Mentors and Mentoring – What Say You?

Mentors and Mentoring – What Say You?

In preparing this editorial, I took a cursory look at some current and past definitions of Mentors and the Mentoring process, many among them:

“Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)”.
“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.

“Mentoring is a powerful personal development and empowerment tool. It is an effective way of helping people to progress in their careers and is becoming increasing popular as its potential is realised. It is a partnership between two people (mentor and mentee) normally working in a similar field or sharing similar experiences. It is a helpful relationship based upon mutual trust and respect”.

“Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person (mentor) assists another (mentoree) in developing specific skills and knowledge, that will enhance the less-experienced person’s professional and personal growth”.

As for myself, I’ve never seen the use of a Mentor, Mentoring Process or Personal Coach as a “one trick pony”. Throughout my academic, business and personal life to date, I could easily conclude I’ve had not one- but several important influences and, still, I am left wanting and needing much more. The more…Experienced, the Sounding Board, the Corporate Executive, the Life Teacher. The Spiritualist, The Advocate, The Innovator, The Builder, The Rebuilder and the Never-Give-Upper. No matter how much I learn, I have needed them all – at different times, for different reasons.

The many demands of the modern age – in both career/business and one’s personal life, now oblige us to know how to do so many things so well and so quickly! In developing MentorMosaic.com and our offering we are not trying to replace the vast amount of important and diverse resources-whether academic, professional or literary. What we are trying to do is help ourselves and you, feel that you are not alone.
Whether a detailed “how to” article from a master you know of (or may have never even heard of) in our Library, a great Video instructional, an audio/Podcast listening experience over lunch at your desk, referral to a great Book, or simple dose of Inspiration-we’d be honored to be part of your growth.

We cannot do it alone. We do not see this as a one-way relationship. We will seek and value your ongoing thoughts, posts, input and suggestions- to make this effort an objective, true and impactful collaboration.
To this end, the first incarnation of MentoMosaic.com is not supported or sponsored by any 3rd party. All of our content is free to our community. We will continually engage your thoughts as we go through the evolution of this service, to best manage the site content, services and determination of our business model going forward- which will allow us to maintain and build on the passion we have today.

For those who yearn to learn,
Howard Barrett
Assistant Editor-MentorMosaic.com

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