Teaching the Ropes
How to Mentor Younger Associates and Others New to the Team

Most senior managers in NGOs wear so many hats and are stretched over so many responsibilities they have virtually no time left to help newcomers get comfortable in the organization. As a result, many humanitarian groups have instituted mentoring programs in which senior and more experienced people in the organization take responsibility for introducing new people into the enterprise and to help them learn its culture and style and quickly fit in.

This workshop is designed for organizations who have adopted such a plan, and who want both mentors and those they mentor to understand what the mentoring program is about, what both players need to bring to the process and what skills they have to use to make this growth partnership succeed.


What's Covered

1. What mentoring consists of, what the role of a mentor is, how mentors are ideally chosen, how mentoring differs from coaching or other forms of counseling and personal development.
   
   
2. An analysis of the roles of both mentors and mentees, what each brings to the mentoring encounter and what commitment each makes to this process
   
   
3. A detailed discussion of the content of mentoring conversations, including the following:
   
   
   • Information about the agency’s culture
   • Unwritten “house rules” that all newcomers need to know about
   • Help in meeting people and gaining visibility
   • Information about the styles and idiosyncrasies of major players in the work group
   • Information about moving into the larger community, if that is an issue
   • Agreements on how often, where and under what circumstances to have further mentoring conversations
   • How to contact the mentor when significant problems arise
     
     
   Both mentor and mentee should add other items to this list that are relevant for this mentee and the specific circumstance
   
   
4. Issues of mentoring ethics and confidentiality
   
   
5. A quick review of classic one-on-one counseling tools and techniques that most mentors find useful
   
   
6. Potential problems and hurdles in the relationship and how to address them
   
   
7. How to deal with a poor match
   
   
8. How to recognize when the mentoring relationship has served its purpose and bring it to successful closure

1. Mentors who have taken this course tend to prepare for their mentoring conversations by giving reflective thought to what they want to say, rather than “winging it” and then providing a string of clichés and windy bromides.
   
   
2. They tend to also think about the general directions these conversations should go in and have a sense of directed movement. Hence, their conversations have a great deal of substance and are seen by mentees as useful.
   
   
3. They tend to see their role as focused on the needs of the mentee, and not on their own needs to appear smart or wise. As a result they tend to listen better, to be alert to unexpressed needs and to try to elicit that person’s thoughts and supportive of pursuing them.
   
   
4. They tend to honor their time commitments

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