The P's of Mentoring

Mentorship:
"the activity of giving a younger or less experienced person help and advice over a period of time, especially at work or school"

Hi Luis

You are starting with the assumption that ALWAYS the new team member is less experienced than the PM. This is not true in most cases.

As Peter has already said the mentor must be from the same profession as the one that is being mentored otherwise this would not work. In an engineering project, for example, a very experienced PM can't mentor an entry level engineer if the PM is not himself an experienced engineer in the field of the entry level engineer.

The PM can be a mentor for a new project team members in the following situations:

1) the new team member is an entry level project management specialist that is being assigned to the project as some sort of project coordinator or junior/assistant PM
2) the PM is also an experienced SME in the field of the new team member, and the new team member is less experienced in that field.

In addition if the new team member aspires to become a PM or becoming a PM is a promotion then also he can be mentored by the project manager.

If becoming a PM is not on the normal career path of the new team member then it would be a waste of time to try to mentor him in project management.

It depends on the project and organization, and the complexity of the project.

Dear Luis,

We touched on coaching versus mentoring on previous posts. I would not see it as standard practice for newly inducted team members to have the project manager as their mentor. Sometimes they maybe budded up with a more experienced team member. Mentoring is more about talent management and identifying someone who is at an early stage in their career who has potential and assigning an person of experience to develop this potential into tangible results. As for practicing the 3P's, normally people are assigned to mentors based on the mentors personality and their own personality. Mentors may take different approaches to unlock potential that does involve a degree of patience and perseverance and that requires commitment from both parties involved.

Daire

Dear Thomas
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion

Is there a difference between mentoring and coaching for you?

Dear Luis,

I find in these modern times a readiness to dilute things that from what there are and bringing them into the mainstream. I would stick by my original point and say mentoring is the exception not the norm and what is more common in the work place is either coaching, training or simply helping out your fellow work colleague who is new to the team. Nothing out of the ordinary; all in a days work.

Daire

Luis,

yes, mentoring and coaching are different in most definitions, and there are different views too.

For me, mentoring is a 1:1 longterm relationship based on mutual trust with the goal of individual development and independent feedback. Trust is better built if mentor and mentee have no other (professional or private) relationship, so there is no conflict of interest or reluctance to share problems. Hence I say project managers should not be mentors of team members.

In contrast, I see coaching as 1:n (n could be 1) activity to close skill or knowledge gaps in a professional role. It not necessarily is based on trust, though this would help. It is rather based on a business need. All project managers must be able to coach in order to help team members understand and fullfil their roles. We use external coaches to convey abilities to the team/individuals. We use career coaches to analyse where people stand, develop a career path for them and select the appropriate steps to close the gaps.

I am currently (and always was) mentoring up to 10 people from areas where I have no insights in their professional knowledge, for example a game designer looking for job or a apprentice refugee coping with German culture and language or a soldier trying to understand global culture.

Dear Daire
Thank you for your opinion

Just different approaches

I was fortunate to have a mentor who not only shared technical aspects with me but also behavioral ones

Dear Luis,

Different approaches require different solutions, but ultimately the result trying to be achieved by coaching is skilling up while mentoring is more focusing on personal development.

Daire

Dear Luis,

Different approaches require different solutions, but ultimately the result trying to be achieved by coaching is skilling up while mentoring is more focusing on personal development.

Daire