mentee. Before you embark on your journey through the mentoring process, I leave you with these thoughts about the nature of mentoring work:
Mentoring can be a joy, and it is always a privilege. I hope that this book will inspire you to make it a priority, learn as much as you can, commit time and attention to each of your mentoring relationships, and continue to learn and grow as a mentor.
Daloz (1999).
Daloz (1999); Mezirow, Taylor, and Associates (2009); Caffarella (2002).
Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner (2007).
Merriam et al. (2007, p. 97).
Brookfield (1986).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I ACKNOWLEDGE my very talented, creative, and spirited developmental editor, Naomi Lucks. Thank you for your time, commitment, and contagious sense of humor.
I acknowledge the gifts of a great storyteller, loyal friend, and business partner, Lory Fischler. I couldn’t ask for a better fellow traveler.
I acknowledge the rich and powerful ideas of teachers Stephen Brookfield and Jack Mezirow. Little did I know thirty years ago how much your work would continue to inform my thinking and enrich my practice.
I acknowledge the wisdom of a true mentor and believer in the power of learning to transform the human experience. Larry Daloz, I appreciate your insights, probing questions, and friendship more than you know.
I acknowledge my publisher, Jossey-Bass. I am very grateful to be part of its extended family. To David Brightman, senior editor, Adult and Higher Education, and Sheryl Fullerton, executive editor, my sincerest appreciation for your continuing support and encouragement.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LOIS J. ZACHARY is an internationally recognized expert on mentoring excellence and has been cited as “one of the top 100 minds in leadership” today. Since The Mentor’s Guide was first published in 2000, it has become the primary resource for organizations interested in promoting mentoring for leadership and learning and for mentors seeking to deepen their mentoring practices. With her best-selling books Creating a Mentoring Culture (2005) and The Mentee’s Guide (2009), Zachary has created a comprehensive set of resources for promoting organizational mentoring sustainability.
Zachary is president of Leadership Development Services, LLC, a Phoenix-based consulting firm that specializes in leadership and mentoring, and director of its Center for Mentoring Excellence. Her innovative mentoring approaches and expertise in coaching leaders and their organizations in designing, implementing, and evaluating learner-centered mentoring programs have been used by her wide array of clients, including Fortune 500 companies, government organizations, and educational, profit, and nonprofit institutions. Zachary received her doctorate in adult and continuing education from Columbia University. She holds a master of arts degree from Columbia University and a master of science degree in education from Southern Illinois University.