What constitutes Mentoring another team?

[ebarker]

Starting with the basics:

Definition of Mentoring
Mentoring is a developmental partnership through which one person shares knowledge, skills, information and perspective to foster the personal and professional growth of someone else.

What is a mentor?
A mentor facilitates personal and professional growth in an individual by sharing the knowledge and insights that have been learned through the years.

What is a mentee?
A mentee is an achiever–”groomed” for advancement by being provided opportunities to excel beyond the limits of his or her position.

Generally speaking I think helping another person (or team) learn or do something as a single act constitutes 'aid'.

If you help a person (or team) move along a developmental pathway from point A to point B, then that is much more along the lines of mentoring. Mentoring is much more a journey than a single act.

For example if you help a new team ( or inexperience veteran ) move through season, asking the right questions at the right time, warning them of pitfalls, helping them make good decisions and prepare properly, in a way such that they own the process, and you are "wise counsel" then you are mentoring.

Technically speaking helping a team navigate a problem from point A to point B, at a single event or on a single day might meet the definition of mentoring. That would be the narrowest example for my way of thinking.

Question: What differentiates a teacher and a mentor ?

Teachers follow syllabi and rubrics. It tends to be very structured and results tend to be grades earned, not the lessons learned.

Mentors don't have rubrics, only results. Learning happens in fits and starts and there are 'learning moments'. Ambiguity abounds and there is often a lot of uncertainty and unease about what is next. The mentor guides and the mentee learns.

For us, a working definition of mentoring demands that the interaction occur over an extended amount of time, not just a single day. These other interactions we call training or just plain old helping. That is our definition.

"Satisfaction is really expensive, being a mentor is a remarkably inexpensive way to get some ..." Woodie Flowers