Tag Archives: mentor

Mentor – Do you have one? Do you need one?

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Summary

Mentor – are they only for new employees? Have you ever wondered if you need a mentor? Or how you would go about getting one? Have you considered having a Board of Directors for you?

Objective

· Have you ever wondered how some people seem to have it all together – or anticipate things well? Do you ever wish for a person or persons that you can bounce ideas off, to get advice, or be someone who can listen to you?

· Mentorship is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. However, true mentoring is more than just answering occasional questions or providing ad hoc help. It is about an ongoing relationship of learning, dialog, and challenge.

· “Mentoring” is a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. One definition of the many that have been proposed, is

· 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 and a person who is perceived to have less. Mentoring in Europe has existed since at least Ancient Greek times. Since the 1970s it has spread in the United States of America mainly in training context and it has been described as “an innovation in American management”.

· Companies have mission statements and a Board of Directors. Your life is pretty important. Why not create a Life Board of Directors to help you through it? Pick 2 to 5 of your friends. Not necessarily your closest friends, but friends that are close enough where you can really confide but not so close that they can’t see the big picture. Email them one a month, once a quarter or “once a crisis.”

· Assemble “Team You” and use your team to brainstorm directions and implementations of big decisions like moving to New York, or changing your business’s direction, starting a new venture, or getting fit.

· Use your personal Board of Directors as one of the compasses in your life. You’ve got family, friends, perhaps faith, hobbies, values, etc. Add your Team to this list of personal compasses.

· In this discussion we encourage individuals who have had experience as a mentor – or if you’ve had a mentor to talk about the benefits you have received from the experience.

· We also want to discuss how to go about getting a mentor or being a mentor for those who are interested.

Some ideas:

Pick the right mentor.

First step is identifying someone who can be a good mentor for you. A mentor should be someone you respect and someone who’s respected by others.

Remember that mentoring can take many forms.

That relationship certainly can take the form of an ongoing one-on-one connection, but you can also have what she calls “mentoring episodes” — briefer interactions where you still learn something valuable.

Ask for advice.

Asking someone to be your mentor is tough. Instead, if there’s someone whose brain you really want to pick, or whom you’d like to develop a closer working relationship with, think of some specific things you want their advice on. Then ask them to get lunch or coffee with you to talk about them.

Set some guidelines beforehand.

When you’re entering into a mentoring relationship with someone, you should have a talk with them — not just about what you want to learn, but about how you want the relationship to go. Talk about confidentiality — will what you say to your mentor stay between the two of you, or will she or he be sharing it with other people? Discuss how you’ll handle any disagreements or problems that might come up. And make an agreement that if at any point the mentoring relationship ends, you’ll make sure to have a “good closure conversation” that allows you both to express appreciation, talk about what you learned, and move on.

Check in frequently.

Schedule regular check-ins to make sure everything in the relationship is going smoothly. Touch base with each other about whether you’re both getting your needs met — are you getting the advice you need? Are you being respectful enough of your mentee’s time?

With personal conversations, let the mentor set the tone.

Especially if you’re friendly with your mentor, you may be tempted to talk about your personal life with him or her, and even to ask advice about personal matters. Depending on your relationship, this could be totally fine — after all, Ragins points out, a mentor can also be a friend. But she advocates that you “let the mentor lead the way with respect to disclosure.”

Keep in touch if you switch jobs.

Remember that even if you leave your job, “no one’s going to make you give your mentor back.” If your mentor was a coworker, you might not see each other or talk as much as you once did. But you can still keep in touch by email and at networking events in your field, and you can still benefit from your mentor’s expertise. Consider than having one mentor at any given time, you should seek out multiple mentors, a “constellation of relationships” that give you the work wisdom you need.

Bible Readings

1. Ephesians – Chapter 6

And parents, never drive your children to resentment but bring them up with correction and advice inspired by the Lord.

