Mentors- Keys to Success

Increase Your Performance- Find a Mentor

Too often people associate mentoring with inexperience and underperformance, ignoring the more important benefit to strong performers. Top people have learned the basics. On their own they study, plan and improve. They learn to become self-sufficient and productive. Still, that "next level" seems all too elusive.

Many managers ignore the developmental needs of their competent employees and spend an inappropriate amount of time with struggling employees. Don't allow this common situation to slow your progress. Seek knowledge on your own. Find a mentor!

Mentors can be found in many places:

• Within your company
• User groups or networking events
• Chat rooms on the internet
• Seminars and workshops
• Professional organizations

THE KEY: Seek them out! Rarely will they come looking for you. The best mentors will want you to prove your worthiness. Top people like to take an interest in the success of people with an abundance of potential.

Tips:

• Ask questions about their success
• Be sincere
• Be persistent, don't stop looking if one or two potential mentors decline a relationship
• Do research on their history if possible

Increase Your Performance- Become a Mentor

Providing guidance to a peer or associate may actually enhance your own work performance and enjoyment. Managers hoping to induce leadership from experienced workers will frequently facilitate a mentor relationship with a new or struggling team member.

To their surprise, it is the mentor who typically sees the most obvious improvement. Too often experienced employees, even successful ones, perform their work on "autopilot". They don't think much about what they do or how to improve, they just do it.

When given the responsibility of becoming a mentor, many find the task challenging. Describing a work process that has become automatic isn't always easy. Frequently, mentors will create a "Best Practices" document. They will make recommendations and to begin to train their protege. Very frequently this process becomes a refresher course for the mentor.

The mentor finds themselves teaching tactics that they themselves no longer employ. Knowing best practices doesn't ensure their use. Additionally, as part of their communication, mentor and student share success stories.

As the skill of the student increases, the mentor will feel obligated to "best" the novice. In the beginning this is easy, in time it should require increased performance by the mentor to keep up. This is a good thing!

This also may become a low-risk leadership opportunity for an experienced employee to demonstrate managerial potential. Success of an employee promoted into a supervisory position is not guaranteed by an individual's strong track record. In fact, many individual performers make poor leaders. A mentor role can become an ideal opportunity for testing abilities.