Book review - Mentoring Manual
Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen and a push in the right direction
J. Crosby
I had some crazy, full weeks, not one, not two but almost a month. It took me a while to recover, and I missed even the Romanian blog posts, due to lack of energy for this. The book review of this reading was posted on the Romanian Blog some time ago, the draft of this sits here for the past 2 months.
In October, during a coaching event the trainer mentioned Julie Starr's "The Mentoring Manual." Because I've been mentoring for a long time, in several organizations, and thanks to EMCC Romania’s chapter I had the opportunity to be part of a national research on this topic - I was surprised that I didn't know about the book.
The keyboard has been activated and the search had started to locate it into the digital library that my job offers me access to. I found, borrowed and proceed reading it ASAP. The book is praised by two other successful authors: Dr. Stephen R. Covey - the author of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and, Sir John Whitmore author of the Coaching Bible (if you allow me to use this term): "Coaching for performance".
Now a little bit of info about the author before reviewing the book. Julie Starr is according to Amazon: coach, mentor, speaker, and a writer who works to encourage the principles of coaching in everyday life. Through her books she seeks to demystify coaching and mentoring, making these skills available to anyone. It aims to encourage coaching behaviours as part of the normal and natural, so that people no longer perceive them as such. Behaviours such as listening intently or offering comments before giving advice bring a fantastic benefit to relationships in general. This is because they suggest that we appreciate, trust and see the ability of the person in front of us to find our own answers / solutions / path. The book is full of exercises, stories, lists and observations - I admit that it gave me a better arrangement of the mentoring box to have in mind. She also put some interesting exercises there, which I tested on myself. Now I can't wait to put them into practice with my mentees.
Chapter 1 - deals with what is and what is not mentoring
With a light and easy to use of aesthetics of writing, the book offers a lot to discover regarding the differences. If you are a beginner or still have doubts about the role of the mentor, why someone needs mentoring, how to measure the progress of such a process or if you as a mentor need a mentor - the chapter gives you enough information to form your own opinion. Starr also has examples from movies and television for the relationship between mentor and apprentice.
I liked a lot the part that treats the difference between mentoring, coaching, training and consulting - each one has its attributes described, in order to have a clear picture. The difference I found here was the column that makes clear who is responsible in each of the relationships: learning, development and change.
Chapter 2 - talks about why a mentoring relationship is different
Here you will have a lot of information about the types of mentoring relationships, a rather intrusive analysis of "adequate care" - who decides what it is, what it means and how effective it is.
The part I liked is the one that deals with the part of respect and behaviours that support earning it from others.
Chapter 3 - guiding principles for mentors
Starr lists 5 principles that she elaborates extensively in this chapter: the relationship of equality, responsibility for the process, collaboration, choices and results. From here I mention the list you can check to make sure you are an effective mentor who goes on 3 levels: how you handle the process, your approach and behavioral skills.
From here I have taken the matrix of the principles we embrace. This one speaks about the answer we choose when it comes to frustration and resistance, but also the chosen answer that comes from acceptance and embrace. A exercise about approval and control from this book was added to my tool box.
Chapter 4 - What do good mentors do well?
I'll let you enjoy the book to see what are they doing good. This is the chapter that talks about listening, intention, here you will find another matrix on how the two combine and what directions they take. A part I loved was the part that Starr speaks about the top 5 skills that mentors have and she uses a great metaphor about the fact that people can be a bit like trees.
Chapter 5 - a process that will support your journey
The whole book is full of resources for a mentor, even one with a lot of experience. You can find in here the logical steps of a mentoring process (developed in detail in this chapter), tools, mentoring map, questions, even the agenda of a first session - the chemistry one.
Whether you are just starting out, on the road to mentoring, or you already have experience - Chapter 5 will give you something useful and an organised way to see the process head-on, as well as tools to measure it. I took from here the linguistic part (I loved it in the coaching school as well), the way you maintain the energy of the relationship and the evolution of the "inner mentor"
Chapter 6 - Traps for a Less Experienced Traveler
Boy, this is a thorny chapter - because it touches a lot of taboo subjects like THE EGO. And when it comes to healthy relationships it should not be part of the equation. Equality versus superiority in a relationship and the pressure you put on yourself as a mentor are also addressed here.
I have highlighted in the book the part that talks about avoiding that a mentor's personal agenda to become the focus of the relationship versus the apprentice's agenda. Because in mentoring, coaching and training it is all about the other person (the client), not about you (coach, mentor, trainer) - and your personal agenda has no place in this equation.
Chapter 7 - summary
As the title says, chapter 7 contains the main ideas of the book and it will take into a recap journey that states all the things covered in this mentoring manual. I recommend you take a pen with you while you read it because you will find interesting things. It is clear that it is one of the books that I will give as a gift for a long time from now on, to those who are passionate about the development of those around them.
As part of my personal development I decided to add book reviews on my blog, if you liked this article you might find of interest another one with the same theme: the review of Marcia Reynolds' book Coach the person, not the problem.