Catechism Readings

1. Paragraph 2230

When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life. They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly asking and receiving their advice and counsel. Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them—quite the contrary—from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family. (1625)

Small Group Questions

1. Is there someone in your small group that has experienced a good mentoring relationship?

2. Can they talk about it?

3. Do you have a mentor?

4. Do you want one?

5. Father’s team members can be great potential mentors? Ask someone !

Recommended Resources

1. Your BOD – http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WhoIsOnYourLifesBoardOfDirectors.aspx

2. Mentor – how to get and maintain – http://jezebel.com/5864193/how-to-get-and-keep-a-mentor

Accountability

1. Considering being a mentor or getting one!

Author(s)

Rich DelCore

How do you go from being a parent to a mentor with your adult children?

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Summary

As our children get older, our interaction with them changes. No longer can our values and ideas be imprinted on them by virtue of being the parent. Can you remember when you left home? When you spread your wings? How did your parents react to you? As children age, they bring their own mindsets to the family relationship, life in general and beyond. This can be especially difficult if their values, ideas and mores tend be different, sometimes substantially different than yours. It may something as simple as moving out and leaving the area or as significant as having members of the opposite sex other moving in with the now adult child, to variation in life styles.

Objective

Typically, as a child moves into adulthood, their ideas and ways of doing things can and usually are substantially different than yours. As our children age, like we age, they change, like we change. It seems that a parent often moves more from the guiding hand on the shoulder to the dispenser of wisdom and information as to how the world really works. All too often, in trying to understand the adult child’s mentality and life, there can be alienation between the parent and the offspring. It is almost as if there is resentment for bringing up your values.

The challenge is how to still be a parent, with all of our values, and still be a mentor, parent and sometimes even a friend to your child when their values are different, sometimes dramatically different than yours. As parents, we have developed our value system over a period of time, and our now grown children, especially those out of college are starting to develop theirs.

There is an old joke about a young man talking about his father and remarking to a friend that when he was in high school, he thought his father might have been dumber than a box of rocks, but when the young man graduated from college, he was amazed at how much his father had learned. There may be a lot of truth in that old “saw”. From the sometimes rebellious years of high school, to the realization that a child has a vast amount of unlearned information, this seems like a good time to focus on what your values are. The most important thing is to let your adult child know that you are there for them and although you may disagree with some of the things they do, you are always the parent.

Bible Readings

1. Tobit 4: 5-6

Through all the days my son, keep the LORD in mind, and suppress every desire to sin or to break his commandments. Perform good works all the days of your life, and do not tread the paths of wrong doing. For if you are steadfast in your service, your good works will bring success, not only to you, but also to those who live uprightly.

2. Ephesians 6: 1- 4

Children, obey your parents [in the Lord], for this is right.a “Honor your father and mother.”b This is the first commandment with a promise, “that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life on earth.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up with the training and instruction of the Lord.c

V. Conclusion

Catechism Readings

1. Paragraph 2199

The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it.

This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons.

2. Paragraph 2208   

The family should live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor. There are many families who are at times incapable of providing this help. It devolves then on other persons, other families, and, in a subsidiary way, society to provide for their needs: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”12

Small Group Questions

1. Think back to a mentor that was helpful to you? Did he/she tell you what to do or listen and let you talk?

2. Do you model the type of behavior that you would like your children to have as they become older?

3. Do you have any family members that mentored you as you aged?

4. If your father is alive, how is your relation with him?

5. Could you talk to your father when you were young? How about now?

6. What do you wish you knew when you were younger that you know now? Can you give your children that information?

Recommended Resources

1. Life’s Little Instruction Book, H. Jackson Brown, 500+ suggestions, observations and reminders on how to live a happy and rewarding life.

Accountability

1. This week would be a good time to start to talk to your child about life and responsibilities

Author(s)

Original: Jack Gauche/Bob Considine; Updated: Rich DelCore

Mentor – Do you have one? Do you need one?

Posted on by
Reply

Summary

Mentor – are they only for new employees? Have you ever wondered if you need a mentor? Or how you would go about getting one? Have you considered having a Board of Directors for you?

