INTRODUCTION The K-start initiative aims to encourage well experienced senior employees to take on the challenge and engage into the process of transferring their knowledge to younger colleagues or business start-ups. We hope that the outcomes of K-start will have a double effect – career and business newcomers will benefit from practical knowledge shared by senior and veteran entrepreneurs whereas seniors will feel reinforced by helping others to succeed. By merging different knowledge and unlike ways of thinking the background for creativity, great ideas and innovation will be created. K-start stands for Knowledge Start: we believe knowledge is the key element in personal and professional development and the growth of business companies. This book is developed by an international team of educators, mentoring experts, and business support organisations. We dedicate it to all seniors and veteran entrepreneurs who decided to make an extra mile in their careers: share their knowledge, inspire people, and make a positive change. Thank you! Seniors, managers and human resource managers will find the book useful for implementing mentoring strategies. After reading and performing self reflection assignments, you will increase competencies in HR management and mentoring. The first chapter of the book “What is Mentoring” is dedicated to the concept of mentoring, analyzing benefits from the employee’s and employer’s point of view. The second chapter “Matchmaking” guides the future mentor through the process of finding and choosing the person to mentor, while managers can learn how to match mentors and mentees inside the company. The third chapter “How to become a Mentor” explains what to start with, what processes to follow and what basic skills to develop if you want to become a successful mentor. The examples are based on mentoring inside the company, but external mentors will get the idea of what they need to address. And at the end, you will find more information about talent management and success stories to be inspired for that first step. With the help of K-start book you will have a better understanding of mentoring, acknowledging the benefits of mentoring for a person, employee and the company. You will learn how to find appropriate mentees, write a good profile describing your skills and competencies, and link the right mentor with the appropriate mentee if you are a (HR) manager. You will also learn about the mentoring process and development of basic skills needed. Practical exercises and self reflection assignments will help you to understand a training process and apply the knowledge in real life situations. All you need to do now is make a start!
All the best, K-start team
CHAPTER I
5
CHAPTER II
25
CHAPTER III
37
CHAPTER IV
93
CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE MEANING OF MENTORING
5
What is mentoring?...................................................................................... 7 Definition of mentoring.................................................................................................7 Need to develop mentoring in work environment .............................................8 Aims of mentoring in SMEs...........................................................................................9 Talent management and knowledge transfer........................................................9 The process of mentoring ............................................................................................10 A real case............................................................................................................................11
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 12 Employee view: Why should I be a mentor?........................................... 13 Challenges and motivations of a senior...................................................................13 What does it take be a mentor.....................................................................................14 Mentor’s skills.....................................................................................................................15 Benefits of being a mentor............................................................................................16
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 17 Employer view: How will mentoring benefit my company?................ 18 Change is inevitable .......................................................................................................18 Company’s challenge to retain talent.......................................................................18
Special features of SMEs............................................................................. 20 Benefits of implementing mentoring in the company......................... 21 Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 23
The Meaning of Mentoring
I am not a teacher, but an awakener. Robert Frost
WHAT IS MENTORING? • Mentoring is a relationship in which a mentor, an experienced person, transfers his knowledge and experience to a mentee. • Senior employees are in possession of a valuable knowledge capital. Seniors must learn to appreciate and take advantage of this knowledge. • Knowledge transfer is a key point in the implementation of mentoring. A critical factor for transfer of knowledge is the feedback relationship between mentee and mentor. • Mentoring is beneficial to both mentor and mentee.
Definition of mentoring When the Greek hero Ulysses, king of Ithaca, departed to the Trojan War, he left his most trusted man, named Mentor, in charge of the education of his son. Mentor thus becomes parent, teacher, model, counsellor and inspirer of the young prince, Telemachus, and his name is perpetuated over the centuries as a synonym of a counsellor and a guide. Mentoring is a relationship of personal development, in which an experienced person helps another with less knowledge. In this way two people take on a commitment to share experiences and insights and contribute to personal and professional growth of the mentee or disciple. In the relationship that is established between mentor and mentee, both of them get benefits, as we will see in next pages. Mentoring can be defined in various ways. The central aspect is that mentoring involves communication and is based on a relationship. We stayed with the definition of Bozeman and Feeney (2007) for which:
“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).”
K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 7
Mentoring is thus a tool to develop the potential of people. It is based on the transfer of knowledge and learning through experience. It is a very intuitive process that establishes a personal relationship and trust between a mentor and a mentee. The mentor guides and encourages the mentee according to his needs for development at personal and professional level. Mentoring occurs along the life in an informal manner. We all can think of people that have guided us at different times: in childhood, during studies, in youth, at work or starting a business of your own.
Need to develop mentoring in work environment There are several reasons that make mentoring necessary in the work environment: 1. The importance of human capital. In this sense, senior employees are experienced employees who have a technique based on the knowledge accumulated throughout their professional life. They possess a valuable knowledge capital. Companies have not always valued this capital, which is the experience of senior employees. 2. Demographics changes Throughout the world, an aging population is expected to contribute to a labour shortage. In Europe, that trend will be particularly potent due to low birth. In general, the European Union countries are reviewing their retirement policies to extend working lives. 3. Jobs are no longer static Companies must continually train and develop employees if they are to keep pace with the speed and complexity of technological innovation. Individuals need greater flexibility in their career paths, and organizations need greater flexibility from employees. People must connect across the company to promote high quality decisions and a fast execution of tasks. Keeping out of the labour market to senior employees it means wasting one of the most important assets that a company can have: knowledge. On average, 25% of the critical competencies of the companies are in the hands of senior employees. But rarely are the seniors who organize the transfer of knowledge to younger ones. This combination of elements threatens the competitiveness of companies and therefore the basis of the European economy as a whole. The establishment of mentoring processes in the company may be a strategy to improve the competitiveness. Moreover, taking advantage of the talent of senior employees company resources are streamlined and a better work environment is achieved. It is convenient to implement the mentoring programme in the company because it:
8 K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring
• Accelerates the process of personal and professional development through the support of a more experienced person. Mentors unleash the potential of employees. • Capitalizes on the knowledge accumulated in people or organizations and can contribute to experience of others. Mentors contribute to the transfer of knowhow. • Generates valuable links between mentors, the people in the organization, and people outside the organization. These relationships can enhance personal and professional development and the achievement of objectives.
Aims of mentoring in SMEs The aims of mentoring are: • Promote personal and professional welfare of the mentor and the mentee. • Improve labour skills of the mentee. • Highlight the importance the mentor’s skills. • Build strong and effective relationships. • Transmit corporate culture, the rules of the business world. • Increase the chances of the company’s continuity in the market.
Talent management and knowledge transfer We have talked about the great value that senior employees have for the company. Concepts related to this are talent management and knowledge transfer. Talent, which combines the employee’s skills and qualities, is an intangible asset. In a knowledge economy, companies cannot generate profits without ideas, skills, and talent, and knowledge of employees. Companies have to bet on people — not only on technologies, factories and economic capital. Mentoring is a possibility to some employees to increase their value in the company by transferring their knowledge to youngsters. On the other hand, mentoring can be a powerful tool to help employees to find the right “place” (job profile, position) in the company.
K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 9
• Talent management is the ability to expertly attract, recruit, motivate, develop and retain staff. This includes the recognition of the employees’ current and potential individual skills and qualities useful for the company. The aim is to assign the right employees to the right jobs. This way company can save money, create additional value and increase competitiveness. Talent management is not a set of topics or rules but rather a perspective or a mindset. A talent management perspective means to presume that the talented individual stands in the centre of organizational processes and is crucial to organizational success. • Knowledge transfer is a key point in the implementation of mentoring Mentoring puts in value the talent of employees, so the company benefits from the talent of the employee and the employee feels recognized and valued. The mentor has a great influence on the mentee and should exercise it responsibly. The mentor must know how to make this transfer in the most appropriate way, so that s/he does not transmit negative aspects to the mentee.
The process of mentoring Let's go back to the story of Mentor and Telemachus. Although the Trojan War was ended, Ulysses didn’t come back home. Nobody knew where he was. So his son, Telemachus, began a journey through Greece in order to get any clues of Ulysses’ whereabouts. Mentor could decline all responsibility for the education of Telemachus once he had left Ithaca. But he decided to accompany him. So under the auspices of Mentor, Telemachus learned to fend by itself. From this story we can extract three basic points inherent in any process of mentoring: • Mentor should adapt the process to the needs of his mentee. • Mentee must be willing to assume the responsibilities that the process entails. • Mentor and mentee must be aware of their mutual need to achieve goals.
In a basic process of mentoring the following steps occur: • First stage: Identifying mentor and mentee. It seeks to ensure proper compatibility between the two participants. • Second Stage: Raising awareness. The mentor receives training to develop mentoring skills. The mentee receives information about program objectives and attitudes to be developed. • Third Stage: Planning and execution. The activities are designed and programmed, resources are allocated and links and networks are established. • Fourth Stage: Results analysis. The feedback process has to be permanent.
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A real case Thirty-one managers (top-level managers, mid-level managers, and supervisors) of a health agency in England participated in a training program. The training had of two phases: conventional managerial training program and one-on-one executive mentoring. All participants volunteered to participate in both phases. Phase One consisted of conventional classroom training. Phase Two consisted one-onone executive mentoring which included: goal setting, collaborative problem solving, practice, feedback, supervisory involvement, evaluation of end-results, and a public presentation. During Phase One, an instructor taught the concepts in the traditional way to 31 participants, they were called "trainees". During Phase Two, the instructor served as consultant to eight of the trainees. They were taught how to be one-on-one executive mentors. The project for these managers (mentors) was to coach the 23 remaining participants (mentees). At the end of the process conventional training have increased productivity by 22.4%. While the mentoring process increased productivity by 88.0%, a significantly greater gain compared to training alone. All mentors and mentees reported favourable reactions to the mentoring phase. Two themes emerged prominently from their comments: mentoring was beneficial to them personally and to the company.
Lots of evidences indicate that a critical factor in the success of the training is the extent to which the trainee gets feedback. The chance of practice of the concepts is also important. One-onone executive mentoring can provide this opportunity. Through mentoring, trainees have a safe, personalized environment in which practice and feedback can take place. Mentors go deeper in their skills and feel fulfilled and recognized.
K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 11
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. What kinds of mentors have helped you throughout your life? 2. Do you think you have inspired someone? How did you feel with this experience? 3. List 5 skills you think you need to start mentoring someone. 4. Are you trained and have enough knowledge to be a mentor?
12 K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring
EMPLOYEE VIEW: WHY SHOULD I BE A MENTOR? • Senior employees represent a source of knowledge and expertise that sometimes is not valued enough. • Mentor must possess or acquire certain skills and characteristics. • Mentor encourages and guides the mentee in the consecution of mentee’s goals and the development of his career plan by transferring knowledge and providing counsel. • Mentoring is beneficial for both the mentee and the mentor, as for the company itself. • By providing mentoring, senior employee fosters the integration of a mentee into the company, but also gets personal benefits and strengthens his/her position in the company.
Challenges and motivations of a senior Senior people face several challenges. Related to senior employees these challenges are basically two: 1. Staying in the labour market in the actual context of crisis. 2. Finding alternative activities to work, in case of retirement. In 2010 the employment rate of employees over 55 years in Europe was 46.3%. The policies applied so far in developed countries about employees’ retirement are failing. Now, governments are revising them to delay the retirement age.
So it is reality that seniors have the necessity to stay at their jobs. To achieve it, seniors have to remain interesting employees for companies. What differentiates a senior employee from the rest of her/his mates is her/his experience? Seniors must take advantage of it and make a change in their minds in order to: • have confidence in themselves, • be positive, • be part of the company culture, • be open and flexible to changes and improvements, • fight routine, • think they can always come up with ideas and do things differently. For retired employees the necessity is different: stay active for a good quality of life. But the approach is the same.
K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 13
Mentoring provides senior employees with the opportunity to use their knowledge and experience to become an asset to the company.
What does it take be a mentor Beyond the definition, what is the work of a mentor? What tasks a mentor must to perform? A mentor should: • Facilitate the development of the mentee, helping him/her to overcome obstacles and providing the tools to ensure his/her success. • Take an active role, provide tutoring and teach the mentee new technical skills, new behaviours and provide new information. • Fix stages and goals according to the mentee. He acts as a guide in developing the career plan of the employee. • Encourage and guide the mentee. • Generate a feedback process between the two sides of the relationship. • Provide advice and counsel to mentee in decision-making. • Act as a confidant, establishing a relationship of trust. • Positioning the mentee within the company, establishing relationships. Mentor acts as a source of information on the mission and goals of the organization. However, a mentor should be clear about what are the limits of their duties and do not overreach.
A mentor should not deal with: • Making decisions for his mentees. • Setting stages or goals unilaterally. • Resolving mentee's problems. • Creating dependent mentees. • Pretending that the mentee is an extension of his person. Finally, a mentor should not ensure success to his/her mentee. A mentoring process facilitates success, but reaching it depends on several factors that a mentor cannot control.
14 K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring
Mentor’s skills Not everyone is able to be a mentor. To achieve success in its work a mentor must possess or acquire certain skills and characteristics: • To have desire to teach, time, goodwill and commitment. Become a mentor only if you are truly interested in being part of a relationship of this type and are willing to dedicate time and energy. The mentor needs to have interest in participating in the professional development of others. • To have experience and knowledge. These are of value for the mentee. A mentor also must have credibility about the knowledge he has and show confidence. • To know how to share and train. Besides having the experience accumulated over the years, a mentor must be willing to share it. • To practice an active listening and an assertive communication A mentor must know how to listen to questions posed by the mentee, and should transmit his/her knowledge and lead the mentee to achieve the targets. • To be a good counsellor. Constructive feedback is a top issue in this case. To have the ability to motivate is also important. • To be thoughtful. Know how to pose challenges appropriate to the circumstances of the mentee, guide to values and have good humour and patience. • To maintain confidentiality. The information that the mentee shares with the mentor should be kept confidential. • To keep abreast in knowledge. The world is constantly changing, new technologies emerge. The mentor should be updated in the field. • To know when the mentoring is done. Accept that the relationship may end, without recrimination, at any time, when one of the parties wishes so.
K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 15
Benefits of being a mentor Not only mentee gets benefits from mentoring relationship. Mentor gets much, if not more, than the mentee.
Mentor gets personal benefits, but also strengthens its position in the company and in society.
The mentor reinforces his ego and self-esteem, increases self-confidence to overcome a professional but also personal challenge. The recognition of the value of his experiences and lessons motivates the employee in his work. The mentor improves his skills, remains active, matures his knowledge and reflects on his own experiences. By exposing their knowledge to the mentee's point of view, mentor acquires new skills that the mentee conveys him. Employees who find that their skills are valued are more satisfied and more committed to the work they perform.
Regarding the company, the employee strengthens his position in it. He acquires new value that goes beyond the pursuit of his work. His superiors and colleagues value him more positively. He expands his horizons and work opportunities. The mentor gets a better understanding of the company and its work, thereby increasing his connection with it. On the other hand, in companies with established mentoring programs, there may be other incentives for the mentor as days off or financial rewards.
