Starting Strong is Key to Mentoring Success

by Center for Mentoring Excellence | Jan 9, 2015 | Mentoring Relationships, Mentoring Training

Are you from Gen X or Y, anxious to advance your career?

Are you eager make a mark in your organization?

Are you committed to orchestrating your own future?

If you’ve answered “yes” to any of these questions, you will need good mentors if you’re going to be successful.

In our new book, Starting Strong: A Mentoring Fable, you have the opportunity to observe mentoring at work and learn valuable lessons from an experienced mentor about what makes a mentoring relationship successful.

Cynthia, a talented and successful VP of Marketing and Communications agrees to mentor Rafa, a Gen Y financial analyst. Cynthia enjoys mentoring talented, ambitious employees, but only when she is sure that her time investment will truly make a difference.

Rafa is new to mentoring and doesn’t know what to do or what to expect. In retrospect, he realizes that he had a lot to learn about mentoring. The truth of the matter is, most mentees, like Rafa, would like to come to mentoring better prepared.

In Starting Strong, you soon discover just how important the first 90 days are to laying the groundwork for a productive and successful mentoring relationship and what you can do to prepare yourself so that your mentoring relationship starts out and stays strong.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the success strategies you will find in our book:

1. Get to know your mentor and help them get to know you.
   • Do you feel comfortable being honest and open about your strengths and weaknesses?
2. Establish agreements that define your relationship and clarify your expectations.
   • How often will you meet?
   • What is your understanding about confidentiality?
   • Who will set the agenda for your meetings?
3. Articulate the goals that will be the focus of your relationship.
   • Are they SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely) enough to produce tangible results?
4. Identify specific learning opportunities that will encourage you to stretch and grow.
   • Are you playing it safe, or are you being pushed out of your comfort zone?
5. Check in on progress after 90 days.
   • What is working?
   • What could be better?
   • Are you getting the support you need?
   • What else are you looking for?

To learn more about what you can do to get your relationship started on the right foot, order your copy of Starting Strong today.

You can also enter to win a free audio book copy of Starting Strong. Simply go to Twitter here, and retweet!