Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! I’ve just returned from a fabulous fall hiking weekend in Woodstock, New Hampshire in the White Mountains. We summited Mt. Osceola, which gave us fabulous views of the Waterville Valley area.
I mentioned I was working on an article about mentorship a couple of weeks ago. The article is in, and the editor asked me to come up with “5 things proteges want from their mentors”. Below is the list of 6 things I said proteges want - they aren’t going to use my graphic and organization, so I’ve decided to include it here.
I’ve been working with a model of mentorship based on three dimensions for a few years and have published articles based on those three dimensions ( here and here ). Recently I have been interested in the idea that mentorship is often a distributed phenomenon, with people getting their mentoring “fix” from many sources, and that was the genesis of the forthcoming article. But the three dimensions remain essentially the same.
The three dimensions are:
Personal Support - The mentor believes in the protégé, lends the protégé confidence that the protégé can do more than s/he thinks. When the protégé gets knocked down, the mentor is like a trainer in the corner of a boxing match, helping the protégé get back up and get back in the fight. This dimension has been referred to as “psycho-social support” in the literature. I prefer personal support because of the intimacy that I think is necessary.
Career Development - this is really a blend of two functions. The first is informational - the mentor uses her/his deeper understanding of the industry and wider world of work to help the protege explore career possibilities. The second function is sponsorship - the mentor uses her/his position and reputation to give the protege opportunities to demonstrate her/his own competence.
Job Coaching - the mentor acts as teacher, helping the protege learn how to do her/his job. What this teaching looks like depends on where the protege is in her/his career. Job coaching for an early careerist might focus on specific technical skills. Job coaching for a senior executive might consist of talking through a complicated strategic initiative.
With those three dimensions in mind, I provided these 6 needs:
What do you think? Does this resonate with you?
OK - onward to the links and I’ll see you next week!
(Pic is from the Mt. Osceola trail near the summit.)
Read
What: HBR, What’s your story?
https://hbr.org/2005/01/whats-your-story
Why: Herminia Ibarra, one of the co-authors of this HBR piece, has an excellent book on career changes and work identity.
The point of this article is to help you prepare an effective and compelling personal narrative that can become part of your brand identity - you want to tell “accounts that are deeply true and so engaging that listeners feel they have a stake in our success.”
**
Watch
What: TEDxKC, Stop searching for your passion, Terri Trespicio (10 min)
Why: Great talk about the bad advice of “follow your passion”. I loved Trespicio’s statement: “Passion is a feeling, feelings change”. My wife hates it when people talk about following your passion. I think this video gives voice to her dislike. Trespicio quotes Douglas Adams (of Dilbert fame) - “Passion follows success”.
I’m definitely sharing this with my students. Many of them are frozen by the fear that they don’t know what their passion is.
**
Listen
What: KelloggInsight, How to Be a Great Mentor (19 min)
https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/podcast-how-to-be-a-great-mentor
Why: I was poking around looking for a good episode on mentorship and stumbled upon the KelloggInsight podcast. I’m adding it to my listening because I was impressed with the quality of this episode.
I especially liked the first half of the episode hearing from a senior executive talking about her experience as both a mentor and protégé. She makes a good case for the benefits of mentoring to a senior executive - in particular it gives the executive insight into how the people below her are perceiving the organizational environment. The whole thing is worth listening to.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Associate Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast:
http://healthleaderforge.org
"Were there none discontented with what they have, the World would never reach anything better." - Florence Nightingale