Objective

  • Have you ever wondered how some people seem to have it all together – or anticipate things well? Do you ever wish for a person or persons that you can bounce ideas off, to get advice, or to just be someone who can listen to you?
  • Mentorship is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. However, true mentoring is more than just answering occasional questions or providing ad hoc help. It is about an ongoing relationship of learning, dialog, and challenge.
  • “Mentoring” is a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. One definition of the many that have been proposed, is
  • 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 and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)”.
  • Mentoring in Europe has existed since at least Ancient Greek times. Since the 1970s it has spread in the United States of America mainly in training context and it has been described as “an innovation in American management”.
  • Companies have mission statements and a Board of Directors. Your life is pretty important. Why not create a Life Board of Directors to help you through it? Pick 2 to 5 of your friends. Not necessarily your closest friends, but friends that are close enough where you can really confide but not so close that they can’t see the big picture. Email them one a month, once a quarter or “once a crisis.” Ask them for advice, lean on them, trust them.
  • Assemble “Team You” and use your team to brainstorm directions and implementations of big decisions like moving to New York, or changing your business’s direction, starting a new venture, or getting fit.
  • Use your personal Board of Directors as one of the compasses in your life. You’ve got family, friends, perhaps faith, hobbies, values, etc. Add your Team to this list of personal compasses.
  • In this discussion we encourage individuals who have had experience as a mentor – or if you’ve had a mentor to talk about the benefits you have received from the experience.
  • We also want to discuss how to go about getting a mentor or being a mentor for those who are interested.

Some ideas:

Pick the right mentor.

First step is identifying someone who can be a good mentor for you. She points out that your mentor should be someone you respect and someone who’s respected by others.

Remember that mentoring can take many forms.

That relationship certainly can take the form of an ongoing one-on-one connection, but you can also have what she calls “mentoring episodes” — briefer interactions where you still learn something valuable.

Ask for advice.

Asking someone to be your mentor is tough. Instead, if there’s someone whose brain you really want to pick, or whom you’d like to develop a closer working relationship with, think of some specific things you want their advice on. Then ask them to get lunch or coffee with you to talk about them.

Set some guidelines beforehand.

Zachary suggests that when you’re entering into a mentoring relationship with someone, you should have a talk with them — not just about what you want to learn, but about how you want the relationship to go. Talk about confidentiality — will what you say to your mentor stay between the two of you, or will she or he be sharing it with other people? Discuss how you’ll handle any disagreements or problems that might come up. And make an agreement that if at any point the mentoring relationship ends, you’ll make sure to have a “good closure conversation” that allows you both to express appreciation, talk about what you learned, and move on.

Check in frequently.

Zachary also advocates regular check-ins to make sure everything in the relationship is going smoothly. Touch base with each other about whether you’re both getting your needs met — are you getting the advice you need? Are you being respectful enough of your mentee’s time

With personal conversations, let the mentor set the tone.

Especially if you’re friendly with your mentor, you may be tempted to talk about your personal life with him or her, and even to ask advice about personal matters. Depending on your relationship, this could be totally fine — after all, Ragins points out, a mentor can also be a friend. But she advocates that you “let the mentor lead the way with respect to disclosure.”

Keep in touch if you switch jobs.

Ragins notes that even if you leave your job, “no one’s going to make you give your mentor back.” If your mentor was a coworker, you might not see each other or talk as much as you once did. But you can still keep in touch by email and at networking events in your field, and you can still benefit from your mentor’s expertise. Ragins recommends that rather than having one mentor at any given time, you should seek out multiple mentors, a “constellation of relationships” that give you the work wisdom you need.

Bible Readings

1. Ephesians – Chapter 6

And parents, never drive your children to resentment but bring them up with correction and advice inspired by the Lord.

Catechism Readings

1. Paragraph 2230

When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life. They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly asking and receiving their advice and counsel. Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them—quite the contrary—from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family. (1625)

Small Group Questions

  1. Do you have a mentor?
  2. Do you want one?
  3. Do you see the value in a mentor relationship?

Recommended Resources

  1. Your BOD – http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WhoIsOnYourLifesBoardOfDirectors.aspx
  2. Mentor – how to get and maintain – http://jezebel.com/5864193/how-to-get-and-keep-a-mentor

Accountability

1. Considering being a mentor or getting one!

Author(s)

Rich DelCore

How do you go from being a parent to a mentor with your adult children?

