Career Development
International
1/5 [
1996
] 10–14
© MCB University Press
[
ISSN 1362-0436
]
Introduction
This article is addressed to anyone who is in
the process of becoming interested in men-
toring. It offers a distinctive view of being a
mentor and attempts to anticipate the ques-
tions and concerns of anyone who suspects
that mentoring has something to offer them,
especially as a mentor but also as a mentee.
It is for those who would like to know more
about mentoring, or who have recently
become involved in what is an increasingly
common feature of the workplace. In
particular, we are answering the questions:
what is mentoring like? how am I likely to
experience being a mentor? what will I get
out of it?
Much of what is written about mentoring,
as about most areas of human resource
development, is written from the “external”,
pseudo-objective, perspective. It describes,
explains and analyses. This is the conven-
tional academic mode. The difference sig-
nalled by our title is that we are attempting
to enter the first-person perspective: to draw
on our personal experiences of mentoring
and being mentored.
In a sense this is to move outside the
“objective” framework for academic writing
but this is our intention because we prefer a
more subjective approach and lean towards
the view that objectivity is “a figment of our
minds; it does not exist in nature”[1, p. 42].
We believe that is appropriate in writing
about an activity which, being relentlessly
affective, is best communicated when the
writer gets “on the inside”. We are for men-
toring, and not simply wanting to study it, or
write about it[2]. We have been mentors and
we have trained mentors; we are committed
to mentoring both on experiential and theo-
retical grounds[3].
Talk of “being committed to” mentoring
might suggest subjectivity in a pernicious
sense, as if for example the whole business
came down solely to your own capacities as
an individual. This does not have to be the
case. What we often think of as the personal
qualities of the mentor – integrity, judge-
ment, wisdom and self-knowledge – are, to
some degree at least, functions of the organi-
zation. The company can make it more or
less possible to be a good mentor, for exam-
ple, by the provision of proper support, by
acknowledging the importance of mentoring
in appraisal and other procedures, and in a
variety of other ways: basically by taking the
whole thing seriously. This is not to deny
that people have personal qualities which
they bring to the activity, but rather to
recognize that these do not flourish in a
vacuum.
If your organization is thinking about
mentoring it is probably one that values its
employees and recognizes that the success of
the organization rests ultimately on the
commitment and talents of all the workforce.
Within the diversity of organizations, such
recognition can be more or less explicit.
In some organizations there have always
been mentors who know intuitively the
value of relating in a certain way to another,
usually younger, member of staff for the
good of the individual and the organization.
In recent times this recognition has been
articulated more fully and mentoring is
linked explicitly with an organization’s
viability, whether that is seen as a matter of
competitive advantage, quality of service,
corporate longevity or some other criterion.
So, if you are considering mentoring,
either because it appeals to you or because
you have been asked to, we offer the follow-
ing thoughts on what you might want to
know more about, and on how you might
respond to the prospect of continuing a tradi-
tion that is at least 3,000 years old, beginning
with the original mentor, friend and adviser
of Telemachus, Odysseus’s son in Homer’s
epic poem.
Aimed at those who are inter-
ested in mentoring, offers a
perspective on the mentoring
experience from the potential
mentor’s viewpoint and
attempts to write from the
“inside” of the relationship.
Addresses the mentor’s con-
cerns about the role by draw-
ing on the authors’ personal
experiences and debates
mentoring within the context
of modern organizational life.
Criticizes a heavily “skills
focused” approach to men-
toring and argues that it is a
holistic and significant per-
sonal relationship that flour-
ishes despite management’s
attempts to control and
measure it.
Bob Garvey
Lecturer, Durham University Business School, Durham, UK
Geof Alred
Durham University School of Education, Durham, UK
Richard Smith
Durham University School of Education, Durham, UK
First-person mentoring
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