by
Lois J. Zachary |
We
know little about how the famed Mentor in The Odyssey "mentored"
Odysseus’s son Telemachus. Perhaps he was a loyal and trusted counsel
or a dispenser of wisdom and truth. Brilliant and appreciated as he was,
perhaps his tactic for avoiding decapitation was to take on some components
of the role that Lois Zachary describes as "facilitative partner
in an evolving learning relationship focused on meeting mentee goals and
objectives."
Mentoring from Zachary’s perspective has less to do with the transmission of knowledge and more with a process-oriented relationship involving knowledge acquisition, application, and critical reflection. The role is about mentor and mentee learning together rather than "mentor cloning" or the mentor projecting his/her own lived experience on the mentee. Mentoring is about facilitating self-directed adult learning.
The Mentor’s Guide focuses on the mentor’s key tasks and facilitative processes for enhancing learning. It focuses less on psychological milestones and projected time frames and more on "the process tools, strategies, and techniques for operationalizing the mentoring process." Readers learn how to assess their readiness to become a mentor and prepare for mentoring relationships; establish the mentor relationship for the benefit of both mentor and mentee; determine appropriate goals; monitor progress; avoid pitfalls; conclude the relationship; and create a mentoring culture. Zachary is a master at breaking down complex visions and theories into doable steps and tasks in order to achieve results. She satisfies the need of new and not-so-new practitioners to learn "tools and techniques."
The book includes how-to’s, but is no mere recipe book. Its prescriptions are based on the best research on adult education and adult learning theory. Being a graduate of Zachary’s alma mater, Columbia University Teachers College, I was impressed by the book’s references to solid theorists like Laurent Daloz, Stephen Brookfield, Sharon Merriam, and my own mentors Jack Mezirow and Malcolm Knowles. This is a book with theoretical depth, experiential groundedness, and practical application.
The Mentor’s Guide is to mentoring what Facilitating Group Decision Making (by Sam Kaner and associates) is to decision-making. Both books give practitioners detailed directions for facilitating complex relationships and processes, in a graphic and appealing manner, appropriate to both novice and experienced professionals.
Part of the book’s appeal to OD practitioners is that the author is one of us. Lois Zachary is principal of Leadership Development Services, "a consulting firm that offers leadership education and training for corporate and nonprofit organizations." Like us, she is involved in organizational change or organizational effectiveness efforts that sometimes involve mentoring, coaching mentors, and designing and implementing mentoring programs.
I appreciate many features of the book. The Mentor’s Guide acknowledges how mentoring today is more goal-oriented and short-term than in times past; how mentoring is sometimes done long-distance using various communication technologies; and, how mentoring today involves cross-cultural considerations. I appreciate the descriptions of the phases of mentoring (like Flawless Consulting's stages of consulting): preparing, negotiating, enabling, and coming to closure. I’m sure other consultants like myself will also appreciate the appendix on creating a mentoring culture in organizations.
What appeals to me most, however, is Zachary’s sensitivity to the preparation of the mentor. Many authors who are good at "operationalizing" theory seem to operate out of the mechanistic assumption that if you follow the prescribed steps you will produce a quality product. Not so for Zachary. She reminds us that as mentors we are most effective when we are willing to keep an eye on our own journeys and model self-observation and self-reflection.
One of the greatest challenges for me as a mentor within a university setting is to maintain a willingness to be self-aware and receive feedback. Because our Organizational Psychology MA program focuses on self-awareness over knowledge-transfer or tools and techniques, my work requires that I be conscious of the lenses I use to perceive and interact, and that I be keenly aware of the distinction between my journey and those of the students. When I see clearly that I perceive through my own lenses and clearly understand those lenses, I am more able to help students see and understand their lenses. When I self-observe, I am more able to detach from my cherished self-identity of the moment, seek out and receive feedback, and so model the learning process with the students. As Zachary writes in her excellent section on feedback (pp. 130-136), "There is no greater contribution to mentee learning than the gift a mentor provides by giving and receiving ongoing, honest, constructive feedback. Expanding the capacity of a mentee to do the same promotes competence, inspires confidence, and enriches the learning experience."
A relationship that involves self-observation and feedback requires preparation. I appreciate that Zachary emphasizes this phase and provides tools like her chart on "Strategies and Considerations for Initial Conversations" (p. 91). This tilling of the soil sets the arena for the mentoring relationship. The arena, of course, is never really set. Arenas are always a work in progress. We revisit and broaden our arenas as we go along.
I prefer to go a step further with mentees than Zachary does in the preparation phase. I guide my colleagues into a self-examination question that probes the ontology of our commitment to the learning process. I ask us a question I learned from Maria Nemeth, coach and author of The Energy of Money, "Who am I willing to be in order to produce an extraordinary result out of our interactions?" (In other words, what attributes of being am I willing to call forth and contribute to the mentoring arena?) To begin, I share the attributes that I wish to manifest. Depending on the circumstances and the challenges I face in the mentoring relationship, I may say that I am willing to be supportive, appreciative, empowering, vulnerable, and creative. Or, attentive, clear, focused, open, and enthusiastic. Or, any combination of these and other states of being. I then invite my colleagues to do the same. In effect, this mutual self-disclosure brings spaciousness to the mentoring relationship. It helps us see more clearly that each of us is bigger than our thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs, and moods — whatever may hold us back from learning. It demonstrates that each of us is naturally qualified to be the loving, learning beings that we are, and to contribute generously to each other and to our world.
I am grateful to Zachary and The Mentor’s Guide for reminding me of the primacy of learning over knowledge-transfer. Mentoring or facilitating learning relationships is about staying focused on the learning goals of my colleagues and cultivating my willingness to continue learning. Treat yourself to a good book.
Jossey-Bass, July 2000, 195 pages, $25.95, hardcover, ISBN:_0-7879-4742-3
Maurice L. Monette, Ed.D., is Leadership Consultant and Chair, Organizational Psychology MA Program, at John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California