Posted on by
Reply

Summary

As our children get older, our interaction with them changes. No longer can our values and ideas be imprinted on them by virtue of being the parent. As children age, they bring their own mindsets to the family relationship, life in general and beyond. This can be especially difficult if their values, ideas and mores tend be different, sometimes substantially different than yours. It may something as simple as moving out and leaving the area or as significant as having members of the opposite sex other moving in with the now adult child, to variation in life styles.

Objective

Typically, as a child moves into adulthood, their ideas and ways of doing things can and usually are substantially different than yours. As our children age, like we age, they change, like we change. It seems that a parent often moves more from the guiding hand on the shoulder to the dispenser of wisdom and information as to how the world really works. All too often, in trying to understand the adult child’s mentality and life, there can be alienation between the parent and the offspring. It is almost as if there is resentment for bringing up your values.

The challenge is how to still be a parent, with all of our values, and still be a mentor, parent and sometimes even a friend to your child when their values are different, sometimes dramatically different than yours. As parents, we have developed our value system over a period of time, and our now grown children, especially those out of college are starting to develop theirs.

There is an old joke about a young man talking about his father and remarking to a friend that when he was in high school, he thought his father might have been dumber than a box of rocks, but when the young man graduated from college, he was amazed at how much his father had learned. There may be a lot of truth in that old “saw”. From the sometimes rebellious years of high school, to the realization that a child has a vast amount of unlearned information, this seems like a good time to focus on what your values are. The most important thing is to let your adult child know that you are there for them and although you may disagree with some of the things they do, you are always the parent.

Bible Readings

1. Tobit 4: 5-6

Through all the days my son, keep the LORD in mind, and suppress every desire to sin or to break his commandments. Perform good works all the days of your life, and do not tread the paths of wrong doing. For if you are steadfast in your service, your good works will bring success, not only to you, but also to those who live uprightly.

2. Exodus 20: 12

Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you

3. Colossians 3: 20-21

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.p Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.q

4. Ephesians 6: 1- 4

Children, obey your parents [in the Lord], for this is right.a “Honor your father and mother.”b This is the first commandment with a promise, “that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life on earth.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up with the training and instruction of the Lord.c

Catechism Readings

1. Paragraph 2199

The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it.

This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons.

2. Paragraph 2200

Observing the fourth commandment brings its reward: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.”8 Respecting this commandment provides, along with spiritual fruits, temporal fruits of peace and prosperity. Conversely, failure to observe it brings great harm to communities and to individuals. (2304)

3. Paragraph 2208

The family should live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor. There are many families who are at times incapable of providing this help. It devolves then on other persons, other families, and, in a subsidiary way, society to provide for their needs: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”12

Small Group Questions

  1. Do you think that your father valued your opinion as you became older?
  2. Do you model the type of behavior that you would like your children to have as they become older
  3. Do you have any family members that mentored you as you aged
  4. If your father is alive, how is your relation with him?
  5. Could you talk to your father when you were young? How about now?
  6. What do you wish you knew when you were younger that you know now? Can you give your children that information?

Recommended Resources

  1. Live and Learn and Pass It On, H. Jackson Brown, People share what they have discovered about life, love and the world
  2. Life’s Little Instruction Book, H. Jackson Brown, 500+ suggestions, observations and reminders on how to live a happy and rewarding life.

Accountability

  1. This week would be a good time to start to talk to your child about life and responsibilities

Author(s)

Jack Gauche & Bob Considine

Included Resources

Perhaps to be used as a lead in to group sharing exercise

Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin (1942-1981), 1974 Album Verities and Balderdash

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin’ ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew
He’d say “I’m gonna be like you dad
You know I’m gonna be like you”
And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin’ home dad?
I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son
You know we’ll have a good time then
My son turned ten just the other day
He said, “Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let’s play
Can you teach me to throw”, I said “Not today
I got a lot to do”, he said, “That’s ok”
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, “I’m gonna be like him, yeah
You know I’m gonna be like him”
And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin’ home son?
I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son
You know we’ll have a good time then
Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
“Son, I’m proud of you, can you sit for a while?”
He shook his head and said with a smile
“What I’d really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?”
And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin’ home son?
I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son
You know we’ll have a good time then
I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind”
He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job’s a hassle and kids have the flu
But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad
It’s been sure nice talking to you”
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me
And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin’ home son?
I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son
You know we’ll have a good time then