Category Archives: Blog

Millennial Mentoring

Millennial Mentoring. Rewarding relationships = retention. Growing the next generation of talented workers and business leaders is always a challenge, now perhaps more so than ever. What has become clear over the past few years is that the millennial generation (those people born between 1984 and 2012) has a markedly different outlook on work than […]

Career Advice: What to do when the Mentee has No Clear Career Goals?

The “sweet spot” on career advice When it comes to career advice, it makes mentoring a lot easier, when the mentee knows exactly where they want to go in their career. The trouble is, many mentees – particularly those in the early stages of their careers – have only a general sense of direction (if […]

Procrastinating and How to Stop It!

Procrastinating or procrastination, is typically a repeating cycle with four stages: Putting off something we aren’t positively motivated (energised) to do Feeling guilty Reduced self-esteem and self-efficacy Reduced energy, which makes us more likely to put things off Coaches and mentors can help clients break the vicious cycle of procrastinating by firstly helping them to […]

How Mentoring Can Facilitate Acquisition

The immediate aftermath of an acquisition poses a number of major challenges. While many of these challenges relate to integration of systems and structures, the people challenges are often the most difficult and long lasting. In particular: Ensuring that senior level talent does not leave. Headhunters target merger situations, because the uncertainty causes people to […]

Coaching: How Much Should Line Managers Give Direct Reports?

Coaching: it’s a natural assumption that the more coaching and mentoring a line manager gives his or her direct reports, the greater the positive impact on performance and engagement. In reality, however, according to a study by Gartner[1], there is very little correlation. The study suggests instead that quantity of coaching is much less important than […]

Why Boards Can’t Let #MeToo Scare Them

Why Boards Can’t Let #MeToo Scare Them Off Diversity Mentoring Recent research by Art of Mentoring showed a marked increase in the percentage of men who are nervous about working alone with women in a post #MeToo world.  No doubt there are also board members and executives with growing concerns about the perceptions of men […]

MENTORS: Help Your Mentee Thrive

MENTORS: How to Use Positive Psychology to Help Your Mentee to Thrive Over the last two decades a new branch of psychological study has taken academia, education and workplaces by storm.  Known as “positive psychology”, it is basically the study of what makes life worth living. Rather than focusing on helping the sick to “get […]

Coaching and Mentoring as Conversations About Context

Coaching and Mentoring as Conversations About Context If coaches and mentors rarely, if ever, offer advice, what do they do? They offer context. Context is “relevant information, which the learner does not hold, but which may have a significant effect upon the quality of the decisions they take”. Context might include: Feedback the learner hasn’t […]

What Do Mentees Fear Most?

What do mentees fear most? A mentor enters a mentoring relationship knowing she has skills and knowledge to share with her mentee.  Naturally this makes the mentor feel pretty good.  Not only is she a decent and generous person, willing to share her expertise; she is also a person of value, having expertise worth sharing. […]