16 K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions:
1. How many employees over 55 are there in your company? What proportion of senior employees is facing young employees? 2. How many years have you been working? 3. Do you think the experience you've gained over the years can be useful to others? Are you willing to share it? 4. Do you feel valued in your company? 5. Are there training programs in the company for sharing the knowledge? Are there specific programs for young employees on how to integrate into the company professionally and socially? 6. Now that you know the tasks and skills of a mentor, do you feel you are prepared for mentoring?
K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 17
EMPLOYER VIEW: HOW WILL MENTORING BENEFIT MY COMPANY? • To promote and retain talented employees is crucial for company’s competitiveness. • The use of tools such as mentoring for managing human capital can give companies a clear performance advantage. • Among many others benefits, mentoring causes high engagement of employees (both mentor and mentee) in the company.
Change is inevitable If you look at the demographic of most industrialized countries, the labour market soon will experience a drastic reduction of its workforce due to retirement. However, the number of young employees is not enough to cover these losses. It is therefore necessary to have a change in the society. But change may occur not only because of demographic changes, but also because of the globalization and market competitiveness: senior employees represent a source of knowledge and expertise. The departure of these employees is a loss for companies. Senior employees should be seen as an asset and not as a burden. The next paradigm shift is proposed:
from “Seniors like passive social burden, receiving benefits and consuming resources” to “Seniors as active leaders, contributors that generate opportunities in society”
It is in this context that senior employees will be of even more importance in the structure of companies, promoting and retaining this workforce will ensure the future of many businesses. In many cases, companies do not set policy for retention and recruitment of these profiles because they simply do not know how.
Company’s challenge to retain talent Traditionally, most employees simply needed to be technically oriented. Nowadays they need to be more and more educated and to possess the right skills. In the knowledge economy, job requirements become increasingly demanding and specified. There is the need to understand, that everything your company does is actually based on skills and competencies ‑ the skills and competencies of employees. That’s why the human resources are reasonably titled as a treasure.
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Companies that want to stay in time must be able to attract and retain talented employees. In this respect, talent management means finding the best processes and systems that support the broad corporate objective of hiring and retaining the best people. As a result, more and more companies face difficulties to find the right persons with the right skills needed in the organisation, as a survey among European SMEs shows. According to the survey, more than 40% of the European organisations have problems finding skilled people for their organisation, as can be seen in the graph below:
33,85 % (44) Yes, we do not have problems
18,46 % (24) Yes, but we spent resource on internal in service training
42,31 % (55)
5,38 % (7)
No, we have problems with getting skilled people
No, we can not get the people we want
Graph 1: Is it possible to get the right people with the right competences for your organisation? Š Business Development Friesland 2014
Misplacement of employees within the organisation costs time and money – factors which are crucial to success in the fast-changing world of today. It is observed that dissatisfied employees are more absent from their job. Organizations therefore need to be able to develop and motivate people who share the vision of the organization.
The mentoring of newcomers or less experienced employees by senior ones can contribute to the solution of these problems. Mentoring is beneficial for every part involved: the mentee, the mentor, as for the company itself.
The use of tools as mentoring for managing human capital can give companies a clear performance advantage. It provides value through cost savings from increased utilization and lower turnover and through higher productivity—the result of improved training, more effective deployment, and targeted incentives that reward and promote the most productive employees. K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 19
SPECIAL FEATURES OF SMEs Like large organisations, SMEs need to attract, select, motivate, deploy, develop and retain talent. But very often, there is only one person handling human resource administration. The constraints which SMEs face opposite to large organisation are: • Lack of specialized expertise. Large companies have experts in specialized areas of talent management (assessment methodologies, diversity…). Smaller companies may know that this is important, but cannot have much specialized expertise. • Fewer economies of scale. Large companies can afford to invest in researching which talent-management tool is most reliable. SMEs often cannot. This matters because not all tools are appropriate and/or good for every company. • Criticality of each hire. A firm with 1,000 call centre reps will not be much affected by a very bad or very good hire. However, if you only have five reps then each individual is touching 20 per cent of your customer base. • Criticality of turnover. The smaller the company the more of a continuity problem it faces when there is turnover in key jobs. The loss of one marketing person may mean losing the relationship with the ad agency or the history of the work done during the period that the employee remained with the company. The reverse problem can also occur: Ann Bartelstein, who spent many years in HR in SMEs, says lack of turnover can mean the company is stuck with the wrong people. Thus, SMEs have fewer resources on hand than larger companies and also face a higher risk in the recruiting process. This means that SMEs have to be particularly careful when setting up a talent management system.
On the other hand, there are also advantages to the SMEs: • Case-by-case insight. SMEs know more about each individual and can respond to their development and retention needs on a case-by-case basis. • Few layers. In an SME there are only two or three management layers. Driving a talent mind-set through the company is much easier than in organizations where the top team only has direct contact with a small percentage of employees. • Sense of belonging. It is easier for people to develop a deep sense of belonging in small organizations where the contribution of each person is very visible.
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BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING MENTORING IN THE COMPANY Most SMEs complain that the process of talent management is inconvenient and does not create sufficient additional value for the effort that has to be made. Consequently, the majority of companies fail in setting up and developing a suiting talent management system for employees. For many industries, human capital is the most important and most costly elements of running a successful business. In order to control these costs and garner the greatest competitive advantage, the company needs to bring key human capital management processes. Mentoring is presented as a simple and inexpensive tool for managing the talent of new employees in an SME.
To summarize, the benefits of mentoring and growing the talents for an organization are: High engagement – employees are committed to the company. Clear direction – the values, purpose and involvement in strategy keep everyone aligned. Long retention – as employees are committed they stay a long time, reducing the energy, time and money the company has to spend recruiting talent and dealing with the problems of turnover.
There are also financial benefits. Areas for potential tangible financial benefits include: • Reduction in administrative efforts of approximately 50% or more on the part of HR. • Time savings of approximately 8 to 16 hours per supervisor per review period. • Time savings of approximately 2 to 8 hours per employee per review period. • Reduction in voluntary turnover of approximately 10%.
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In addition to these outright cost savings, an integrated approach provides significant soft benefits such as: • Employees are linked to the achievement of individual and organizational goals. • HR staff can focus on strategic priorities by reducing the effort associated with administering talent management processes. • Measurable increases in productivity at individual, team, and organizational level.
To this should be added the benefits to the mentor, already mentioned, and the benefits obtained by the mentee: • Adapting quickly and effectively to the new job. • Guidance and valuable advice. Solves his questions effectively. • Establishes productive relationships with his new teammates. • Internalize the vision, mission and objectives of the company. His level of commitment to the company increases.
22 K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Does your company have a program to develop the soft skills of employees and their level of commitment to the company? 2. Do you think that senior employees are able to advise other fellows? 3. Would a mentoring program be useful in the circumstances of your company?
K-START: The Meaning of Mentoring 23
CHAPTER II. MATCHMAKING
25
Motivations................................................................................................... 27 Where to find the mentee?...........................................................................................27 TYPES OF MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS...................................................................28 How to be active in searching the mentee..............................................................29 The mentor’s profile.........................................................................................................29 Mentoring relationship...................................................................................................30
Questions For reflection............................................................................. 33
Matchmaking
K-START: Matchmaking 25
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. Henry Ford
26 K-START: Matchmaking
MOTIVATIONS Once you have decided to take the step to share your experiences and become a mentor, you lack the most important: a person with whom to share, the mentee. Mentoring is not just about finding a mentee with interest. There has to be synergy and compatibility. You need to find someone who fits your needs and you fit theirs. It is essential to establish a good synergy between the relationship of the mentee and the mentor. Compatibility is paramount in mentoring. Relationships are much more productive if the two members are similar in mind set. Do not think that as a mentor, you should wait for your mentee to contact you. The decision to interact is up to both parties. Either mentor or mentee can restrict their mentoring to distinct groups of interest to him or her. Mentoring is all about compatibility. It is important for both parties in a mentoring relationship to have a clear understanding of what each feels would work best. Wait until you find the right person and you will find that it was well worth the wait. You, as a mentor, will get benefit from this relationship, but only if you chose the correct mentee. There are numerous emotional benefits from helping a mentee to succeed, especially when the mentor’s advice is followed and the mentee obtains good outcomes as a result. Also you could increase your professional network through your mentee. Mentoring is a commitment of both parties to help one another in whichever way they can. If the mentee expects from you to make a commitment in assisting him, s/he must make a commitment to listening to you and to being active in the relationship. But also, if you are an active mentor in the relationship, then your mentee will follow your example.
Where to find the mentee? But, where can you find a mentee? Depending on the type of mentoring program, the options to find the mentee are different. It may occur that you should take the initiative to find the mentee, or maybe this work is made by another person or institution. In any case, you should show interest in being a mentor.
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TYPES OF MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS • Mentoring in the private life. Throughout our lives we establish mentoring relationships. Sometimes we exercise the role of a mentor, sometimes the role of a mentee. For example, a youngster undecided what to study, a person who goes through a difficult time and needs a piece of advice. Usually, we are not aware of that we have established these relationships. Neither the mentor nor the mentee is looking at each other. Mentoring occurs in a natural way by the attraction and good synergy between a mentor and a mentee. • Mentoring in professional field. This is the kind of mentoring that we deal in K-START. A person that knowingly and voluntarily acts as a mentor of another person. We may distinguish in: -- Mentoring at the company where you work. The most obvious way to provide mentoring is at the job. After all, this is where we win most of our experience and knowledge and where we spend most of our time. A person who freshly joins the company, an employee of the company who changes position or department, a worker who just wants to improve will need a mentor to succeed. As in the previous case, mentoring can occur in an informal way: mentor and mentee feel they have something to share and it just happens. But more and more companies are establishing formal mentoring programs. In this case there is usually a person in charge of mentor-mentee unions based on the profile, interests and personality of both. -- Mentoring out of the company where you work. It may happen that you decide to give mentoring to a worker of a different company you work for, or a person who starts a career and needs advice on relationships in the workplace. In this case, you will usually need to take an active role in the search for the mentee, or maybe the mentee to contact you or both of you participate in a mentoring program of an independent institution like K-START. In any case, you should be careful with confidential information about your company. The information shared between mentor and mentee must always remain between them. But also as the mentee is someone outside your company, you should avoid information that may be considered confidential to your company. Furthermore, this information is not necessary for the mentoring: mentoring is to guide another person through the discovery of their own way. -- Mentoring in the field of entrepreneurship. Perhaps the mentee is someone who wants to start his own company. In this case, it occurs as in the previous case. Whatever your case is, as long as you can, be active in the selection process and seek out the potential mentees who you feel could benefit the most from your input and experience. 28 K-START: Matchmaking
How to be active in searching the mentee • You should communicate to your responsible your interest in participating in a mentoring program in the company. • You can use professional social networks on internet as Linkedin to show your availability for mentoring. • On the internet you can find organisations offering databases where you can include your profile as a mentor, so the mentee can find you. Examples of these are: -- European Council Mentoring and Coaching (EMCC) http://www.emccouncil.org -- K-START http://www.k-start.eu -- EMCC Spain http://www.emccouncil.org/es/ -- AECOP Spain http://www.aecop.net/es • You can also participate in mentoring programs or projects organized by public or private institutions on European or national scale. The projects often have a specific goal for mentoring – help business start-ups, facilitate exploring career opportunities for students, or prevent crime and bullying in schools. Examples of these are: -- DEMOLA network http://demola.net -- Supreme Mentoring project http://www.supreme-mentoring.eu/ -- SECOT Voluntariado Senior de Asesoramiento Empresarial – Senior Volunteer for Business Advisory http://www.secot.org/ -- The Business Mentoring program of the Government of Extremadura http:// www.extremaduraempresarial.es/?page=237&mo=fichas&id=135 -- The Social Mentoring program driven by the Andalusian Government http:// comunidadinnycia.guadalinfo.es/mentoring -- Youth Business Spain program, promoted by Fundación Tomillo y Fundación CEPAC http://www.tomillo.org
The mentor’s profile To write your profile as a mentor will be a great help, whether you will act as mentor on your own, in a program developed by your company, or through an organisation or a volunteer program. It will help you to organize and clarify all you have to offer and will facilitate you establishing a relationship with the appropriate mentee. The profile should contain a cover letter and a summary of your curriculum vitae and your experience so that the person carrying out the matchmaking is clear about what kind of mentees can better leverage your wisdom.
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Each mentoring program will establish its own requirements regarding personal information that you should provide. But in general make sure to fill in as much information as possible, but only relevant information which is accurate to provide potential mentees about their prospective mentors before any communication is established. The better information you provide, the easier it will be to find the best Mentor - Mentee match. The information provided should be clear and concise. Some advices to write your profile: • Cover letter. A short text to introduce and describe yourself. You can use it to explain what you expect from a mentoring relationship, what your motivations are, and to highlight your attributes and professional experiences. • Mentoring venue. You must include the place, the area or the way you are available for mentoring. Mentoring relationship usually involves having mentor-mentee face meetings. Although it is not imperative, it is highly recommended. It is not necessary for both parties to live in the same location; if travels are not possible, it can be also done online or through phone calls. • Job History. Describe your professional background, your skills, abilities and professional strengths. It is important to explain the areas in which you have worked and you dominate and the years of experience. • Mentoring Topics. In what areas can you be a mentor? In what way? • Education. You can also provide information about your studies.
Mentoring relationship Once you have contacted the mentee, both of you have to build your relationship. Be aware that the basic points to build a successful relation are communication, organization, motivation and confidence.
For the proper functioning of mentoring process is recommended that a mentor takes just one mentee.
In Chapter 3 you will find more information about the steps of a mentoring process; but you have to know that the relationship starts with the first meeting first contact in which both can be leveraged to know each other and to agree on the main rules on which the process will run. Frequency of contacts is important in the relationship to keep the learning process moving forward. Each new discussion with the mentor should include updates from the mentee on items the mentor recommended in the previous talk. As the mentee develops and refines his career, new issues and decisions will arise.
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At the initial stage of the process is a good moment to set: • The frequency of face-to-face meetings and/or telephone meetings, with a schedule of dates.
It is desirable that a mentor and a mentee maintain continuous contact with weekly meetings. These meetings will be developed as an informal talk in which the mentee reports to mentor his/ her progress and mentor helps mentee with the story of his/her experiences.
• The mechanisms for communicating between meetings (for example, email or phone).
The most effective way to develop mentoring is informal face to face meetings. It is also desirable that the mentee can contact the mentor in a quick way (by phone, email, skype, hangouts, etc.)
• The objectives of the mentoring and dates for reviews.
In each meeting a mentor and a mentee should move towards the achievement of the final objectives. A good way to do this is to review how the situation has changed since the last meeting and set small goals til the next.
• The duration of the mentoring relationship and a date for final review and closure.
Many mentoring programmes have duration of one year, others last for six months, in other cases the processes last for the trial period of a new employee, some other programmes do not finalise until the goals are achieved. If the process is too short, it may not reach the proposed objectives and if too long, it can generate undesirable dependence.
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• A statement on confidentiality that applies to a mentor and a mentee.
