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Mentorship: A Pathway to Career Success – a book by Dr.Rita Boags |
| By:deepika bajaj on Sat 18 Oct 2008 2:17 PM under Business, Careers and Job Search, Management, Personal Success |
Dr. Rita Boags is an organizational consultant, educator and founder of Leadership Technologies. For more than 20 years, the firm’s consulting focus has been the design and implementation of human resource development programs that impact diverse populations in organizations. The firm specializes in programs that include career and leadership development, mentoring and diversity in the leadership pipeline.
I met Rita at a WCAN (Women of color action network); a group of women that I truly admire. She is passionate about helping professionals understand why ‘Mentorship‘ is critical to their success in the marketplace . She offered a very practical approach to mentor-mentee relationship. I look upto Rita for her knowledge in this field.
I was delighted to know that she had written a book on ‘Mentorship’. She always wanted mentoring to be available to all of those who want it. You can order copies of the book Mentorship: A Pathway to Career Success visit the website. www.mentoringsummit.com.
I invited Rita to tell us more about the book and help us build a powerful network of Mentors who can guide us as we move along our careers.
DB. Tell me what the book is about…
RB. Mentorship is a subject that is near and dear to the hearts and minds of many. This book addresses a need that is continually expressed about how to bring mentoring to more working adults so that they can have the benefits that are gained by those who have such relationships. Mentoring programs are abundant in the workplace; yet as few as 5% of any one employer might be involved in a mentoring partnership-either formally or informally. So what happens to those who want mentoring and don’t know how to get their mentoring partnership started?
This book is a mentoring do-it-yourself guide for both mentors and mentees. It is a roadmap to help anyone start and sustain a successful mentoring relationship. It is based on principles for establishing such relationships extracted from over 20 years of experience in many different venues. The principles are explained with examples from all walks of life and drawn from case studies from every level in our workplaces – either corporate, public sector and non-profit.
DB. Why is this book more important than ever before?
RB. We have many different generations in the workplace today that could form yet more islands of separation. We need to be able to learn from one another and we can do that by setting up the dialogues that are the essence of mentoring. We also face the risk of losing many of our potential mentors due to Baby Boomer retirements. While the flood of predicted retirements projected for 2010 may be slowed due to the economy, we still have to be pro-active about tapping into their expertise gained from many years of experience in the workplace.
DB. What’s the biggest surprise you found in researching and while writing this book?
RB. My biggest surprise was actually how easy it was to find material and the struggle to keep it simple and short. It went through many re-writes to help clarify certain passages that seemed unclear after many readings. I was tempted to add many more examples from the wonderful success stories that are a part of my records.
DB. At Invincibelle, we stand for women to help them in their professional success, what are some challenges women face in either being a mentor or mentee?
RB. Usually time is the biggest challenge we face since we tend to wear multiple hats outside of work. However as I tell most people, we can find about two hours a month to mentor someone or be mentored since most all of us eat lunch. That, by the way, is a favorite time for mentoring discussions to take place.
That’s all it takes over a one year period. The other biggest challenge is misinformation. A lot of people including women don’t know how necessary mentoring is for their careers and especially if they want to move to the other side of the Glass Ceiling. The lack of mentoring due to myths and misinformation is addressed in my book. That’s something that holds many people back from seeking and finding true mentorship. I truly believe that “what we don’t know will hurt us.”
DB. Tell us more about successful mentoring relationships?
RB. Successful mentoring relationships are built upon a three part formula:
1. Information exchange;
2. relationships and
3; learning that leads to development in our overall competence.
The information that is shared between mentor and mentee needs to be focused on the development needs and career goals of the mentee. The right mentor brings expertise and experience to these stated needs and goals. So therefore seeking the right mentoring partner must be done with this most basic foundation in mind.
The second is relationships. Mentor and mentee must have enough in common to be able to form a good relationship. This does NOT mean that they necessarily be of the same gender, race, ethnic group or from the same country. They must bring respect and curiosity to the mentoring relationship. They need to commit to spending time with one another and to having dialogues on a regular basis that are confidential. This is one reason that having a mentoring relationship with one’s boss is difficult. What you share with your boss in terms of your lagging skill sets, fears and challenges could come up against you at some point. For some people it works in their favor.
Above all, a mentoring relationship must generate learning and development for the mentee and ideally for the mentor too. It is one of those situations that when it works well, the results are fantastic for both parties. There are some relationships that generate little learning and by contrast there are those that continue to grow and develop over many years, even decades.
DB. What were some obstacles people face in finding mentors?
RB. There are usually ample mentors in any workplace, but they go overlooked. Some find mentors in their professional associations or community organizations. Once we open our minds to mentoring and begin seeking we will find many potential mentors. One of our biggest problems is lack of knowledge about the mentoring process. We also don’t know that to find a good mentor the search starts within oneself. That’s why in the book, I have included several questionnaires and self-assessments to help the reader identify what they want in terms of development. From there we can become more observant about who is in our workspace that could be a good mentor for us.
Another obstacle for potential mentees is having a desire for more than what a mentor can give. In a traditional mentoring relationship, mentors sometimes act as protectors and sponsors for upward mobility. If a mentee wants primarily nurturing, they might seek that elsewhere. Good mentors bring a sense of ‘tough love,” and some are not very nurturing. They can tell us what we need to work on just by the way we conduct ourselves in the mentoring relationship.
DB. Do you recommend a single mentor or a network?
RB. I recommend some primary mentors and a network. Mentors change throughout our careers depending upon where we have set our sights and what strengths we need to develop at any one time. At specific times, I have needed women mentors. At other times men. At other times both race and gender mattered. Again who you select to mentor you depends upon your needs and goals. Only you can determine that. We can use insight from assessments and feedback from our immediate supervisors to help us refine what our development goals are.
DB. What is your guidance for people who had a bad mentor-mentee experience?
RB. In a very real sense there are no bad mentoring experiences. As adults we need to realize that all of our experiences contain opportunities for learning. Our task in any unsatisfying relationship is to determine what didn’t work and what did. We need to step back and ask ourselves, “What did I learn from the experience?” Keep looking for the partner who more closely meets your needs for learning and development needs.
DB. What might one do not to waste the time of mentors?
RB. A big time waster is defensiveness. If we want to learn from a mentor, we need to be open to ideas and perspectives that are different from our own. We need to be able to speak up for ourselves if a mentor suggests a course of action that we don’t feel is appropriate for us.
Another time-waster is being unprepared. In my book I have a form so that mentors and mentees can prepare an agenda for their future discussions. Using the Mentoring Plan helps the partnership to stay focused on the topics that are relevant to both.
DB. What motivated you to write this book?
RB. I had my eyes opened by one of my mentees. She pointed out how few people really had mentoring opportunities in the workplace and how many more wanted them. Also the time was right. With the projected exit of the Baby Boomers a window is opening for new leadership. The drawback to the open window is that many may not be ready to take their place unless they begin their preparation now. Mentorship is a key development component for taking on greater responsibilities.
The goal of this book is to the open the minds of everyone who reads it so that they can open doors for themselves. I believe that anyone who wants to be mentored or to mentor another are to it. Most don’t know that they can. They need to be inspired to take the appropriate actions and have a roadmap to follow. This book meets those needs.
