3. +
"Mentoring is to support and
encourage people to manage their
own learning in order that they may
maximise their potential, develop
their skills, improve their
performance and become the
person they want to be.”
Eric Parsloe,
The Oxford School of Coaching & Mentoring
10. +
Mentoring
• Long term
relationship
• Content and
process
Expert
• Focused on
the person
• Up-down
relationship
(knowledge
transf.)
Coaching
• Short term
relationship
• Process
Expert
• Focused on
the person
• Equal
partnership
Tutoring
• Short term
relationship
• Content
Expert
• Focused on
the task
• Up-down
relationship
(knowledge
transf.)
11. +
4
Listen to your plant
5
Respect seasons and
timing
6
Choose the right
treatment
CULTIVATING
How many of you had a little nice cute plant that was supposed to become an healthy and big tree and istead died ? Maybe you forgot to give the water or you gave it too much, maybe it was attacked by an insect or it didn’t survive the winter. Maybe some of you are thinking right now, oh yes, that’s not for me i dont’ have a green thumb. Good news is that gardenering skills can be trained as much as mentoring skills can.
In this session you will discover something more about your qualities as gardener mentor, you will see different mentoring styles and you will learn some tips to make your plants grow faster and healthy.
That’s not going to be a two hours monologue but I will ask your active partecipation starting from now. What’s your definition of mentoring, let’s have a 7 minutes discussion at your table to find a sentence that defines the mentoring process
Ok someone want to share? …
As you can see there could be many different definitions. I really like the one from the Oxford school of coaching and mentoring
According to this definition mentoring is about helping people to become what they already are.
These leads us to the first thing every gardener has to do before planting wich is
Recognize the different seeds. Each plant comes from a different seed. If you are a lemon tree and your mentee is a pine seed you don’t have to try to make him or her be a lemon tree. You have to recongnize the different seeds for what they are and help them becoming what they already are
Then a seed cannot imagine itself as a plant or a tree but you can. One of the most important duty of a mentor is seeing potential in their mentee…so as a mentor, you have to see the oak whent it is just an acorn
Another important tip befor planting is taking care of the roots. They should be healthy and totaly covered when you plant. Every good gardener knows this. But what are the roots of a person. A model of the human being by Robert Dilts can help in understanding this
The tree represents the person.
The roots are made up of his missio and his identity. Mision his the purpose of his her life and the identity that took shape during the first years of life, this is something very stable in the person.Then there is the trunk which holds a person values and beliefs. This is what is really important for the person, the values that drive his her life. Then you find the competences which are the branches And the leaves represent person behaviour that is easier to change than beliefs and values. Then a plant lives within its environment
The interesting part of this model is that the lower levels effect the higher ones. Let’s give a simple example. A person needs to develop his analytical skills, but he strongly believe that too analytical people are very boring or he thinks to be a very creative person and creative people cannot be analytical…this beliefs are preventing him from developing analytical skills. It’s like if you think you are tone deaf you would not easily learn to sing
So the mentor doesn’t look just at the competencece level in order to devolop new behaviour but he look at the deeper level of the person making him aware of what is holding him back
Now we are going to watch some movie clips and you will notice that all these mentors example are focused on the deeper levels fo their mentees. Also I’d like you to take notes about what are the qualities and skills of this mentors are using
Who wants to share?
Mentors skills can be grouped in 4 big categories. In gardenering these could be the treatments , the fertilizer we give to our plants. And every plant, if you have ever been a gardener, needs different fertilizer or tratment according to his characteristics, to the season
Those are…
I’m sure in your life you had someone who inspired you , who mitivated, chalenged or thought you. I invite you to take some minutes to write it down two of these name and for each of them two qualities you really admired
Ok, someoine want to share just the qualities he found?
The good news is that we cannot see or recognize anything in others that is not already inside of us . So this qualities you admired are potentially inside of you and they will probably be your strengths as mentors.
Now from the movies and from your models you have a long list of mentoring skills and qualities and you have different mentoring styles and models . I think they all have something in common
They are all focused on the person. I think this image really explains how a mentoring process works. While the mentee is compenetreted in his task or problem (which is the box) , the mentor is looking at him, how he she is using himself, her resources to solve the problem. The mentor is not looking at the problem with the mentee but is looking at the mentee who is looking at the problem.
The big difference with a tutor for example is that a tutor is focused on the task, on the box.
And the big differnce with a coach is that the coach does’nt have to know what is inside the box, he is not a content expert, instead the mentor have to know how to solve the problem, but he is also a process expert and his attention is on the person more than on the box
All of this is about how to cultivate your plants in order to make them grow health. So let’s go back to our gardener. We can summarize this …. In last 3 tips
The very silmple one is listen to your plant. What does she really need to grow? Sometimes we think mentoring is about talkin, telling stories , etc. Instead is more about listening. During a session you should listen for the 80% of your time and talking for the 20% not viceversa
Then gardeners knows that each plant needs to be pruned in different way or in different season Sometimes you will see a big growyh potential and you could be imapatient to make her grow but maybe it is not the right timing for her
And the last one is choose the right treatment. As a mentor you can teach, inspire, motivate and challenge. You have to carefully choose what to do based on what your plant needs in that particular moment or situation. You have to use the right mix for the right person at the right time
And then ther is the last tip that is
I really like this word in English because it also means the quest I on. Mentors are always on some quest. And questions are a little bit like seeds A powerful question is like a seed that stays in our mind and someday you will see that a litle plant is growing up from it
There are some basic questions for a mentor: do I really want to become a gardener? What’s in it for me? Why should I invest my time learning how to do all of this? what’s the value for me in making others grow?
So you have a postcard I invite you to write on it the answer to this simple question. What are three important reasons to become a mentor?
In three months we will send this postcard to you and you will remember that today we planted your seed to become the mentor you want to be.
Thank you