Whatever are the circumstances in which mentoring takes place (in a program of the company, in an external program, by the initiative of mentor and mentee), the relationship must always be confidential. A simple statement will help to clarify the terms and conditions and facilitate the relationship.
• The tracking and review of the business mentoring process and reporting back.
After each mentoring relationship it is time to assess the process. We must reflect on the problems occurred, what solutions have been applied and think what to do in order not to repeat the same mistakes in the future. The evaluation process should involve mentor, mentee and the one responsible of mentoring program (if any).
The development of the process involves active participation. So you as a mentor must not forget to be available and accessible to your mentee, but also do not forget that the mentee has a number of obligations. The mentee’s responsibilities are: • To be proactive. • To ensure that the objectives jointly agreed at the first meeting are being worked on and the outcomes tracked thereafter. • As the mentee grows in confidence and experience, s/he should take the lead and lessen any dependency he may have on the mentor. • To aim to move towards closure on the mentoring relationship. • To think about what he can do to make a contribution back to his mentor.
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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Think on your experiences at work and the knowledge you have accumulated along the years. Which ones would you like to share with other people? Which ones do you think are more useful for those people who start working or establish a business? 2. Write your profile. It should contain at least the information described on the sequence “The mentor’s profile”. We encourage you to register your profile on K-START too. 3. Search on internet for mentoring programs that exist in your country or region, either in private or in public institutions, NGOs etc. Do you think it is easy to access the existing networks of mentors and mentees? Get in touch with the ones you like and offer to be a part of the initiative.
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CHAPTER III. How to become a mentor step by step......................... 39 Motivations.........................................................................................................................39 Becoming a mentor.........................................................................................................40
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 43 Identity and Role.......................................................................................... 44 Motivations.........................................................................................................................44 Key concepts......................................................................................................................45 Understanding Roles.......................................................................................................46 Self-evaluation and Mapping the Roles...................................................................47 Managing Roles.................................................................................................................49 A real case............................................................................................................................50
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 51 Sharing Knowledge and Innovation........................................................ 52 Motivations.........................................................................................................................52 Key concepts......................................................................................................................53
Understanding Innovation......................................................................... 54 Sharing Innovation and Knowledge..........................................................................56 Managing Innovation and Knowledge.....................................................................57 A real case............................................................................................................................59
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 59
Communication and cooperation............................................................. 60 Motivations.........................................................................................................................60 Key Concepts......................................................................................................................61 Understanding Comunication and Cooperative work.............................................................................................................62 Self-evaluation and sharing of experiences on communication and cooperative work.....................................................................................................63 Managing Communication and Cooperative work..............................................64 A real case............................................................................................................................66
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 67 Self-Management........................................................................................ 68 Motivations.........................................................................................................................68 Key concepts......................................................................................................................69 Understanding Self-management..............................................................................70 Self-evaluation and sharing of experiences on self-management.................71 Managing Self-management.......................................................................................72 A real case............................................................................................................................73
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 74
Change management.................................................................................. 75 Motivations.........................................................................................................................75 Key concepts......................................................................................................................76 Understanding Change Management......................................................................76 Self-assesment and Sharing Change Managament.....................................................................................78 Managing Change Management................................................................................78 A real case............................................................................................................................80
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 81 Quality Improving Process......................................................................... 82 Motivations.........................................................................................................................82 Key concepts......................................................................................................................83 Understanding Quality Management.......................................................................84 Self-assesment and Sharing Quality Management..............................................84 Quality Management......................................................................................................85 A real case............................................................................................................................87
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 88 From Learning to Action............................................................................. 89 Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 91
How to Become a Mentor
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I will learn. Benjamin Franklin
HOW TO BECOME A MENTOR STEP BY STEP Motivations Why the topics we address in this chapter may be important to you as a mentor? What interest can you find in reading, reflecting and learning about them? They will help you to better understand how the different areas and departments are related in the company where you work or mentor. We have seen in previous chapters what are the tasks and the skills that a mentor should develop. This chapter intends to deepen your knowledge on six issues related to these skills and tasks. • Identity and roles; • Sharing Knowledge and Innovation; • Communication and Cooperation; • Self-management; • Change Management; • Quality Improving Process.
One of the key skills of a mentor is communication. It is essential to establish a mentormentee relationship that allows sharing knowledge and transmitting the culture of the company. It also allows the mentor to listen to the mentee, getting to know his needs. Communication also enables teamwork. This ability is essential both for the development of mentoring itself and the development of the role awarded to the mentee. A mentor must know the roles that exist in a company to offer the mentee an adequate understanding of what is expected of his work, and how to do it. We will delve into concepts such as teamwork and sharing knowledge, but also selfmanagement. Are the not the opposite concepts, you would say? Not at all, even when we work together we need self-managament abilities to organize our own time and tasks. A mentor must ensure that his or her mentees are independent but tat at the same time they know how to relate and establish appropriate relationships. Similarly it is important that a mentor and a mentee are aware that changes are inevitable and know how to adapt to them. Finally, we talk about a few basics concepts related to quality since today it is essential in the business world.
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Becoming a mentor In Chapter 1 we stressed that only those who are willing to commit and dedicate time for it should start as mentors. In Chapter 2 we described the ways one can act as a mentor, i.e.: • Within the company one works for; • Outside the company one works: -- being a mentor of an entrepreneur who wants to develop a business or a person starting his or her career or -- acting as a mentor in someone’s personal life. Further on we discuss the scenario of becoming a mentor within the company. This could be a starting point if you are an employee or an example that you can adapt to a case of being a mentor from outside. Thus if your desire is to participate in the rewarding process of helping another person to build his future, the steps to start with are: • Analize yourself. Undoubtedly thanks to your extensive working life, you have knowledge about your company, customer experiences, anecdotes about conflict resolution, advice about relationship in the workplace, and so on. All this will be very useful for those who start their careers as professionals or businessmen. But it is not all just about having this valuable asset called knowledge and experience; it is also about knowing how to transfer it. Analyze your ability to communicate with others and assess if you need to improve any aspects. That’s where K-START can help you.
It is advisable to write your Mentor’s Profile (see Chapter 2) and create your Personal Develoment Plan (see unit From Learning to Action in this Chapter). Also you can use the traditional SWOT analysis.
• Matchmaking. In the field of business, unlike that in personal life where mentoring relationships occur mostly spontaneously, mentoring relationships are often under the supervision of the management of the company, which decides to launch a mentoring program (or not). For this reason the human resources or management department are usually responsible for matching the mentor with the mentee. It is usual to assign mentors and mentees that will work in the same area in the company, but depending on the approach the management want to address, this may be so or not. Similarly, it may be that a mentor and a mentee work together during the entire working day or not. If not, you must meet the mentee on regular basis to ensure proper monitoring. 40 K-START: How to Become a Mentor
The person carrying out the machtmaking must ensure that the connections made are right. To achieve this it is important to take into account both the type of knowledge to be transferred from the mentor to the mentee, as well as the affinity between them. To perform machtmaking one can use: • List of people willing to participate in the programme; • Personal interviews; • Mentor and mentee profiles. If mentor-mentee union does not work, the ones respobsible for the mentoring plan have to find out what is going wrong and solve the situation in collaboration with the mentor and mentee. But if this is not possible the relationship should end. In this case it is very important to know what has happened (bad mentee’s predispositions, lack of mentor’s competencies, incompatible characters, poor design of the mentoring plan, etc.) in order to not repeat the same mistakes again. In any case, once mentees and mentors are assigned, the mentoring process goes forward (see Chapter 2 for more information about this process): 1. Meet the mentee. In the first meeting you should welcome him or her to the company, show facilities, and introduce to those who will be his or her peers. Take this opportunity to establish a relationship of trust and active listening. Allow the mentee to tell you what his or her expectations are. 2. Establish goals. With the information offered by the mentee, you should reflect on what are his or her needs and set the objectives to be achieved by both of you. These objectives should be consensuated. 3. Accompany. A mentor should not provide answers, nor troubleshoot mentee’s problems. You should listen to the mentee and advise him or her to be proactive. You must allow him or her to play an active role. Regular face to face meetings are a must. 4. End the relationship. When the mentee feels integrated into the company and is confident in the performance of his or her work, the mentoring relationship has come to its end. The relationship also must end if the mentor and the mentee are not connected to each other and the relationship does not progress. 5. Reflect on your mentoring experience. Analyze the success of the process: if the objectives have been achieved, what problems have appeared during the process and how they have been solved. It is useful to know the opinion of the mentee. It is necessary to continue improving the mentoring process and your own skills.
The figure in the next page summarizes the methodology for developing a mentoring process and becoming a mentor in a company. The same steps should be followed when establishing mentoring relationships outside the company too. In the case the process can be supervised by the third party (for example, project manager) or it will depend on the mentor and mentee mutual agreement only. K-START: How to Become a Mentor 41
• Objectives • Duration • Types and frequency of meetings • Incentives • Evaluation
• Management Commitment • Defining Mentoring Plan • Becoming a mentor • Matchmaking
Improvement of the process
5 Valorisation
1 Meet the mentee
• Mentor’s profile • Mentee’s profile • Interviews
• First face meeting • Building relationship • Effective Communication • Effective Communication
Bad relationship
2 Establishing goals • Communicate you interest • Analyse yourself - SWOT - Personal - Development Plan - Mentor’s Profile • Specific
K-START
• Goals achieved, • Solutions applied, • Satisfaction: mentor mentee, manager
• Mutual agreement • Goals achieved • Autonomous mentee
4 End of relationship
• Periodical meetings • Effective Communication • Selfconfident mentee • Problem solving
3 Accompaniment
K-START: How to Become a Mentor
42 K-START: How to Become a Mentor
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Discuss the processes of becoming a mentor with your colleagues or friends. Do you agree with that we suggest? 2. Write some ideas on the following situations in the company: • Does Company’s strategy support mentoring? If not, should I suggest that to the management? • Who can I contact to become a mentor in the company? Do I have to talk to my superior? • How can we engage executives and managers? How can we engage younger workers? How many employees in the company can be mentors? • When will I do mentoring? During work hours? In my free time? Outside the company? 3. What problems do you think may appear between mentor and mentee? How would you solve them? 4. Do you see any opportunities to become an external mentor? Search for local initiatives that call for mentors and try to contact them offering your expertise.
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IDENTITY AND ROLE • A role is a function of a person or a group during the implementation of an activity. A person carries out diverse roles in his/her life, according to the context. • Identity and roles help to map functions of an organization. • Both function related roles and team roles are important to the development of activities in a company. • Employees need to know what is expected from them, so a good definition of the company’s roles is important.
Motivations Why does a mentor need to know about “roles”? How do “roles” influence the daily work of an employee? Roles are relevant in the theatre or a movie, but what do they mean when talking about a company? Is there a connection between “roles” and what an employee does in a company every day? What do mentors benefits from learn about “roles”? If we look what have changed at work environment in the last century, there is a lot. In the past, hierarchies were stricter and the “newcomer” had to play a definite “role’” and wasn’t involved in so many fields at the same time. In some ways, the work was simpler, more clearly structured and less complex. That has changed. Today each employee is expected to take over his “role” in a chain of quality processes. Many tasks are overlapping, especially in small and medium-sized companies where an employee often performs several functions and must handle the related roles in an optimal way.
A better understanding of types of roles existing within a company and how to improve interaction between these roles can be very helpful for a mentor. This way a mentor can train the mentee in working with others effectively and successfully. It is also important that a mentor knows his own role and what this implies.
For the execution of his duties as a mentor, it is important that a senior worker knows fundamental aspects of the company such as: identity, structure, jobs and roles.
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Key concepts First of all, what do we understand by “Identity” and by “Role”? Take a moment to think on these concepts. You can discuss them with your colleagues or friends. Here you have some definitions: • Identity: distinctive features of an individual or a team that differentiate it from others. • Role: Function of a person or a group in the implementation of activity.
While the characteristics of a person’s identity usually remain constant over time, a person carries out diverse roles in his/her life, according to the context. So identity stays constant, while role changes together with the circumstances. When we talk about the identity of a company or Corporate Identity we refer to the different elements that distinguish a company from others, or we call it corporate culture the way of being and acting. The role or roles that a person takes in his job are critical for the development of company’s activities. It is necessary that an employee assumes the identity of the company and takes the appropriate roles for the proper functioning of the company. For better performance of the functions, companies have an organizational structure that allows the sharing of tasks and activities. It is very important that the allocation of workers to these areas suits the person. Employees must assume the role or roles that correspond.
What roles do you assume in your daily life (at your work, at home, with friends, associations or groups)? You can use Internet search engines (google, yahoo or others), online encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.), specialized websites, etc, to reflect about the role concept. Discuss it with your colleagues or friends.
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Understanding Roles In this picture we see a group of people having a picnic in the garden. Everyone is playing a specific role. The father assumes the role of the head of household and prepars the barbecue. At the same time, he shares experiences with his eldest son, his mentee. The mother is the organizer; she makes sure that everything is ready, prepared and in the right place. The eldest daughter is bored and does not take part in the event. The young children are excited about the event in the garden; they run and play without stopping.
In a company, as in a family, there are different roles. There are a lot of theories, terms and concepts concerning roles in the work environment. But the essential question is that within a company, employees occupy specific positions and are part of different groups. This set up a social network, which needs to give roles to people. These roles can arise from the responsibilities of a job or just from worker’s conduct. Roles can be divided into the following categories: • Function related roles. They refer to the distribution of tasks and responsibilities in the company. They are related to skills and competenciese of the employees and are assigned to them. So we can find roles as: administrative, financial, managerial, a director, a maintenance manager, a head of production department, etc. • Socio-emotional roles and team roles. They are related to the emotional processes within the group. Examples of these roles are: the leader, the informer, the protector, the worker, the lazy, etc. Team roles are closely related to socio-emotional roles are; team roles have evolved from them. They are related to the personality of the employee. These are roles that individuals naturally adopt.
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A team role is a behaviour pattern of the way in which one team member interacts with another. It is a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way. Examples of these roles are: coordinator, researcher, promoter, implementer, finisher, assessor, specialist, facilitator, protective, moderator, unifying force, creative facilitator, assistant, observer, etc.
We see how an employee can play different roles in one company. Regarding his or her function role, the employee may be responsible for sales, and as such assume the functions of talking to customers, managing bids, etc. In addition, depending on the way s/he interacts with the peers (team role), s/he may behave as a cohesive agent of the group being the promoter of leisure activities or the moderator because of his or her ability to solve conflicts.
Discuss the different roles with your colleagues or friends. What do you tink are the most important roles for a mentor?
Self-evaluation and Mapping the Roles We have seen that function roles are directly related to the position occupied by the employee. A mentor who provides tutoring to an employee may not always be able to intervene with this. In any case, a mentor can explain to a mentee what the specific responsibilities of the position are. Also, after understanding and analyzing the mentee, the mentor can suggest in what position the mentee could perform better. The company’s organizational structure is the way to have a hierarchy and the way the work is distributed in specific areas or units. It is crucial because it can affect the efficiency and effectiveness with which the company pursues its objectives. The division of labour through the organizational structure of the company is essential. A person can not perform all business activities alone in an effective and efficient way.
