Mentoring Appendix

Selected mentoring principles and techniques
Rather than simply give the answers, the mentor's role should be to help the 'protégé ' find the answers for him/herself. While giving the answers is usually better than giving no help at all, helping the protégé to find the answers for him/herself provides far more effective mentoring, because the process enables so much more for the protégé in terms of experience of learning. Give someone the answers and they learn only the answers; instead mentors need to facilitate the experience of discovery and learning. The mentor should therefore focus mentoring effort and expectations (of the person being mentored especially, and the organisation) on helping and guiding the protégé to find the answers and develop solutions of his/her own.
Mentors need to be facilitators and coaches, not tutors or trainers. Protégé s needs simply to open their minds to the guidance and facilitative methods of the mentor. The mentor should not normally (unless in the case of emergency) provide the answers for the protégé; instead a mentor should ask the right questions (facilitative, guiding, interpretive, non-judgemental) that guide the protégé towards finding the answers for him/herself.

If a mentor tells a protégé what to do, then the protégé becomes like the mentor, which is not right nor sustainable, and does not help the protégé to find his/her own true self.

eMentoring
Most of the above guidelines will apply to those participating in e-mentoring pairings; however, additional points which need to be taken into consideration are as follows:

• When face-to-face mentoring is not possible for individuals (distance difficulties, no local mentor/protégé availability, etc), e-mentoring may be suggested and co-ordinated by the Institution.
• Whilst e-mentoring may be convenient it also has to be recognised that it can have its limitations; for example:
        i) it may take longer to build a good mentoring relationship
       ii) the benefits of a face to face meeting such as facial expressions, body language, etc are lost
• eMentoring best works for individuals who have an open mind and are keen to make it work. The mentor's role is to help the protégé to find his/her own true self; to experience their own attempts, failures and successes, and by so doing, to develop his/her own natural strengths and potential.

Further reading and useful links on mentoring
Everything you ever wanted to know about coaching and mentoring, and quite a lot that you probably didn't http://www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/resourcecentre/WhatAreCoachingAndMentoring.htm

Mentoring Guidelines (from the Institute of Engineering & Technology) and E-mentoring: The Advantages and Disadvantages of using email to support distant mentoring http://www.iee.org/EduCareers/Mento/guidelines.cfm

What it takes to be a mentor Draft Mentor Diagnostic Constructs by Andrew Gibbons, copyright holder http://www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/ResourceCentre/Articles/ViewArticle.asp?artId=38

European Mentoring and Coaching Council http://www.emccouncil.org/uk/journal.htm

Mentoring general principles and techniques http://www.businessballs.com/traindev.htm

Guidelines (from the Institute of Engineering & Technology)
http://www.iee.org/EduCareers/Mento/guidelines.cfm

Does mentoring work? By Janet Wright

E-mentoring: The Advantages and Disadvantages of using email to support distant mentoring by Amanda Harrington, March 1999