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TOPICS
1. The Power of Mentorship to Change a Life
2. The Year's Most Popular Book on Mentoring
3. Mentor Pairings Include the Well-Known from All Walks of Life
4. What's New from Mentoring Research
THE POWER OF MENTORSHIP TO CHANGE A LIFE
One of the features included in the print magazine, Compass: A Magazine for Peer Assistance, Mentorship and Coaching, is a series of stories told by or about participants in mentorship. The current issue, which can be accessed at <http://www.mentors.ca/Compassinfo.html>, contains a story told by "M.J.", a 51 year-old retired National Basketball Association forward. Here is his story:
"A turning point is what I would call the day I met "Mr. K." That's not a pseudonym to protect his identity; that's what everyone called him. He saw me looking through the chain-link fence while he and several others were playing basketball. During a break he just walked over to me and introduced himself and said, "I saw the way your eyes lit up when the ball went through the hoop. How'd you like to be able to do that just about every time?" He laughed and said, "No, I don't mean light up your eyes; I mean get the ball in the basket. Come on in, I'll show you how." Two years later after spending many hours on and off the court with Mr. K, I was selected to be a high school All-American. Only then did I tell him that his court side invitation prevented me from going through with my plan to rob a convenience store. I would've wound up in a very different court."
This issue of the magazine contains many articles that will be of value to mentor program leaders and consultants. A feature article by European Mentoring Centre Director, David Clutterbuck, lays out 57 performance criteria to use as possible standards for evaluating mentoring programs and suggests the types of evidence that can be collected to demonstrate each standard. And Eric Parsloe, the director of the Oxford School of Coaching and Mentoring shares his thoughts and references on diversity in mentoring programs.
This edition of Compass also includes a review of experienced manager and business executive James Hatherley's new book, Daring to be Different, in which the author makes a very convincing case that for a manager to be a good mentor, he or she must also be a true leader. The low cost of this book and the humorous examples as well as top notch writing and key principles elevate this book to consideration of purchasing multiple copies to give colleagues as gifts.
Additional articles focus on how to select worthwhile telecourses, a review of bridge line services for delivering a telecourse, expanding practice capacity by using a virtual assistant, activities to dispel myths about mentoring, brief reports on e-mentoring and corporate mentoring, techniques for screening "non-voluntary" mentors, how to use peer mentoring for new employee orientation, and first-hand stories illustrating the power of mentoring.
VISITORS RATE THE TOP BOOKS ON MENTORING
Our website <www.mentors.ca> maintains an up-to-date list of the best works on mentorship and includes brief reviews of each book or video. We also provide links to sources for book or video purchase and we keep track of the sales for all the works listed on our site.
For 2002 the most popular book as determined by visitor purchases at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca was The Mentoring Pocketbook by Geof Alred, Bob Garvey, and Richard Smith. This book is a pocketful of proven tips, tools, and techniques for mentors and mentees. It is an excellent book for experts or beginners as well as mentors and those seeking a mentor. Its formatting makes it easy and quick to read while at the same time providing readily useable ideas, activities, and concepts. The authors pay great attention to successful mentoring relationships, including the various roles, necessary qualities, and developmental stages, and they include an issues and questions section that covers not only concerns common to both mentors and partners, but also challenges faced by program coordinators. The authors place mentoring within the context of learning and show the reader how to use a simple process to make progress in any mentoring relationship. This book can be carried in a pocket and the authors have wisely included some blank pages for notes.
This book can be purchased from Amazon.com or from Amazon.ca.
(Note: Purchase of this book (and any others listed on the Peer Resources' site) using these links will generate a commission to Peer Resources. We donate the fees received to a non-profit program that provides clothing for homeless youth.)
MENTOR PAIRINGS INCLUDE THE WELL-KNOWN FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE
What do film director, Martin Scorsese, business investor, Warren Buffet, opera singer, Marian Anderson, television personality, Oprah Winfrey, and jazz master, Duke Ellington all have in common? If you said they are all mentors, then you've probably been examining our list of famous mentoring pairings at <http://www.mentors.ca>.
And if you have read the list closely, you would have also learned that scientists in California used mentoring to keep the California Condor from becoming extinct as well as found out that Richard Johnson, the vice-president of the US under Martin Van Buren had the middle name Mentor. These unusual facts plus hundreds of mentorship pairings from the arts, history, sports, politics, media, fashion, literature, movies and television are listed and continuously updated on our site.
If you are considering making a presentation about mentoring and what to include the names of well-known pairings or provide examples of books, movies or television shows that depict mentoring relationships, then visit our site at <http://www.mentors.ca>.
WHAT'S NEW FROM MENTORING LITERATURE
Peer Resources continually scans the professional and popular published literature to find articles of interest to people involved in mentoring. Two of several hundred recent additions to the searchable, annotated bibliography at <http://www.mentors.ca/SearchB.html> are:
Castro, M.E. (2002). A superintendent returns to her roots. Educational Leadership, 60, 3, 75-77.
A senior administrator describes her involvement as a mentor in a project-based mentoring system where adults work with students in the elementary school. In addition to helping the student with their projects the mentorship significantly influenced the learning for the mentor and renewed her enthusiasm for teaching and strengthened her relationship-building abilities with staff and students. (RAC)
Brady, T.J. (June 6, 2002). Mentoring program aids Philadelphia-area businesses. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1.
This article describes one of the partnerships formed as a result of the US Defense Department's Mentor-Protege program through which a large business mentors a smaller one. The two businesses described won an award for their cooperation and partnership. Eventhough they were in the same field, the larger business benefited from the cooperative arrangement. The mentor gains a trusted services provider and the smaller business gains greater exposure, better business practices, and strengthens its ability to handle larger contracts. Acting as a mentor cost the company about $15,000 which included 320 hours of employee time and was considered very inexpensive for the value received. (RAC)
WE WISH YOU ALL THE BEST FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON AND THE NEW YEAR!