K-START: How to Become a Mentor 47
For example, assigning financial tasks for a person without specialized training in finance can not guarantee the achievement of the objectives set. In the same way, the reassignment of an employee from the maintenance in production department can cause delays and errors.
A mentor can influence the team roles that will be assumed by the mentee. The mentor should analyze how the mentee interacts with other peers and lead him or her to establish positive relationships. For a better understanding of the roles in your company and evaluating your own role, try to describe where you are and what your position is:
• Physical Space: describe the environment, the structure of space, material resources. Think about the office and its internal distribution, the building where it is located, the entire company and your own physical position.
Board members
Manager
Human Resources
Production Department
Administrative and Final Department
Sales Department
• Organization: describe everyday tasks that are usually allocatted to each department to develop the daily activities of the company. Make a list of the organizational units of the company. • Relationships: describe the type of relationships that there are common between employees. What are the interdepences between roles?
Now try to draw a map of roles in the company. Discuss with your colleagues and friends the potential roles that can exist and know how they understand their own position. Define function related roles and team roles.
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Managing Roles Roles’ Definition: for a correct management of roles, it is essential to make a complete description of the different jobs within the company. It must include the skills and competences that people who occupy them must have. As well as the place of these employees in the hierarchy of the company and the relationships they must establish with the rest have to be indicated. That is, assign the role or roles that an employee will have to assume, taking into account a particular job s/he is doing. Communication and cooperation between roles: it ensures that employees know the goals and objectives of each job, unit or department, as well as the importance of each job’s position. Employees have to understand what each role entails and be willing to assume it. Each employee must know what their role is, what the roles of his or her peers are and what relationships they have to establish between them (eg, members of a team, boss and subordinate, employees of the same level but from different departments, etc.). The management or human resource managers must ensure that employees understand what is expected from them. Managing role’s conflicts: role conflict is common and necessary, within limits, process in building a workteam, as individuals have to negotiate their roles. The problem comes when this conflict is maintained over time. The role ambiguity occurs when people do not know what is expected of them, so they feel insecure about the way they should act. They ignore the expectations that others have about their work. On many occasions, an inadequate interaction between team members or the inappropriate behaviour of an individual in relation to the equipment result in poor performance of the whole team. To overcome these conflicts the solution is communication and dialogue. Some authors (West, 2003) have stated that: these conflicts can be overcome through extensive exploration of the roles of each and a particular negotiation about how these features can effectively complement rather than compete. Hence, when there is a conflict in the workteam, one of the first things you should evaluate is the extent to which people are fully aware of mutual roles and the objectives of these roles.
What skills are necessary to develop your actual role? Have you ever faced to a role conflit? Share your experience with your colleagues or friends.
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The key role of a mentor is to help someone to learn which otherwise the person would have learned not so well, took longer time or would have never learned. Mentors are facilitators, promoters and catalysts in a process of discovery. Therefore for many who are chosen for the role of mentor it is an honor, not a burden, because it is the recognition of the capacity to help the mentee to grow. For the effectiveness of this role, it is advisable that the mentor is outside the mentee’s chain of command, since that avoids the power play. Mentor’s intervention should mean for the mentee the opportunity to highlight his own value. This means strengthening the mentee’s self-esteem, helping him to overcome those fears that prevent him from growing. The skills necessary to develop mentor’s role are: • Ability to guide; • Ability to motivate people; • Ability to listen; • Communication skills and excellent level of interaction; • Ability to share life experiences; • Ability to help others to set their own goals; • Personal flexibility, ability to adapt to the needs of the mentee; •
Ability to take the place of the mentee.
A real case Temper SL, is an international group of companies headquartered in Spain. In 2005 it launched a mentoring program in order to facilitate the integration of new employees into the company. The mentor was chosen by the direct supervisor of the new employee, based on his personal characteristics. The mentor worked in the same department as the mentee. The mentoring lasted for the test period and mentoring was part of the selection process. Mentor functions were: training the new employee in aspects of his job, responsibilities and objectives; helping the mentee to develop his tasks, but encouraging independence and decision making; transmitting the corporate culture. Program Benefits: it eased the process of adaptation of the new employees, and trained them. It increased the effectiveness and efficiency of the newly incorporated. The mentoting reduced uncertainty to changes and stressful situations. For the mentor is a process of enrichment and deepening of your knowledge it will increase your satisfaction as a member of the company.
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Search on internet for other examples about implementing mentoring programmes in the company. It would be interesting to argue with your colleagues about the role of a mentor, his or her functions and skills.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Why roles are relevant for you? Complete the questions posed throughout the text. 2. Write a short text outlining your views on the following aspects: • How would you describe to a friend the organisation in which you are / were working or plan to collaborate with? • Describe your tasks in the flux of operations developed in your department (remember also who works ahead of you and who uses the results of your activity). • What new skills and competences have you acquired since the start of your working experience? Would you like to improve your skills within the company? • Your job requires applying both professional knowledge, linked to the technical aspects of the job, and relationship competences with colleagues and managers. Try and give the right importance to each kind of competence in your experience. • How do you imagine your position in the company in two years? How could your activity look like? • Did you ever realize whether in your organisation the real structure differs from the formal one? Are you able to describe in which aspects? • How important is your role in the company? Why do you think job you perform fits that role? How do you classify your role in relation to others? Would you like to change roles if you were given an opportunity? • If someone would ask you to think about the organization of the activity flux in your department, which lacks would you point out? Which changes would you suggest? • Would you like to be helped in your learning process within the company and improve your professional profile? 3. What would you like to change, improve or increase in your professional profile? K-START: How to Become a Mentor 51
SHARING KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION • Sharing knowledge and innovation is one of the most important factors to improve competences and professional relationships. • To share, a mentor needs skills to communicate and listen. A mentor must not be afraid of sharing his knowledge with his mentee. The mentee also shares his own knowledge and ideas with the mentor. • Main reasons to share innovation and knowledge are: to increase the knowledge of the employees, to promote collaboration among employees, to find solutions to problems, to increase productivity.
Motivations Sharing innovation and knowledge is one of the most important points to improve skills and professional relationships of workers and companies. Access to resources is the best opportunity to start an innovation process, to integrate into the labour market and to consolidate employee and company position in the market. Innovation requires the participation of employees, managers and many other players in the world of work in order to open businesses, organizations and professionals to a new model of exchange of innovation, knowledge and training. Innovation is needed to cope with globalization and the acquisition of skills required in the labor market. Knowledge, creativity and innovation lead to future development and are the best way to improve. They are essential qualities for survival, especially in times of crisis in which the old prescriptions are outdated and we have no choice but to find new recipes for new times. Creativity and innovation are an attitude toward life that enriches you as a person and as a professional. Routine, lack of updated knowledge, creativity and innovation can kill the future of any business or career. The environments in which we live, nature, society, the people around us change. And to survive, we have no choice but to adapt to these changes. If in addition, we aim not only to survive, thus to have a valuable life we should be able to predict and anticipate these changes. Knowledge, innovation, creativity, sharing and learning are the factors that will allow us to continue advancing and succeeding at professional and personal levels.
For a mentor it is important to develop skills of sharing knowledge and keeping an open mind to change and innovation in order to continuously improve.
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Key concepts What do you understand by Knowledge, Innovation, Sharing, Learning or Ideas? Take a moment to think on these concepts. You can discuss these concepts in terms of business with your colleagues or friend. •
Knowledge. Knowledge is the facts, feelings or experiences held by a
person or a group of people. It is the state of knowing, awareness, consciousness, or familiarity gained by experience or learning. Possessing the right knowledge is the basis of success for any action, whether in professional or personal life. Knowledge provides the right tools to address the challenges. •
Innovation. To innovate is to change, introducing new features and value.
An innovation is therefore a change that promotes novelties and direct economic consequences. Innovation is seen as a must in today’s economy to remain competitive in the market. Companies, individuals, governments, all components of society are pushed towards innovation at risk of stagnating and falling behind. In relation to mentoring, innovation is necessary because mentor should keep an open mind and ability to adapt to the changes that occur. •
Sharing. By sharing it is meant distributing for others to benefit. In the context
of mentoring what is shared is the knowledge and experience that a mentor has, but also a mentee shares his own ideas with the mentor. Sharing is also participating in something, such as a process of training or mentoring. Ultimately sharing is two or more people using something in common: mentor and mentee using the experiences to move forward together. •
Learning. Learning is the process of bringing a person to an agreed standard
of proficiency by practice, guidance and instruction. In the current labour market learning is understood as a continuous process throughout the life. An individual, regardless of his area of work, can not consider his training finished after graduating from formal studies. S/he must continue learning throughout his life. This is in line with the concept of constant innovation. •
Ideas. An idea is an occurrence. Ideas are related to the concept of creativity the ability to create.
A mentor has knowledge of great value because of his or her experience. The mentor should share this knowledge with the mentee. Both the mentor and the mentee should learn sharing ideas and developing innovation.
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Reflect on these concepts and your personal experience. For example, make a list of the main changes that you have had to adopt in your work life and how you have faced them. You can use Internet search engines (google, yahoo or others), online encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.), specialized websites, etc, to reflect about these concepts. Discuss it with other your colleagues or friends.
UNDERSTANDING INNOVATION When the change becomes innovation? Change and Innovation are closely related concepts and differ only in one point: making a change in a company, product or process does not imply by itself that is producing an innovation. So, Innovateion involves Change, but Change by itself does not constitute Innovation. A change becomes innovation only when introduced modification is perceived as useful, was unknown to the company and creates additional value.
For example, replacing a fruit sorting machine according to the width on the processing line for a new one that performs the same task involves a change. But if we substitute it for a new machine that allows entering the necessary specifications to prepare a specific request and not just simply classify the fruit, we are talking about an innovation.
Culture of innovation: what does it mean to you the term “culture of innovation�? The culture of innovation corresponds to a way of thinking and acting that creates, develops and promotes value and attitudes which fosters ideas and changes that improve efficiency of the company. When a business has a real culture of innovation its employees work in teams without fear of sharing knowledge. People work to build new solutions.
Do you think that your company or many companies in your area has a culture of innovation? Are the ideas and proposals of the workers valued? What is your experience?
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Kinds of innovation: • Product / service innovation: “Do something new”. The strategic challenge for companies is to continuously generate good ideas into products and services with commercial success in the market. • Process innovation: “A new way of working”. Doing things differently in business processes, redefining processes in order to increase the value of the final product / service. • Technological innovation: “Application of scientific knowledge”. When innovation occurs through the industrial application of scientific knowledge. All companies, regardless of the sector they belong to, can innovate through technology management. • Breaking Innovation: “Breaking and impacting the market.” When the new product or service suddenly breaks the established consumption patterns.This provides the promoter with a substantial advantage over competitors. • Incremental innovation: “Progressive improvement of product or service.” Introduction of successive improvements in existing products or services, which are progressively improved. • Open innovation: term coined by Professor Henry Chesbrough is a new innovation strategy under which companies go beyond the internal limits of the organization and where cooperation with external professionals has a key role. Open Innovation means combining internal knowledge with external knowledge to take forward the draft strategy and research and development. It also means that companies use both internal and external channels to market their products and technologies. • Social innovation: Innovation also can have a social aspect. The term social innovacion is applied to those innovations that satisfy social objectives and benefits people. Nowday is a widely use term.
Do you think that society is alert for innovation? What about you? Do you consider that your company or institution is ready for it? Are any of types of innovation practiced in your business? Do you think that open innovation and social innovation are useful for your company? Discuss it with friends and colleagues.
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Sharing Innovation and Knowledge Why sharing innovation and knowledge? What results can be expected from sharing innovation? We propose you to reflect on the reasons to share. What might be, in your opinion, the benefits of this practice?
Ideas by themselves are worthless. Executing is what gives them value. The main thing is to find people enthusiastic to be part of it and go with it. You can organise this only by sharing ideas and knowledge with others. The main reasons to share knowledge inside the company are: • increase the knowledge of the employees. • promote collaboration among employees, enhancing the positive results of it. • find solutions to the company’s problems. • increase productivity. How to share? Through what initiatives and processes is sharing realized? The process of sharing should be supported by the management of the company. Managers should provide a suitable environment for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and innovation. Sharing knowledge and innovation takes place in environments where creativity is encouraged, where to see people proposing ideas and receiving support is a standard way of behaviour. The ideas from others are admired rather than criticized. The reaction to good ideas proposed by others is the surprise and admiration, not envy and destruction. A mentor should keep in mind that actions to stimulate innovation culture are: • Rewarding innovative achievements collectively. • Stimulating the search of new ways for doing things. • Encouraging people who are making creative contributions. • Reinforcing values and attitudes of openness to change. • Promoting the fact that problems are seen as challenges. • Encouraging the spread of knowledge, including the one obtained during failures. • Assessing the ability to develop team members. • Challenging employees find improvements in all processes. • Punishing the critical reaction to new ideas. • Encouraging the integration of different ways of thinking. 56 K-START: How to Become a Mentor
Is it possible to learn to share innovation and knowledge? Of course it is! Try to be open to new concepts and ideas. Fundamental skills to share and train are: • Communication skills. Being good at telling stories can help you to share your own experiencies. • Listening skills. Your mentee also has good ideas to share with you. S/he also tells you what s/he needs, if you listen to him or her. • Skills for reflection. Take time to prepare for the process of sharing and training. • Do not be afraid of sharing. You can also use these tools to help you to share and create: • Mind Maps. It is a technique created by Tony Buzan, a researcher in the field of intelligence and president of the Brain Foundation. Its main application in the creative process is the exploration of the problem and generation of ideas. • The art of asking. Alex Osborn developed a set of questions that can be applied in the exploration of a problem. The questions are used to formulate the problem in all approaches that are possible and thus open the perspectives. They are also useful for the perception of new uses, applications or capabilities of a product or a service. • Brainstorming. It is the best known group technique for generating ideas. It was developed by Alex Osborn. Just think and tell whatever comes to your head. No critics in the first phase!
You can use Internet search engines (google, yahoo or others), online encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.), specialized websites, etc, to find more information on skills and tools for sharing. Discuss it with your colleagues of friends.
Managing Innovation and Knowledge 1. Planning
Life cycle of Innovation and Knowlegde: 1. Planing. Analysis of the present situation. What do we want for the future? What knowledge do we have and what do we need? How will we get the knowledge we need? 2. Defining. Acquiring innovation.
knowledge,
2. Defining
Knowledge
4. Contributing
designing
3. Producing. New knowledge and innovation. 4. Contributing. Sharing innovation. Keep on.
knowlegede
and
3. Producing
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The factors that facilitate or hinder innovation and sharing of knowledge: What are the factors that can foster or prevent innovation and sharing of knowledge? Please consider your experience and ask others about the experience they have had (through blogs, forums, wikis). You can also use the resources available on the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and others). Try to list these factors on a sheet of paper. We propose you to consider the following ideas about what facilitates and what hinders innovation and sharing of knowledge: • Abilities of communication. • Availability of time. • Resources and knowledge. • Planing appropriate strategies. • Establishing incentives for achievement and participation awards. • Strong commitment to innovation and sharing from the management. • High degree of enthusiasm of those involved.
