In my last post, I presented some introductory thoughts on mentoring. I focused on the key elements of a successful mentoring realtionship. Today, I'd like to get into the nuts and bolts of mentoring.
There are five key mentoring tools:
- Instruction
- Role Modeling
- Questions
- Role Playing
- Story Telling
Today, I'll focus on Instruction...
Instruction is useful in situations in which there is a prescribed or "one best way" to do a job. This includes things like conducting an effective sales call, calibrating a piece of equipment or processing an order.
Effective mentors use a tried and true approach to instruction. This approach was developed at the beginning of World War II. The days after Pearl Harbor presented a huge training opportunity. The Army, Navy and Air Force needed to quickly train new soldiers, sailors and air men. However, private industry also was faced with a training challenge. New people (many of them women) were taking over the jobs that had been held by the men who were now in the armed services. This meant that a large group of people had to learn new skills -- and learn them quickly.
The following four step instruction model is a variation of the training process that was developed to speed the learning of millions of people who were taking on new jobs at the beginning of World War II:
- Describe the task; what to do, how to do it and why it should be done this way.
- Demonstrate how to perform the task.
- Observe the person as he or she attempts to perform the task
- Provide feedback: reinforce what was done well or correctly, point out errors and suggest alternatives for what was done poorly or incorrectly.
Effective mentors use this approach to help the people they are mentoring develop necessary and important skills.
A word of caution here -- while instruction is an important tool to have in your mentoring tool kit, it is not useful in every situation. The world is full of ambiguities where there is no one best way to accomplish something. Instruction is usually not the best tool in these situations.
However, in unambiguous situations, instruction is an important and useful tool. Mentors who understand it, and more importantly, when to use it are successful.
That's it for today. Thanks for reading. For more common sense leadership advice, log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com.
I'll see you around the web, and at Alex's Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS What have YOU done for your career today?
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