ASQ Mentoring Program Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is mentoring?
Mentoring is a powerful and popular way for people to learn a variety of personal and professional skills. In fact, mentoring is one of the oldest forms of influence.
Most adults can identify a person who, at some time in their life, had a significant and positive impact on them. Mentors can be friends, relatives, co-workers, teachers, as well as historic or contemporary personalities. Most often, a mentor is a more experienced or older person who acts as a role model, challenger, guide or cheerleader.
Mentoring has helped people in business with career advancement, problem solving, coaching, and support. In addition, mentors can assist protégés on how to deal with the challenges associated with successful, productive, meaningful work life.
Back to top...
What's a mentor?
The broad definition is this: an experienced person who goes out of his/her way to help a protégé set important career goals and develop the skills to reach them. An informal mentor provides coaching, listening, advice, sounding board reactions, or other help in an unstructured, casual manner. A formal or enhanced informal mentor agrees to an ongoing, planned partnership that focuses on helping the protégé reach specific goals over a designated period.
Back to top...
What do mentors and protégés do together?
Here are several of the common activities: talking together (e.g., about the protégé's past experiences, goals, plans, and skills; the mentor's career path; useful problem-solving strategies); attending meetings, conferences, and other events together (and discussing these later); working together on activities; role-playing situations faced by the protégé; exchanging and discussing written materials (such as a document written by the protégé or an article valued by the mentor); interacting with other people (including persons who could be of help to the protégé and other mentor-protégé pairs).
Back to top...
Who should manage the relationship?
Protégés will manage the mentoring experiences. Since it's the protégés' lives and careers, what's accomplished is directly more important to them than to their mentors. What's more, mentors are usually very busy and have limited time.
Mentors can guide the initial arrangements (e.g., goals to work on, how long the partnerships will exist, when the pairs will meet, confidentiality expectations, and the like), while protégés will monitor and adjust progress as the pair goes along. Ideally, the protégés will also end the mentoring aspect of the relationships at the agreed-upon time on a positive note.
Back to top...
What are some of the problems that can occur in mentoring relationships?
Not enough time and energy to spend on the mentoring relationship; protégés unsure of their objectives; unreasonable expectations of each other; one member taking unfair advantage of the other; lack of mentoring skills on the part of the mentors or protégés.
Back to top...
How can these problems be prevented or solved?
Both parties should aim for realistic, focused goals and maximize their time by using the phone, e-mail, and other timesaving strategies. Mentors and protégés should talk honestly about their relationships, including expectations, limits, preferred ways of interacting, and the fact that they'll need to part one day. Mentors and protégés should work on improving their mentoring skills.
Back to top...
What is the ASQ Mentoring Program?
ASQ is currently piloting a Mentoring Program with 34 individuals: 11 mentors and 23 protégés. The pilot will be approximately six month in time. Mentors will provide profiles from which a protégé can select. Mentors and protégés will be matched and introduced. The relationship can launch in any appropriate, professional direction from there, from formal to informal mentoring.
During the pilot program, ASQ staff will check-in with both the mentors and the protégés to check on the success of their mentoring experience and gather feedback about the program. Your honest feedback is greatly appreciated as we continue to develop the program.
Back to top...
How does it work?
Mentors complete an application and provide a profile for protégés to review. Protégés identify their top three selections from the mentor candidates. As much as possible, protégés will be matched with their top selection if mutually agreed upon. Protégés and mentors will be introduced. If the relationship is mutually agreed upon, the mentoring experience can begin.
Back to top...
Want to know more?
See our Related Links to learning about mentoring.
Back to top...
|