• Fear of failure. • Fear of sharing. • Lack of planning, resources, time or knowledge. • Lack of a culture of innovation and sharing of ideas. • Lack of interest and motivation among employees and management.
Peter Drucker has said that “usually what is lacking is not ideas, nor even those good and useful ideas; what is missing is the willingness of companies to welcome them.”
The main stages of the innovation process: After the previous sequences, you have to be able to make a summary overview of the innovation process. Starting from the reflections you have exchanged and the information you have gathered, try to describe the best approaches to be taken to properly manage innovation in a business setting. It would be useful to compare your ideas with those of other people (through forums, wikis, etc.). Reflect on the relationship between innovation, knowledge and training throughout life. What personal experiences have you had with regard to lifelong learning? Try to give a brief description indicating what relationships these training initiatives have (or had) with innovations? 58 K-START: How to Become a Mentor
A real case Many companies and institutions have developed strategies to encourage sharing of knowledge or innovation with its staff. Look at this video about the strategie of sharing and collaboration of Accenture: Share Knowledge
Search on internet other examples of implementation of sharing in the company. It would be interesting to argue with your colleagues about these strategies.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. What are the skills that allow you to do your job? How did you get them? Did someone teach you or did you learn most of them along your professional life? 2. Why and how sharing knowledge and innovation is relevant for you? Are you willing to share your knowledge? Do you think it can be useful? Complete the questions posed throughout the text and make a short text outlining your views on these concepts. 3. What do you want to change, improve or increase in your professional profile? What knowledge, skills and abilities do you want to acquire or improve to learn, innovate and share training and innovation better?
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COMMUNICATION AND COOPERATION • Communication and cooperation are essential competences in the scope of mentoring, sharing knowledge and experiences. They are important factors to improve the working conditions too. • Communication and cooperation can be managed in order to share, divide tasks and improve, as good practise for the worker and for his work. • Communication skills involve active listening, non-verbal communication, emotional awareness, stress management, skills of asking questions and reformulating senteces, providing and accepting constructive feedback. • Cooperative work skills are sharing, problem-solving, commitment, empathy, and of course, communicaition skills.
Motivations Today, communication, cooperation and teamwork are essential skills for personal and professional development. Among the good communication skills, listening, questioning, persuasion and negotiation are included. Good cooperation skills are respect, support, sharing and participation. Like any other skill, they can be acquired and improved through training. In these areas, the sharing of knowledge and experiences with others is of particular importance. Communication always occurs in a social context. We communicate with others. We collaborate with others. But just talking with others cannot be considered an effective way of communication. That is why the key to communicate effectively is to be aware of the person who is listening. To improve our communication skills, we need to focus on improving the way we send messages. It is important to note that one of the key skills in communication is the art of “active listening”. Cooperating with others is an essential part of our daily lives. To cooperate means “work together for the same goal”. To create, develop or maintain effective and positive relationships in the workplace is one of the fundamental aspects of any organization. Each person has a role to contribute to the survival of the organization and the achievement of common goals. In this sense, communication and cooperation are essential; they contribute to the success of human relationships and by extension of the company. Similarly, this applies to the success of a mentoring relationship.
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For a mentor it is important to develop skills to communicate in an effective way with his or her mentee. A mentor also should know how to cooperate with mentees and with his or her mates in order to share knowledge and develop skills.
Key Concepts Communication, cooperation, cooperative work and teamwork are very important issues in both professional and personal lives. Take a moment to think and discuss these concepts with your colleagues and friends. Here you have some definitions: • Communication. Communication is to talk, inform, transmit information oraly, in written or electronically. The communication involves a sender and a receiver which exchange a message with a code common to both. • Cooperation. Cooperation is to collaborate, to work with one or more people to achieve the same goal. • Cooperative work. It is activity carried out by two or more persons working together to achieve the targets. • Teamwork. The ability to work efficiently as a team. We note that teamwork, group work, cooperative work and collaborative work are different names for a same concept: a group of people that work together for the consecution of the same objectives. Cooperation and communication are essential tools to achieve those objectives.
Try to briefly describe situations that you have faced in your professional or personal life and in which you used skills of communication, cooperation, cooperative work or teamwork. You can use Internet search engines (google, yahoo or others), online encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.), specialized websites, etc, to reflect about these concepts. Discuss it with your colleagues, friends or online forums.
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Understanding Comunication and Cooperative work Communication, cooperation and personal improvement: We invite you to think of the advantages that you can ejoy practicing good communication and cooperative work: • Benefits of good communication: Effective communication helps us to understand a person or a situation better and enables us to resolve differences, build trust and respect, and create environments where creative ideas, problem solving, affection, and caring can flourish. • Benefits of cooperative work: The benefits of teamwork are undeniable; when employees work well together, the company as a whole benefits. It improves efficiency, increases innovation, reduces time waste and increases the sense of unity between employees. Culture of communication and cooperative work at the company: What do the terms like culture of communication and cooperative work culture mean to you? Do you think that your company has a culture of cooperative work? Can you give some examples? • Culture of communication. Those companies that practice commucation know that both internal and external communications are important. The culture of communication includes branding, but also the image transmitted and embodied by the employees. • Cooperative work culture. Those companies that develop a cooperative work culture foster teamwork. Therein, the value of the collaboration is recognised. Social aspects of communication and cooperative work: It is scientifically proved that the communication and cooperation are social activities. We communicate and cooperate with other people all th etime. With whom and how you communicate or cooperate more often in your occupation, for what purpose and under what circumstances?
Good communication involves listening to others, asking questions, persuading, negotiating, etc. Good cooperation implies respect for others, offering help, sharing, and taking part in common activities.
Do you think that society is mature for communication and cooperative work? Are you ready for communication and cooperative work? Do you consider your company or institution preapared for it? Can you give examples about signs of such readiness? Use the opportunitues to discuss the ideas with others.
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Self-evaluation and sharing of experiences on communication and cooperative work Communication and Collaboration: your self-assessment. To improve your performance in communication and cooperative work you need to assess your current knowledge and skills to define those you have to improve or acquire. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION skills involve: • Active listening. Successful listening means not just understanding the words or the information being communicated, but also understanding how the speaker feels about what s/he is communicating. • Skills of asking questions and reformulation of sentences.It means being capable of asking the correct questions in order to get the information you need. Reformulating is important when the receiver does not understand the speaker. • Non-verbal communication. Developing the ability to understand and use nonverbal communication can help you connect with others, express what you really mean, navigate challenging situations, and build better relationships. • Feedback. It is the response induced in the receiver when he gets the message. To the sender it serves to assess if the message has been understood correctly or not. • Managing stress. When you’re stressed, you’re more likely to misread other people, send confusing or off-putting nonverbal signals, and lapse into unhealthy knee-jerk patterns of behavior. • Emotional awareness. Emotional awareness provides you the tools needed for understanding both yourself and other people, and the real messages they are communicating to you. Skills for EFFECTIVE COLLABORATION: • Sharing. Being open to share your knowledge, ideas and opinions and accept others’ comments, ideas and suggestions. • Communication skills. Without an effective communication, collaboration is not possible. • Problem-solving. Abilities to face team problems. • Commitment and sense of belonging to the team. • Empathy. To understand another person’s feelings.
What skills are the most important for you? What other skills do you think are necessary for communicateion and teamwork? You can use the internet to find extra information. Discuss these concepts in online forums.
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Skill
Goals for improvement
Communication
• Improve my skills on written communication
Cooperative work
• Improve my participation in meetings
Communication and cooperative work: exchange of experiences. You have defined your main objectives for your personal development on communication and cooperation. It would be interesting to enrich the project in collaboration with other participants. This exchange of ideas could lead to a collective training plan, especially if you are a member of the same company or organization.
Managing Communication and Cooperative work Life cycle of communication FEED BACK
MESSAGE
SENDER
DECODER
RECEIVER
CHANNEL OF COMMUNICATION
The sender sends a message (what he wants to transmit) to the receiver via a channel (the physical medium through which the message is sent). The code used by the sender is interpreted by the receiver. After receiving the message, the receiver outputs feedback to the sender, thus they exchange roles. It is necessary to take into account that communication occurs in a context or situation that determines the process.
CREATING THE WORKTEAM
DISSOLUTION
ACHIEVING GOALS
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Life cycle of cooperative work
SETTING OPERATION STANDARDS
DEVELOPING TASKS
Team members are selected on the basis of what each can bring to the group. The operating rules are established and team roles are distributed; usually one person acts as a leader or a coordinator. The problems to solve are analyzed and tasks are assigned. Once the objectives are achieved and the results analyzed, the group takes on a new task or dissolves.
What factors can foster or diminish communication and teamwork? Please consider your experience and ask others about the experience they have had (through blogs, forums, wikis, etc.). You can also use the resources available on the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and others). Try to list these factors. We propose to consider the following aspects: Communication: • Communication occurs at the right place and in the right context. • Participants are willing to understand and use language understandable by everybody in the group. • Active listening is in place. • The messages are clear and consistent. Cooperative work: • There has been an adequate selection of team members and these are committed to the goal. • The management supports the work team. • Tasks are planned and properly distributed. • The results are analyzed and used to improve the activity of the group. Communication: • The situation is not suitable for communication. • There is noise or other distractions that prevent the message from reaching the recipient. • Participants do not use the same language. • Some of them are not open to understanding the message or even listening to it. • The message is not transmitted clearly, is aggressive or negative for the receiver. Cooperative work: • There is no cohesion and commitment among team members. • Some of the members do not contribute in any way to the work team. • The leader is not able to coordinate the group. • There is no support from the management. • There are no clear objectives.
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After reading the above, you should be able to summarize the main steps of the process of good communication and cooperative work. From the thoughts you have shared and the information you’ve gathered, try to describe the best approaches to effectively manage communication and cooperation within a company or organization. It would be useful to compare your ideas with others too (through forums, wikis, etc.). Reflect on the relationship between communication, cooperative work and lifelong learning. What personal experiences have you had with regard to lifelong learning? Try to briefly describe your educational experiences.
A real case Many companies and institutions have developed strategies to encourage communication and cooperative work. An example here is the case of the Spanish company Pikolin. Pikolin is a Spanish mattress manufacturer, founded in 1948 and having branches in France and Portugal. Pikolin found a deficiency in its system of internal communication. Communication with employees was only based on the use of notice boards and the publication of a quarterly journal. Their managers realized that this was making them less competitive. So they decided to implement an Employee Portal in order to have a platform to allow unified access to information and resources of the organization. To do this they engaged the services of an external company expert in the area. The objectives were: • Get a tool for agile and effective communication between the organization and its employees. • Transmit information, company culture and corporate image. • Centralize the knowledge of employees and company processes. • Increase collaboration between members of the company. • Reduce administrative and maintenance tasks. By improving internal communication, the company achieved: • Reduced costs. • Increased operational efficiency. • Increased the level of employees’ satisfaction. You will find more information on this article written by Saytel (article available in Spanish): Pikolin 66 K-START: How to Become a Mentor
Search on internet for other examples of implementation of communication or cooperative work in companies. It would be interesting to argue with your colleagues about these strategies or even send them to us for being published.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Are the departments of the company united and is there cooperation among them? Do you feel part of the workteam? What would you improve? 2. Why and how communicaton and cooperation is relevant for you and for the company? Complete the questions posed throughout the text and make a short text outlining your views on these concepts. 3. Use the information on the last unit “From learning to action� to build a development plan. What do you want to change, improve or increase in your professional profile?
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SELF-MANAGEMENT • Self-management is a basic skill for mentors because they must combine operational activities with mentor activities. • Self-magement involves time management, stress management, decision-making, definition of goals, self-learning, planning and many more. • Self-management provides benefits as improved productivity, reduced waste time, and assures higher personal satisfaction. • Commitment is essential to establish a plan for self-management.
Motivations You may wonder why you should learn anything about “self-management”? Selfmanagement is important in life, but at the job? What it might mean for you or your company? Is there any kind of daily relation between the “self-management” and the company? How do you benefit from learning about “self-management”? It is not easy to answer this question briefly. Both personally and professionally, you are required to solve problems, make decisions, assess progress, and finish the assigned tasks on time. The skills of self-management support and enhance learning, work and also our personal lives. Self-management includes skills such as learning to learn, definition of goals, time management, stress management and others. Some people seem to have selfmanagement skills particularly well developed; others need to work on them. Some people have more opportunities to use these skills than others. In any case, selfmanagement and self-direction skills are very important in our private lives as well as in our lives as students and workers. Self-management and self-direction are not new concepts in the field of education, career or business. They are related to emotional and organizational skills, critical thinking and so on. Self-management is a complex skill and it is very important to develop it. The results demonstarte the increase in personal ability to take responsibility, face new challenges in learning, manage time and stress better, etc.
Self-management is important for mentors for two reasons: to be autonomous in managing their own tasks and to train mentees, who are autonomos in the performance of their jobs, can make decisions by themselves and manage their time.
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Key concepts Self-management and all related concepts are very important issues in life both personal and professional. Take a moment to think about these concepts and try to discuss them with your colleagues. Here you have some ideas to start with: • Self-management. The term self-management is synonymous with self-administration. It aims to empower individuals to meet goals for themselves. It is a concept from the field of business administration, but is now applied to other areas such as personal life. • Time management. It refers to the development of processes and tools that increase efficiency and productivity. In general terms it means managing our time to waste less time on doing things we have to do so we have more time to do the things we want to do. • Stress management. It refers to the wide spectrum of techniques and skills aimed at controlling a person’s levels of stress usually for the purpose of improving everyday functioning. Managing stress is all about things you handle: your thoughts, emotions, schedule, and the way you deal with problems. • Self-learning. It is the way of learning by yourself. It is a process of acquiring knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that people perform on their own either through study or experience. • Decision-making. The cognitive process resulting in the selection of an option among several alternative scenarios. A decision making process always produces a final choice. • Definition of goals. The ability to make clear and specific objectives and the strategies to achieve them.
Try to describe briefly situations that you have faced in your personal or professional life and in which you used skills related to self-management. Have you been forced to acquire new knowledge or skills in the field of self-management? You can use Internet search engines (google, yahoo or others), online encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.), specialized websites etc, to reflect about these concepts. Discuss it with other people through online forums.
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Understanding Self-management Self - Management and personal improvement: We invite you to think of advantages that you can get with a good practice of self-management. What positive effects can it have on your personal or professional activities according to your situation and the roles that you have? You could search in the Internet for some information on the benefits of self-management, while we propose you some ideas here: Avoid stress, set goals and achieve them, prioritize tasks and carry them out successfully, avoid time waste, get yourself overcome challenges, improve your personal satisfaction and opes up to future possibilities, improve productivity at work. The culture of self – management: What does it mean to you personally the term of culture of self-management? Self-management is the culture of taking the initiative rather than waiting to be told what to do. In the culture of self-management you are your own boss and you set yourself the way you should do things. You make your own decisions and accept the consequences. The change from the traditional way to self-management requires a significant cultural change, and specifically in company’s management.
