| Whether you work from home, run a home based business, or work in a regular office there will be periods of time when having a mentor will be vital to your development and the success of your next move.
Here are several mentoring options for you to consider and select from:
- Traditional internal mentoring.
Find someone within your organisation whose skills you would like to have and approach them. This person could be:
- similar to you - your style, perspective, energy, goals, values - or
- very different to you. Don't restrict yourself purely for comfort. A challenge can stretch you in valuable ways.
- Traditional external mentoring. With a bit of searching, find someone outside your organisation whose skills you would like to have and approach them. This person could be:
- similar to you - your style, perspective, energy, goals, values - or
- very different to you. Don't restrict yourself purely for comfort. A challenge can stretch you in valuable ways.
- Find a company that offers mentors or coaches for a fee and see if that suits you and your budget.
- Self-mentoring. Do a search on the internet and in the library and find articles and courses (including ecourses) about the process of mentoring and learn from them. Set yourself a weekly time-slot, and reading and action tasks.
- Peer to Peer mentoring: two people often have something very different to offer each other as mentors; e.g. A can teach B how to direct market and B can teach A how to work from home without a boss to motivate them, or even how to skateboard. The skills being developed are mutually agreed based on what each has to offer and is interested in.
- Group mentoring. For this you need a networking or support group or discussion club. The first individual presents a situation, question or goal to the group and those in the group who have a response or input of value can offer that. Then you move onto the next person and so around the circle repeating the process. It's "a ten heads are better than two" proposition.
- Networlding is something to consider if you have a support group or club. This begins the same as group mentoring, but as the individual is describing what they are doing and want help with, someone will hopefully resonate with that and they volunteer to become the mentor. No input is provided at this time. Move around the circle giving everyone the opportunity to present themselves for a mentor pairing, if they wish. From there the pairs can arrange their own meetings, times and places and procedure. If the group wants, once the pairing is done, those in pairs can go off into corners to have a first mentoring session, perhaps to organise logistics, ground rules and a plan. Those who have not opted to be within the mentor pairs can hold their own discussion - on good mentoring or whatever. The premise for this model is that the power of connection between the mentor/mentee will hold them together beyond the usual mutual, more haphazard, back-scratching glue that's used within networking.
- Speed mentoring. This has a similar starting point to group mentoring, but from there it livens up - more like speed dating in style. The group can sit in two rows facing each other. Each facing pair works together for 15 minutes. Person A has 5 minutes to explain something for which they'd like mentoring input. Then person B has 10 minutes to provide input. This can consist of:
- questions, brainstorming, examples;
- skills or knowledge upgrading needs, and course, book or tape resources including titles, where they can be found, prices;
- people resources including names and contact details;
- internet or business/organization links;
- ideas, tips, plans, drafts, lists or options, identification of actions or decisions required, et cetera.
At the end of the 15 minutes the occupants of the two rows move up one chair, staying within their own row, and then it's the Bs who take 5 minutes to explain something for which they'd like mentoring input. Then the As have 10 minutes to provide input. To continue after this point is up to the group. It can prove to be an overload to continue, or not. At this point everyone has received input and given input once. Other variations of this speed mentoring style can be to work in threes, with a rotation between groups that also moves everyone through the A and B roles to ensure that after three periods of 15 minutes, everyone has had at least one turn as an A and at least one turn as a B. Obviously, this needs good facilitation, but if your networking group or club is a functioning one, it can prove highly valuable as it prompts people to access right-brain activity, creativity and helps stretch people beyond possible left-brain reticence or comfort zones. Much can be gained by both role players.
With this range of options now available:
- there is no excuse for a lack of a mentor whatever working environment you find yourself in;
- it's a lot easier to find and establish that good mentoring partnership;
- you can use a different mentoring model at different stages in your life based on the changes in your business and personal circumstances.
And if you are skeptical of the usefulness of using mentors, remember that the most successful people advocate finding others who have successfully done what you want to do, and then intensively modeling -
- so as not to reinvent the wheel;
- so as to replicate all their successful actions and create your own success that much faster.
The only real work left for you once you have decided on a mentor is to apply the discipline or determination to push forward without ceasing.
Further resources: online mentoring resources
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