National Mentoring Day Mentors are truly magnificent people who share their time, energy and experience with someone else. They guide and encourage, they challenge and confront, but most of all they support and listen. My first real mentor was an ex-boss. He gave me my first job as a graduate and watched out for me […]
How to Help a Coachee or Mentee Develop Presence
How to help a coachee or mentee develop presence “Presence” is one of those easily recognisable but hard to define qualities. It plays a significant role in how we assess competence, promotability and other factors that make or break reputation and careers. So what exactly is presence? A pragmatic definition is: “Influencing others simply by […]
How Mentoring Can Help Introverts Become Great Leaders
The Importance of Formal Mentoring for High Potential Introverts Research has shown (and intuitively we all know) that extroverts tend to be more successful in the corporate world. The Truity Psychometrics study, for example, showed that extroverts earn substantially more than introverts and are more likely to reach senior managerial roles. Extroverts just seem naturally […]
Business case for mentoring programs in organisations
Is there a proven business case for mentoring programs in organisations? My esteemed colleague Professor David Clutterbuck, a leading researcher and writer on coaching and mentoring, recently told a group of our clients that “highly effective mentoring programs deliver substantial learning for over 95% of mentees and 80% of mentors”. But is there real evidence […]
How to help your mentee manage loneliness
How to recognise and help your coachee or mentee manage loneliness It’s a common misconception that loneliness is about isolation from or lack of contact with other people. In reality, people differ greatly in how they respond to being on their own. So, what is loneliness? Loneliness is a feeling of being socially isolated that […]
Selecting and using an executive coach
Selecting and using an executive coach Executive coaches are used mainly by senior managers or professionals, to help them work on specific aspects of their performance. As a relatively expensive resource, it’s important to understand why you will benefit from having an executive coach, what the outcomes of the relationship will be and what kind […]
Tips for Successfully Marketing a Mentoring Program
Top Tips for Successfully Marketing Your Association’s Mentoring Program Few years ago, Associations Now wrote about the importance of mentoring for membership retention, but what makes the program successful? No matter how well-conceived and run your association mentoring program is, its success will ultimately be determined by your ability to engage and excite your membership. The […]
Men Mentoring Women: Can It Change the System?
Men Mentoring Women: Can It Change the System? Like many women (and men), I believe that ‘the system’ itself needs to change before the female half of our population will be appropriately represented in the echelons of power. (By the system, I mean the ingrained habits, behaviours and rewards in place in most work environments […]
Lapsed members: making the call
Lapsed members: making the call! Guest blog from Optimum Contact Retaining a membership base is a real challenge for associations, and it’s a problem that is not going away. Conservative sources estimate that it costs up to ten times more to acquire a new member than it does to keep an existing one. According to association […]
Working with SUIs – Significant Unresolved Issues
Working with SUIs – Significant Unresolved Issues The concept of SUIs – Significant Unresolved Issues arose from David Clutterbuck’s unpublished research in the 1990s on what issues mentees brought to their mentors for discussion. Participants in workshops were asked to write down and reflect upon all the issues, about which they felt a level of anxiety […]