In the self-management culture there are no bosses. Each employee is his own boss, organizes his or her work by himself or herself and makes own decisions for the benefit of the company. To implement self-management a strong commitment from managers and employees is needed. A middle level is to allow employees to be autonomous when it comes to organizing the tasks but within the traditional organizational structure.
Think of practices such as self-learning, assessment, time management, stress management, autonomy in the work. You could search in the Internet for some information about the culture of self-management. Do you think that these practices are widespread in society, within the educational system, in your business or institution? Based on the information you found and / or from your own experience, can you give some examples?
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Social aspects of self – management: Self-management is aimed at helping us to achieve a purpose, to develop our skills, to make us fix our goals more clearly, to better manage our time, to control stress and emotions, to learn on our own in a autonomous way, etc. This means it is not a solitary activity. The self management needs collaboration with other people too. Social aspects of self – management: Self-management is aimed at helping us to achieve a purpose, to develop our skills, to make us fix our goals more clearly, to better manage our time, to control stress and emotions, to learn on our own in a autonomous way, etc. This means it is not a solitary activity. The self management needs collaboration with other people too.
Think, for example, about all types of social networks that exist on the Internet. What are their goals? How do they differ in respect to websites that only give information? Do you use or have you used these social networks to benefit from the experience of other people in some areas (both personal and proffesional) or to share your experience with other people? Do you think that this sharing will contribute to the evolution of societies, educational systems, and professional organisation? Your company or institution uses them? Do you think that society is ready for self-management? Do you consider that your company or institution is ready for it? Can you give examples about this kind of readiness? Discuss your ideas with others. You may also use social networks for that.
Self-evaluation and sharing of experiences on self-management Have you ever taken the initiative? Do you consider you are a self-managing person? To improve your performance in self-management you need to assess your current knowledge and skills in order to establish those you have to improve or acquire. Skills for self-management are: • Goal setting. • Planning and scheduling. • Prioritizing. • Decision-making. • Delegating. • Responsibility and self-discipline.
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Self-management: your goals for improvement. Based on your current skills, make a list of what you think you can improve in order to continue with the processes of selfmanagement. Why and how to cooperate with others in the process of self-management? Set goals, manage your time, and solve problems. For all of these aspects of self-management (and the list goes on) cooperation with others could be a great advantage. Do you have or have you had experiences in this kind of cooperation? Can you give some examples? It would be interesting to share your thoughts with other people. What actions and processes allow cooperating with others in self-management? Please share your experience. Try to describe the activities that have made cooperation in a process of self-management possible. Self-mangement: exchange of experiences. You have defined your main objectives for your personal development on self-management. It would be interesting to enrich the project in collaboration with other people. This exchange of ideas could lead to a collective training plan, especially if you are a member of the same company or organization.
Managing Self-management PLAN
Life cycle of self-management DO
• Plan. Draft plans for achieving your goals in consideration of your present situation. • Do. Implement those plans. • Check. Assess and confirm that what you have done is what you have intended to do.
ACT CHECK
• Act. Investigate and implement new courses of action in case of non-attainment or delay in the goals.
What factors can foster or prevent self-management? Please consider your experience and ask others about the experience they have had (through blogs, forums, wikis, etc.). You can also use the resources available on the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and others). Try to list these factors.
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We propose the following aspects help or restrain development of self-management: • Commitment, both of the employee and the manager. • Having the correct training in self-management abilities. • Being a meticulous person.
• Lack of engagement of the employee or the manager. • Excessive bureaucracy in the company. • Not all people are ready for self-managemet, some prefer to be told what to do or like giving orders to others. • Poor internalization of the culture of self-management.
After reading the above, you should be able to summarize the main steps of the process of self-management. From the thoughts you have shared and the information you have collected, try to describe the best approaches to effectively manage self-management within a company or organization. It would be useful to compare your ideas with those of others (through forums, wikis or in person). We suggest to think about the relation between self-management and lifelong learning. What personal experiences have you had about lifelong learning? Try to describe them briefly. Have these formative experiences been related to selfmanagement?
A real case Many companies and institutions have developed strategies to encourage selfmanagement of employees in the company. We suggest you to read this article written by James Heskett about self-management and Taco-Bell case:
Are we ready for self-management?
Search on internet for other examples of implementation of self-management in the company. It would be interesting to argue with your colleagues about these strategies.
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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions:
1. Why and how self-management is relevant to you? Complete the questions posed throughout the text and make a short text outlining your views on these concepts. 2. Are you independent enough? How could you improve your self-management skills? Do you think that you need someone to accompany you in the process of development of self-management skills? 3. Use the information on the last unit “From learning to action� to build a development plan. What do you want to change, improve or increase in your professional profile?
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT • Change management is important because change is unavoidable in today’s personal and professional life. • It is important to learn managing change to maximize its benefits and reduce its negative impacts. • Change is driven by the motivation and can be paralyzed by uncertainty and the fear of what it will bring. • Manage change needs skills like adaptability, communication, collaborative work, problem solving, motivation, creativity and open-mindedness.
Motivations Change has become inevitable in our everyday life. We have two choices: undergo changes in our environment or to be proactive and manage processes of change in order to maximize the benefits and reduce the negative effects of change. In our professional or personal life, changes can result from external sources or by our own deliberate choices. In all cases, we can define the strategies to plan, manage and control the change. The opposition to change is a common and normal reaction. When we are asked to do things in a different way, the result is a change in our habits, which cause us a sense of discomfort and danger. We want to do things right and we have the fear of not succeeding. Even when it comes to positive changes, such as those that for us mean a promotion or an increase of autonomy, we always think about what we lose. In any case, the changes require time and effort, even if their effects on the long term are those facilitating the work. The change requires a period of learning or adaptation. For some of us the change is exciting. For others it is distressing. But, in any case, because the change is inevitable, it is better to learn how to cope and manage it effectively to take advantage of it.
A mentor should be used to face changes. S/He must know how to adapt to new circumstances and train mentees to be not afraid of future changes. Both the mentor and the mentee should see a change as an opportunity.
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Key concepts Change management is a very important issue in life both personal and professional. Take a moment to think on these concepts. You are encouraged to discuss them with others. Here you have some definitions to think about: • A change occurs when something is modified, so the new condition is different from the previous one. Change also means substituting one thing for another. • Change management is a term used in business administration, but is now applied to other areas such as personal life. It can be defined as the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of change in order to achieve an outcome. Change management incorporates the organizational tools that can be utilized to help individuals making successful personal transitions which result in the adoption and realization of change.The ultimate goal of change management is to improve the company (or your personal life).
Try to describe briefly the situations that you have had in your personal or professional life in which you have faced the change. Have you been forced to acquire new knowledge or skills in the field of change management? You can use Internet search engines (google, yahoo or others), online encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.), specialized websites etc, to reflect about these concepts. Discuss it with other people in online forums.
Understanding Change Management We invite you to reflect on your attitude towards change. How do you react in the face of an imposed change? We propose then to reflect on the personal benefits that you might expect from a good practice of change management.What positive effects can it have on your professional or personal activities according to your situation and the roles you take? We advise to search on the Internet for some information on the benefits of change management. Benefits of change management Adequately manage changes reduces potential incidents and problems, reduces the number of failed changes, allows applying standard procedures and shortening execution time, reduces resistance to change and the trend to unchange of individuals and entities, and allows changes to be understood quickly. The culture of change and change management: what does it mean to you the term culture of change or culture of change management? Change is an attitude closely linked to motivation. IInternalizing a culture of change helps to assume that it is normal for things to change. In business, change culture makes employees feel more comfortable in a situation of uncertainty. 76 K-START: How to Become a Mentor
Change usually requires adding new behaviours, new ways of thinking and reacting, or a new set of practices to follow. Change also entails some losses: some habits, relationships, or temporary loss of predictability. Change requires extra work to re-define our routines and to find new patterns. The losses and extra effort that change involves naturally produce resistance. However, people and entities who want to keep moving have to overcome that resistance and integrate the change processes.
You could search the Internet for some information about the culture of change. Do you think that these practices are widespread in society, within the educational system or in your organisation? Starting with the information you found and / or from your own experience, can you give some examples?
Social aspects of change management: In our personal lives and at work, we are rarely alone when we have to cope with a change. Important changes in businesses and organizations generally involve working groups. This phenomenon is even more evident when the social, economic or technological changes affect the company as a whole. Consequently, seeking new solutions to new problems collectively is much more effective that facing them alone. Change management will always be greatly facilitated by the team work�, collaborative work, the use of social networks, etc.
We propose to think about some big changes that you have experienced in your work and in the patterns of global society. Try to provide 2 or 3 examples and indicate which categories of people were affected by these changes. Have you, in one way or another, cooperated with other people, and shared the information with them in order to find or provide solutions? If yes, please describe briefly these forms of cooperation. If not, consider the forms of cooperation that could have been useful. Do you think that society is ready for self-management? Do you consider that your company or institution is? Can you give examples about this kind of readiness? Use the online forums to discuss these ideas.
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Self-assesment and Sharing Change Managament Change management: your self-assessment. To improve your performance in change management you need to assess your current knowledge and skills in order to establish those you have to improve or acquire. Change management skills are: • Adaptability. • Communication skills. • Collaborative work skills. • Problem solving. • Motivation skills. • Creativity and open-mindedness. Change management: your goals for improvement. Based on your current skills, make a list of what you think you can improve in order to continue with the processes of change management. Here you have an example:
Skill Adaptation Communication skills
Goals for improvement • Increase my openness to change • Fight my negative reactions to change • Improve my non-verbal communication abilities
Change management: exchange of experiences. You have defined your main objectives for your personal development on change management. It would be interesting to enrich the project, in collaboration with other people. This exchange of ideas could lead to a collective training plan, especially if you are a member of the same company or organization.
Managing Change Management Life cycle of change management Change is a process that is self adjusted based on the results. The starting point is always the exhaustive knowledge of the current situation at all levels: commercial, financial, product, human resources, shareholders, etc. Starting with this knowledge it will be possible to design an ambitious and realistic strategic plan and it will be possible to define the path that leads to the implementation of it.
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A good implementation design will help to: achieve best execution, measure results and take corrective measures at all times. Monitoring will help to improve the initial definition.
What factors can foster or prevent change management? Please consider your experience and ask others about the experience they have had (through blogs, forums, wikis). You can also use the resources available on the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and others). Try to list these factors.
We propose you to consider the following aspects: • The definition of a good strategy for change and motivation of the staff are key factors for a successful change. • When people face change, it is important that they understand the reasons for it and voluntarily choose such change. • In the company, support and monitoring to be offered to the staff will be critical to the short and successful change. • Open communication with employees is needed to ensure that all share the same vision of change and that everyone understands the risk of sitting still. • Reaching consensus of ideas in the search for new paths makes the members of the organization willing to accept changes and implement them quickly and efficiently.
• A poorly defined strategy and the fear of what change can bring are the main factors for a failure. • A bad definition of the change strategy obstructs its implementation. • People are a fundamental piece for the implementation of change. If the people in charge do not adequately convey to other staff this process, it will be adversely affected. • People do not understand the benefits that the change will provide or do not understand its meaning in relation to the activity of the company. • Employees are not allowed to participate in the process of defining and implementing change strategy. • If they are not conveyd how the change will affect the company, the whole process will be much more complicated and even can fail.
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The main steps of the process of change management: After reading the above, you should be able to summarize the main steps of the process of change management. From the thoughts you have shared and the information you have gathered, try to describe the best approaches to effectively manage change management within a company or organization. It would be useful to compare your ideas with those of other people (through forums, wikis, in person). We suggest you to think about the relation between change management and lifelong learning. What personal experiences have you had about lifelong learning? Try to describe them briefly. Have these formative experiences been related to change management?
A real case Many companies and institutions have developed strategies to encourage change management. For example, a Spanish company was faced with a change in strategic direction. This fact created great uncertainty among staff, because there were substantial changes like a new organization, a new strategy, changes in the management of human resources, etc. The management chose to manage change through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This required incorporating CSR principles with a priority focus in the company, by defining CSR and a communication plan for employees. The strategy was: • Diagnosis of the situation. • Integration of diagnostic analysis into ideas for improvement provided by 100% of the employees of the organization through multidisciplinary working groups. • Developing a CSR Plan validated by management. • In parallel to this process of implementing the plan, it unfolded communication and awareness of CSR. • This strategy allowed: • Commitment and adhesion of employees to the values and strategy of the organization. • Transparent and efficient internal communication, regulated by ethical values defined by all employees. • Involvement of all employees in improvement of external organisation’s reputation through a better internal perception of it. • Definition of a new training policy with the goal of a greater employees’ contribution to collective growth of the organization through the individual growth of each person. 80 K-START: How to Become a Mentor
Adapted from Renault Consulting See also this video to a better understand of change management and how important is communication for achieve it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__IlYNMdV9E
Search on internet other examples of implementation of change management in the company. It would be interesting to argue with your colleagues about these strategies.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Why and how change management is relevant to you? Complete the questions posed throughout the text and make a short text outlining your views on these concepts. 2. Do you consider your organization is flexible in terms of changes? Do you have creative initiatives or can you develop them within the company? Do you have autonomy in decision-making and responsibility in your position? 3. Do you think you have to change something in order to improve? 4. Use the information on the last unit “From learning to action� to build a development plan. What do you want to change, improve or increase in your professional profile?
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QUALITY IMPROVING PROCESS • Nowadays the search for quality is continuous; so the mentor has no other option than to be concerned with quality oh his or her work. • Quality Management is a philosophy adopted by organizations that rely on changing customer orientation and pursue continuous improvements in their daily processes. • A clear description of the processes and procedures is crucial for the development of quality in every business or organization.
Motivations Quality means the ability to satisfy requirements, type of material and moral, social and economic, of civil and productive life, properly identified and translated into concrete and measurable indicators, through appropriate processes of regulation. In particular, in the context of socio-economic activities, each organization producing goods and services is entitled to ensure and sustain the quality which is relevant to the needs that are held. Whatever your activity within a company or organization is, you are dealing with clients or external users, to whom final products or services are intended. In addition, you also have the internal “clients”, such as colleagues who need your work to do theirs. For example, the production department needs the data provided by the department of research and development. Any disruption in the operation of it is detrimental to the quality and involves cascading outages. One of the basic objectives of the quality policy is the continuous improvement, which includes both the manner of performance and the end result of the process. The continuous improvement of quality is not a new concept; it is constantly evolving. It is an approach intended to organize the way forward, guarantee and improve the performance and results. There are different terms such as “quality improvement”, “quality management”, “continuous quality improvement”, “total quality” and others. Each of them regards the same goal: the improvement. Successful application of quality improvement processes always results in benefits (not just financial) for business (and links to organizations), as well as a greater guarantees for the workers.
A mentor should aim to achieve the highest quality in the lessons s/he teaches. But s/he must also be able to transmit to the mentee the commitment to quality. Since the pursuit of quality today is a goal for all those companies intending to survive in the market, employees must be aware of the meaning of this term.
