What is Mentoring?
Mentoring combines the skills of counselling, coaching and advising. It is a process of building creative partnerships to enhance individual and organisational learning and increase the intellectual capital of the organisation.

All organisations have vast storehouses of experience, talent and creativity most of which is locked away inside the people who work there. Mentoring is one of the key methods to unlock this great potential and links in to other initiatives such as knowledge management, recruitment and training.

Old as the Hills
It is not something new, it was a method of teaching applied in ancient Greece. Mentor was the name of the man chosen to advise Telemachus the son of Odysseus.

It is about the sharing of Wisdom between the mentor and his/her protegee. It is akin to the ancient traditions of guilds and apprenticeships but with less secrecy and a much wider remit. It promotes more trust and openness and is carried out in a systematic way.

The Benefits
The Learning Organisation begins and continues with a well designed Mentoring programme. Some of the typical benefits are:

• Knowledge and know-how centred in a few, is accessible to many more people.
• Improvement in customer satisfaction (both internal and external).
• Prevention of organisational dysfunction.
• Barriers across departments dissolve, creating greater organisational cooperation.
• New recruits are brought on in a fast and systematic way.
• Post-merger consolidation with less pain and loss.
• Networking contacts are increased.
• Career development expanded.
• Self development integrated with 360' competency profiles.
• Better leadership development programmes built in to organisational payoffs.
• People delight in being able to help others and receive guidance from a wise friend.
• Support of other corporate initiatives to reap greater rewards.