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Key concepts Why quality management is important for businesses and organizationst? Before exploring the concept of “quality improvement”, it would be appropriate to reflect on the meaning of “quality”.
What does the concept of “Quality” mean for you? Make yourself familiar with the concept of quality starting from your personal reflections on the definition given, and your personal and professional experience. You can discuss your ideas with others too. Here you have some definitions to start with: • Quality can not be defined easily as it is a subjective assessment. It is the property or set of inherent properties that allows appreciating something as equal, better or worse than others of its kind. The standard ISO 9000:2005 defines the degree in which a set of features satisfies certain requirements. • Quality management is coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with respect to quality. Quality Management is a philosophy adopted by organizations that rely on changing customer orientation and pursue continuous improvements in their daily processes. • Quality improving process is a part of quality management focused on increasing the ability to meet the quality requirements. • Total quality management is a system through which the company meets the needs and expectations of its customers, employees, shareholders and of society in general, using the available resources like people, materials, technology, production systems, etc. Although there is a wide variety of language that people use for quality concept, all definitions express the same improvement. By having successfully implemented “Quality Improvement” you can see the benefits resulting in higher profits for the company and in job security for all employees.
Try to describe briefly situations that you have had in your personal or professional life in which you have faced the quality issue. Have you been forced to acquire new knowledge or skills in the field of quality? You can use Internet search engines (google, yahoo or others), online encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.), specialized websites etc, to reflect on these concepts. Discuss it with others too. K-START: How to Become a Mentor 83
Understanding Quality Management We propose to identify sources of information (articles, videos) which relate to the issues of quality processes such as quality, total quality, the rules of quality, quality certifications, etc. What are the main actions to quality improvement in businesses and organizations? And are there any strategies to improve quality in your company? Discuss with others. What are the processes of quality management implemented in business and organizations that you know? In other words, how is quality management organized in your company? Who is involved? When and how? Discuss it with your colleagues and friends.
Self-assesment and Sharing Quality Management Quality management: your self-assessment. To improve your performance in quality management you need to assess your current knowledge and skills in order to establish those you have to improve or acquire. On the issue of quality improvement and its management with respect to your business, what are the knowledge and skills you already have? We suggest you to: •
Make a list of your main activities in your company or organization.
•
For each activity, identify what are the expected results.
• What are the indicators of quality in each case? What does allow you to say that you have carried out the activities in accordance with the quality criteria set by your company?
For example: Activity
Expected result
Indicators of quality
Ensure maintenance of machinery
• Machinery permanently ready to use
• No machine is inoperative
Manage customer complaints
• Customer satisfaction
• Justified complaints within 48 hours
Quality management: your goals for improvement. Now, with respect to the activities you described in the previous section, we propose to list the ones that are feasible or desirable to be improved, contributing to the processes of quality in your company. Here you have and example:
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Skill
Goals for improvement
Ensure maintenance of machinery
• More frequent checking
Manage customer complaints
• Make a summary of of complaint and solutions adopted to accelerate answers
Quality management: exchange of experiences. You have defined the main objectives for your personal development in terms of quality management. It would be interesting to enrich the project, in collaboration with other people. Exchange of ideas could lead to a collective training plan, especially if you are a member of the same company or organization. This type of collaboration can be accomplished through an online discussion forum.
Quality Management Quality process: A clear description of the processes and procedures is crucial for the development of quality in any business or organization. Starting from your own personal experience and the information that you have found, we now propose to describe more precisely the processes, which can be management, manufacturing, or production of goods or services. In your professional activity are you (or have you been) involved in processes of quality management?
Continual improvement of the wuality management system
Customers (and other interested parties)
Customers (and other interested parties)
Management Responsibility
Resource Management
Requirements
Input
Measurement, analysis and improvement
Product Realization
Satisfaction
Output Product
Key Value-adding activities Information flow
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You can also try o find (on the internet) examples of quality processes. Try to describe them in a simple way. It would be particularly interesting to make this work in collaboration with your colleagues. For example: Name of the process
Administrative management
Procedure
• To ensure the secretary service
Activity 1
• Guarantee the reception of the people and the operation of the telephone switchboard
Input
• People’s demands
Output
• Customer informed or addressed to the person concerned
Activity 2
• Sorting incoming mail
Input
• Electronic and paper mail
Output
• Registered mail and forwarded to the persons concerned
What factors can foster or suppress the effectiveness of quality management? Please consider your experience and ask others about the experience they have had (through blogs, forums, wikis). You can also use the resources available on the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and others). Try to list these factors.
We propose to consider the following: • Strong commitment from management and employees. • Communication, motivation and training. • Planning and quality control. • The implementation of a system for quality assessment and recognition of employees.
• Lack of management leadership. • Lack of employee engagement. • Resistance to change. • Lack of information. • Poor communication. • Unwillingness to collaborate.
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After reading the above, you should be able to summarize the main steps of the process of quality management. From the thoughts you have shared and the information you have gathered, try to describe the best approaches to effectively manage quality management within a company or organization. It would be useful to compare your ideas with those of others (through forums, wikis). We suggest you to think about the relation between quality management and lifelong learning. What personal experiences have you have about lifelong learning? Try to describe them briefly. Have these formative experiences been related to quality management?
A real case Many companies and institutions have developed strategies to encourage quality. For example, NoguĂŠs Firm is one of the leading law firms of Valladolid (Spain), specialized in business consulting in cases of bankruptcies, defaults and legal advice in various fields of law. The company consists of series of independent professionals, each specializing in a different field. The need to implement a system of quality management arose from the idea to build a serious image of the company, and also the need to standardize the control processes of the service, in a sector characterized by personalism of its professionals and the lack of systematized processes of control. The strategy for the quality improvement has been the implementation of ISO 9001:2000 system. So now all lawyers in the Firm write down the exact hours they devote to each case taking a thorough survey, which facilitates a reliable system for charging for services provided, as security to the customer. In addition of achieving traceability in cases, all important actions performed in chronological order are written down. The control of important documents that clients delivered to lawyers has also been improved. The system is keeping track of when they enter and when they leave, thus avoiding misunderstandings with potential losses. In conclusion, the implementation of the quality system has made all lawyers of the firm committed to the standard of quality. All partners are involved in it by standardizing common processes. Adapted from PMconsultores
Search on internet for other examples on implementing quality management in the company. It would be interesting to argue with your colleagues about these strategies – where they effective or time wasting. K-START: How to Become a Mentor 87
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Why and how quality management is relevant to you? What about your company? Complete the questions posed throughout the text and make a short text outlining your views on these concepts. 2. From the point of view of quality, what do you think can be improved in your company? 3. Use the information on the last unit “From learning to action� to build a development plan. What do you want to change, improve or increase in your professional profile?
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FROM LEARNING TO ACTION Now we propose you to reflect on the training process. It is important that you understand the process in order to train the mentee. You as a mentor should be aware of what motivates your mentee and what s/he needs to improve. At the end of this unit you will find an exercise, we propose to carry out based of the skills we have been talking about in the previous units (Identity and Role, Sharing Innovation and Ideas, etc.). You can also use this exercise with your mentee at the initial stage of mentoring. The training process as a successful learning process consists of several stages: • Awareness: be aware of the skills that you still have to to acquire and which needs improvement. • Motivation: understand that what you want to learn has value, it is important and worth all the energy and effort it takes to learn it. • Know-how: know methods which are suitable for the purpose of learning. • Victory: plan and achieve learning. • Evaluation: check your progress by yourself or with the support of others in order to correct mistakes and ask for feedback on efficiency. • Practice: use what you have learned in specific situations. In the learning process there are three other elements: • Memory: remember information; you need to memorize and be able to remember in the right time. • Understanding: give meaning to the ideas and principles; being able to connect concepts and predict the outcome. • Creativity: develop and practice the mental and physical abilities.
For example, one of the learning activities through which most people pass is learning to drive. Learning to drive means remembering the signs, the highway code and rules that allow us to drive the car properly; understanding the operation and the principles of speed, accelerator, and brakes; training physical skills and observation and use of pedals, etc.
Think about your personal experiences. Try to briefly describe the different stages of a learning process you have completed (preferably in communication or cooperation, or other area). The expectation of a “reward” or “recognition”: it can be a motivation to learn and innovate. This “recognition” can take many forms, financial or not: a diploma, a certificate, a promotion, getting a first or a new job, a raise, meeting colleagues, clients, etc.
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Do you know other examples? Think about your experience. Have you ever been encouraged to learn and / or to train? Did you receive any type of reguard? Try to describe briefly. It would be interesting to talk about your experience with other people. The social environment: the social environment of an individual is made up of all the people and institutions with which s/he interacts: parents, family, school, company / organization belongs to and, more broadly, the society in which one lives. The social environment always plays a very important role among the reasons why people learn.
Think about your specific experience and practice. In such cases, has your social environment played an important role in your motivation to learn or to educate yourself? Try to describe these cases briefly. It would be interesting to talk about these cases with other participants and with your own mentor (if you had one). The interest and desire: self-interest, attractiveness, the curiosity, the desire are often very important motivators to learn, train and / or innovate.
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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION Create your personal development plan on _________________:
1. Analysis of needs
2. Why is it important to me?
What I would like to acquire?
Because this will allow me to learn, to innovate and to share innovation and training.
• Knowledge, data, facts.... • Concepts • Skills
• What might be difficult for me? • What worries me? • Who can help me?
What are my strengths? What do I need in the first place? Which additional information do I need? Where and how can effectively educate myself?
My plan of development: Objectives: • Knowledge to be acquired • Concepts to be assimilated • Skills to acquired / improved • Means to overcome the difficulties • Means to find the information • Means to find support • Learning methods • Means to evaluate my progress • Places to find information
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CHAPTER IV. TALENT MANAGEMENT
93
Mentoring culture inside the company – Talent Management........... 95 The Talent Management Lifecycle..............................................................................96 Talent Management versus Traditional HR Approach................................................................................................98 Capacities on Talent Management.............................................................................99 How to implement mentoring – a short guide......................................................101 Questions for reflection..................................................................................................102
Where can I find more information?......................................................... 102 Standards for mentoring................................................................................................102 Articles on Mentor skills.................................................................................................102 Interesting resources.......................................................................................................103 Useful Links.........................................................................................................................105
Success Stories.............................................................................................. 106 MentorProgramma Friesland (The Netherlands)..................................................106 Social Mentoring – Guadalinfo (Spain).....................................................................107
Questions for reflection.............................................................................. 108
Talent Management
It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. Napoleon Hill
MENTORING CULTURE INSIDE THE COMPANY – TALENT MANAGEMENT • Mentoring is a way to manage the talent of employees enabling better management of the company. • This unit is specially recommended to managers because it explains how to integrate talent management into the company. • Talent management process is divided in four steps: identifying key roles, inventory of talent management skills, measure and feedback. • Talent management focuses on four capacities: learn, think, relate and act. Implementing a mentoring program in the company in which senior employees act as mentors of the newcomers is a way to manage the talent within the company.
Talent Management – a key business process
I N P U T
THE PROCESS OF TALENT MANAGER Vision Mision Strategy Structure Roles Competencies required (Selectiong and developing)
O U T P U T
Talent Management
Knowledge Tapping the full potential Breakthrough Performance
The performance of talent is what drives the overall performance of the company. Even the slightest change in employee productivity has a significant impact on profit made. Therefore “human resource management” cannot be perceived only as a support function, but should rather be seen as a core process. Thus, in a talent management mindset, it is a key competence for the entire business and has a high impact on the customers and the shareholders since talent management is creating additional value to these groups of people. Like any other business process, talent management takes inputs and generates outputs. There are four steps that companies can take to quickly assess their talent management processes and begin improving their competencies of talent management:
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Step 1 – Identify Key Roles. Analyze the key steps in each part of the talent life cycle (identification and attraction, hiring and inculcation, motivation and development, appraisal and reward, building and sustaining relationships) and map the key players, their roles and responsibilities in each stage. Are there gaps in responsibilities and key activities that no one is directly accountable for? Are there overlapping responsibilities – multiple people responsible for the same activity? Are the right people in the right roles? Are line managers provided with consistent and effective processes, guidelines and tools for managing talent?
Step 2 – Take an Inventory of your Talent Management Skills. Identify the critical skills needed to play the key roles in the talent life cycle effectively. To what extent does your company employ people who possess them? What might you do to improve or develop them? What are you doing in-house that might be better outsourced? What have you outsourced that you should be doing in-house?
Step 3 – Measure the Right Things. Assess the measures you use to evaluate the performance of your talent management process at each life cycle stage such as average tenures of new hires, performance ranking, and skill fit to job requirements, etc. What data are you capturing and reporting? Does it feed directly into an enterprise talent scorecard? How do these measures align with your overall talent management strategy?
Step 4 – Set Up a Process-Wide Feedback Loop. Everyone managing talent needs to understand the big picture and to connect their role and responsibilities to the overall objectives of the process. How is data captured in each stage of the life cycle reported and communicated? How are knowledge and experiences shared across the process? Where are the information gaps and missed communications? How much feedback is formally captured and communicated versus informally discussed among staff? What key actions might you take to improve your feedback mechanisms?
The Talent Management Lifecycle In order to gain the desired output in the talent management process and to create additional value, there is a need for managers to be increasingly knowledgeable and skilled in managing people and the organisational needs to have a robust people management capability that is clear, coherent, and applied company wide. The recognition of the importance of talent management is low in most organisations. Many companies are only beginning to appreciate the importance of enterprise wide talent management. Regarding the cost of unnecessary recruitment and termination costs and the connected lost productivity this is not understandable. Many companies are missing substantial opportunities to save costs and improve performance by upgrading their talent management capabilities.
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The Talent Management Lifecycle has five stages: 1. Recognizing. Notice what employees do in their free time and find out their interests. Try to discover their strengths and interests. Also, encourage them to discover their own latent talents. For instance, if an employee in the operations department convincingly explains why he thinks he’s right even when he’s wrong, consider moving him to sales!
Recognize
2. Attracting. Good companies create a strong brand identifying with their customers and then delivering on that promise. Great employment brands do the same, with quantifiable and qualitative results. As a result, the right people choose to join the organisation.
Retain
Talent op
D
t Attrac
el ev
Se
le
ct
3. Selecting. Management should implement proven talent selection systems and tools to create profiles of the right people based on the competencies of high performers. It’s not simply a matter of finding the “best and the brightest,” it’s about creating the right fit - both for today and tomorrow. As aforementioned, the goal of any talent management process should be to produce effective, value added contributors and not simply to fill open positions as quickly and inexpensively as possible. 4. Developing. Every company leaves a tremendous amount of human potential untapped because its people are inadequately developed. Management should therefore develop employees, e.g. by presenting them with new challenges (stretch assignments). Effectively conceived stretch jobs, coupled with informal feedback, coaching, and mentoring, are enormous developmental levers. 5. Retaining. In the current climate of change, it’s critical to hold onto the key people, the critical talents within your organisation. These are the people who will lead the organisation to future success, and you can’t afford to lose them.
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Talent Management versus Traditional HR Approach Talent management forms a part of “human resource management�. Traditional HR systems though approach people development from the perspective of developing competencies needed in the organization. This can actually be a risk-prone approach, especially for companies operating in fast evolving industries, since competencies become outmoded over time and new competencies need to be developed. Thus, over time, the entire approach to development of people might be rendered obsolete calling for rethinking the entire development initiative. Talent management on the other hand additionally focuses on enhancing the potential of people by developing capacities. Capacities are thus the basic DNA of an organization and also of individual potential. The following scheme shows the process of developing capacities:
D
N
A
Point of Departure
Navigation
Point of Arrival
Translating organizational vision into goals and mapping the required level of capacities and competencies to achievegoals
Aligning individual values and vision with organizational values and vision
Clear understanding of the varied roles within the organization and appreciation of the value-addition from self and others leading to building a culture of trust, sharing and team orientation
Assessment of talent to profile the level of capacities and set of competencies possessed within the organization
Enhancing capacities to learn, think relate and act through development initiatives
Individual growth to meet and accept varied, incremental and transformational roles in an overall scenario of acknowledged need for change
Gap analysis and identification of development path
Helping individuals realize their full potential through learning and development
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Developed individuals enabling breakthrough performance
Capacities on Talent Management There are four capacities on which talent management focuses and which shall be developed by talent management. 1. Capacity to learn Enhancing an individual’s capacity to learn supports the person’s intrinsic desire to increase the knowledge. This capacity is developed by overall education, which teaches how to learn, an enabling environment and good mentoring. Capacity to learn comprises of the following: • Introspection is the individual’s willingness to look back and learn as well as the ability to learn from mistakes and to identify areas of improvement. • Reflection and contemplation is the individual’s ability to observe his own thoughts, actions and feelings in order to improve further and perform better. • Getting into the flow is the individual’s ability to get into a new experience and flow with the experience. It is the person’s childlike ability to derive joy out of learning.
Introspection Capacity to Learn
Flow Reflection & contemplation
2. Capacity to think An individual’s desire to know more leads his mind to create images. Enhancing an individual’s capacity to think helps the person not only to take learning to a higher level of intellect but also improves creativity. Capacity to think comprises of the following: • Analysis is about asking the right questions and breaking complex things into simpler elements. • Creativity is about generating new thoughts and breaking the existing patterns of thought. • Judgment requires both. This is what helps an individual take quality decisions.
Analysis Capacity to Think
Judgment Creativity
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3. Capacity to relate It is important for an individual to be able to relate to his learning and thoughts. This enables the individual to relate to other individuals and the environment around him. The outcome is a sense of affiliation and an environment of trust at the organizational level and team spirit at the individual level. Capacity to relate comprises of the following: • Empathizing is the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and getting out of one’s own shoes. • Active listening is the individual’s ability to listen with attention and respect. Active listening is free of biases, evaluation and preconceived notions. • Trust requires a combination of both empathizing and listening. It is about authenticity, openness and genuineness.
Empathizing Capacity to Relate
Trust Listening
4. Capacity to act In the action, the above-mentioned three capacities of an individual are manifested. It is the individual’s ability to enact his intentions. Following are components of capacity to act: • Organizing refers to the individual’s ability to organize his time and resource in order to convert intentions into reality. • Implementing means delegating, attention to detail, and focus on the right process. • Perform under pressure means the ability to work under pressure and time constraints and handle multiple tasks without negative stress.
Organazing Capacity to Act Implementing
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Work under pressure
How to implement mentoring – a short guide To successfully establish a program of mentoring the management should take the following steps: 1. Become familiar with the concept of mentoring. 2. Designate a team responsible for designing the Mentoring Plan. 3. Analyze the different profiles and roles in the enterprise. How workers can facilitate the incorporation of new workers? 4. Design the Mentoring Plan: • Objectives. • Duration. • Ways of implementation. • Evaluation plan. • Incentives for participants: days off, economic rewards, etc. 5. Integrate Mentoring Culture within the company. 6. Communicate to employees the implementation of a mentoring program, its objectives and benefits for the company and the employee. 7. Train as mentors the employees interested to participate. 8. Create a database with the employees-mentors and their profiles or use K-START. 9. In the incorporation of a new employee study who is the appropriate mentor 10. Matchmaking: One mentor – one mentee. 11. Monitoring that mentoring is being conducted properly with regular interviews with both mentor and mentee. 12. Once the process ends, evaluate it with the mentor and mentee. 13. Based on the evaluation, implement program improvements.
Without the commitment and monitoring of management a mentoring program will not succeed.
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Questions for reflection Take a moment to answer these questions: 1. Would it be possible to apply talent management strategies in your company? 2. Do you find these methodologies useful? What would you add or modify?
WHERE CAN I FIND MORE INFORMATION? This unit provides useful links, books, papers, etc., where mentors can find additional information to expand their knowledge.
Standards for mentoring Most of the main professional associations have a code which members must sign up to. Most of the training providers either offer their own code or adopt that of a professional body. There is also a move to developing professional standards and kite marking training programmes which are not mandatory but which are raising awareness of the need for common standards across the profession. Some of them can be found on the websites below but there are many others. • European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC): http://www.emccouncil.org/src/ultimo/models/Download/4.pdf • Association for Coaching (AC): http://www.associationforcoaching.com/pages/about/code-ethics-good-practice • International Coach Federation (ICF): http://www.coachfederation.org/about/ethics.aspx?ItemNumber=850&navItemNu mber=62
Articles on Mentor skills • About how to become a mentor -- http://gestion.pe/empleo-management/sea-mentor-siguiendo-cinco-pasossencillos-2061879 • Active listening -- http://www.helpguide.org/mental/effective_communication_skills.htm
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• Cooperative work -- http://www.life123.com/career-money/career-development/team-player/ benefits-of-teamwork.shtml • Self-management -- http://mariewiere.com/2012/03/04/a-company-that-manages-withoutmanagers/ • Mentoring culture -- http://www.wikihow.com/Develop-a-Mentoring-Culture-in-an-Organisation
Interesting resources Books On the internet you can find lots of references to books on different aspects of mentoring. From the most basic to highly specialized. We propose you the following ones: • What it takes to become a Mentor (2013). Written by Terry Thompson. This easy-todigest guide spells out the basics for becoming a mentor. In this book the author describes in detail 6 concepts that make a person a Mentor. • Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring (2004). Written by David Clutterbuck and David Megginson. Designed to offer the reader a range of interventions that they can employ when working one-to-one with others, this book offers a framework for different techniques employed by coaches and mentors and provides practical approaches to coaching and mentoring. It covers a range of fundamental topics involved in the coaching and mentoring processes. • The Blackwell Handbook of Mentoring: A Multiple Perspectives Approach (2010) Edited by Tammy D. Allen and Lillian T. Eby. It reveals an innovative, multi-disciplinary approach to the practice and theory of mentoring and demonstrates its advantages. • Coaching and mentoring for Dummies (2000). Written by Marty Brounstein. This guide includes advice on moving from a traditional manager to an effective business coach. It helps readers to discover the different environment that coaching a staff can create, with tips on learning to be a coach instead of a doer. Magazines Some interesting magazines specialized on mentoring are: • Coach & Mentor. Individual articles in complete issue are free at online format. http:// www.theocm-store.com/33-the-ocm-journal-2010 • The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal. Publisher: Penn State’s Division of Undergraduate Studies. All articles available online at no cost. Subscription is free. http://dus.psu.edu/mentor/
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Films A good way to assess relevant aspects of the mentoring is through images. On the internet you can find lots of videos relating to mentoring in free channels as YouTube. We also recommend you to watch the next films analyzing them since the point of view of the mentoring process: • Finding Forester (2000). Directed by Gus Van Sant and starring by Sean Connery. A black American teenager, Jamal Wallace is invited to attend a prestigious private high school. By chance, Jamal befriends a reclusive writer, William Forrester (Sean Connery), through whom he refines his natural talent for writing and comes to terms with his identity. In this film we see how a clear relationship of mentoring, in which both mentor and mentee are benefited, is established. • Unstoppable (2010). Directed by Tony Scott and starring by Denzel Washington. Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) is a railway employee of Virginia Railroad with 28 working years. He has been notified of his dismissal because of his age and must leave his job within 90 days. Will (Chris Pine) is a young apprentice engineer and is Frank’s replacement. Both drive together a locomotive when they have to face to a train that is out of control without a driver. During the film you can see how they build a mentoring relationship despite the initial mistrust of both. The work experience of Frank and the confidence of Will allow them to solve the critical situation. Frank now is valued by the company and he is offered a better job..
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Useful Links Web
http://www.emccouncil.org/ es
http://www. escueladementoring.com/
http://www.emccouncil.org/ es/
http://www.emccouncil.org/ es/
http://www. coachingnetwork.org.uk/
http://www.mandbf.org/
http://www. coachingandmentoring. com/
Country Who are they
You will find‌
EU
European Council Mentoring and Coaching (EMCC) aims to promote good practice in mentoring and coaching across Europe.
Database of mentors and coaches, books and news, publications, just for members.
ES
This portal aims to be a meeting point for all those people, companies and institutions interested in knowing the mentoring and implant it.
Free access to guides and resources about mentoring.
ES
European Council Mentoring and Coaching (EMCC) aims to promote good practice in mentoring and coaching across Europe. This is the Spanish site.
Database of mentors and coaches, books and news, publications, just for members.
ES
European Council Mentoring and Coaching (EMCC) aims to promote good practice in mentoring and coaching across Europe. This is the Spanish site.
Database of mentors and coaches, books and news, publications, just for members.
A free and independent portal for the latest news, information and developments in the coaching and mentoring field.
A free and independent portal for the latest news, information and developments in the coaching and mentoring field.
A web portal to encourage the growth and development of mentoring and befriending.
Guidance and support. Good practice examples. Training and other resources and so on.
A site for seeking help in coaching and mentoring relationships
Resources for coaching, teambuilding, mentoring and managing corporate culture.
UK
UK
CA
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SUCCESS STORIES • This part presents success stories about mentoring programmes developed in different countries. These stories can be used by mentors as examples of good practices, to improve their way of acting. • After reading these stories mentors will know how to apply mentoring and how they can proceed in different situations. Also, the information will increase motivation of a mentor seeing the importance of it.
MentorProgramma Friesland (The Netherlands) MentorProgramma Friesland (MPF), a joint project run by ROC Friesland College, ROC Friese Poort, NHL University and Stenden University of Applied Science, is a program that matches students to a mentor. The mentors are mainly derived from businesses and industry, non-profit organisations (employees and entrepreneurs) and from Universities of Applied Science (students). The aim of the programme is amongst others the development of talents of young people and support of students when necessary. The mentoring programme is an addition to the regular counselling at schools. The idea is that the student is looking for something and the mentor has something to offer. In close consultation with both parties, the programme looks for the best connection between “supply and demand”. After the initial meeting, the mentee (the student) and mentor make their own agreements on the frequency and content of the meetings. The programme organisation supports the mentor during the period of contact with the mentee. In addition, seminars and meetings are organized for the mentors to get to know each other and share experiences. The programme called in the help of socially successful citizens that can be seen as role models. This led in 1997 to the mentor programme. Initially MPF intended to increase opportunities for students with educational disadvantage because of a foreign ethnicity. But soon all students of the participating educational institution declared that they needed assistance in study- work- and life issues, could get the support from a mentor. The Institute for Integration and Social Efficacy (Instituut voor Integratie en Sociale Weerbaarheid) performs a nationwide evaluation under 26 mentoring projects in The Netherlands. The research shows that MPF one-to-one mentoring from voluntary mentors has a very positive effect on psychological outcomes and skills of the mentees. Due to the mentor programme, the young mentees are more satisfied with their lives, believe in their own abilities more and have developed their social and cognitive skills better compared to when they started the mentor program. In addition, it appears that the mentor support his or her mentee particularly in a psychosocial way (stimulating the emotional development). Instrumental support (the concrete support in achieving the mentees goals in school and/or work) increases during the project. Aiming at both types of support, like the mentor programme, is crucial for a positive development of youngsters. In addition, the research has shown that the programme is a good way to enhance the involvement of the businesses on the community and thus increase the quality of life. 106 K-START: Talent Management
Over the years, the programme has won several awards with their innovative approach on mentoring. MPF has also inspired other mentoring programs as Supreme project that will standardise the program and develop a handbook, enabling it to be integrated in long term strategies of schools, at national and European level. Mentorprogramma Friesland Supreme Mentoring
Social Mentoring – Guadalinfo (Spain) Guadalinfo is a governmental program in the region of Andalusia in southern Spain dedicated for the development of innovative projects in tourism, employment, training, inclusion, environment, Web 2.0, sustainability, accessibility and culture. Guadalinfo has developed Social Mentoring program to guide entrepreneurs in the process of turning an idea into a project. With this methodology a mentor accompanies and advises the entrepreneur along all the way. On this trip the mentor conveys his knowledge to ensure the attainment of the objectives. Mentor and mentee acquire a commitment to share experiences and insights with one aim: to contribute to personal and professional development of the mentee. The entrepreneur explains his idea. The purpose of the project is specified and the mentor determined. Mentor and mentee reach a commitment to collaboration. The mentor assists the mentee through the steps of defining objectives, resource analysis, scheduling tasks, etc. Finally, the project is evaluated. On Social Mentoring, the tasks of the mentor are: • Mentor does not teach. S/He helps to learn. • Mentor does not say what mentee has to do. S/He provides tools. • Mentor does not solve the problems. S/He helps to see the solutions. • Mentor does not take the responsibility for the problems. • Mentor does not replace the mentee on his tasks. S/He accompanies the mentee along the way. • Mentor must keep in mind that the aim of the program is not acquiring knowledge. The aim is to learn by doing. There are several business projects that have been launched through mentoring methodology. Here you can find one of the mentors talking about his experience on the program (video is available in Spanish only): Social Mentoring
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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION 1. What aspects of these stories have caught your attention? 2. Do any of the entities mentioned in these stories bear some resemblance to the company where you work? 3. Do you use similar strategies in your company? 4. Would it be possible to apply any of the strategies explained in your company?
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漏 2014 K-START Consortium: Project promoter Lithuanian University of Educational Science (LEU) LITHUANIA www.leu.lt Project coordinator Alfa Ideas and Technologies (FITIN) LITHUANIA www.fitin.lt Partners Business Development Friesland (BDF) THE NETHERLANDS www.bdfriesland.nl ROC Noorderpoort THE NETHERLANDS www.noorderpoort.nl Fundaci贸n Maimona SPAIN www.maimona.org European Business & Innovation Centre Network (EBN) BELGIUM www.ebn.eu Gesfor S.r.l. ITALY www.gesforsrl.it
You are free to use and distribute the materials with a clear reference to K-START for non commercial purposes only. In all other cases, please contact the project promoter via e-mail info@k-start.eu for a written permission. Thank you!
K-start project (Nr. LLP-LdV-TOI-2012-LT-0108) has been funded with the support from the European Commission under Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovation programme. The project was implemented in 2012-2014 and continues to be supported by project partners and sponsors. The content of this book does not necessarily reflect the view or legislation of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor the project partners or any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of the information contained herein.
www.k-start.eu