Why do you need 'mentors' ?

Whatever you call them as Teacher, Guru, Guide or whatever term these are the people who shape our lives in a better way and can develop positive mindset and 'hand-hold' us through our out lives. They guide us towards the path of achievement and mental atonement to develop our personality. They guide us in developing leadership skills and gain a personal sense of satisfaction from knowing that they've helped someone. Mentees or the students can expand their knowledge and skills, gain valuable advice from a more experienced person, and build their professional networks and relationships.

Mentors help us in skill set development, create a self awareness, advise us on situations and analyse our lives for us and show us the lacunae present in our personalities and our behaviours. They provide you with feedback on your actions as well as plans and provide the right kind of attitude and knowledge base for your future strategy. Mentors help you to identify your comfort zones and advise you how to step out of our comfort zones and value systems and hold or hands for walking into the new territories and don't leave us till we reach our destination.

How to find the right kind of Mentor for ourselves is not an easy task. A formal interview of appointment of a mentor is to schedule an initial conversation with him or her in which we clearly describe the guidance we're seeking and also confirm our willingness to do the necessary work and follow-through, we also need to acknowledge and respect the individual's time and effort and we must agree upon a compensation in terms of monthly payment for the services rendered should be agreed upon by the organisation. In the letter of appointment we need to mention clearly the Terms and Conditions on which the Mentor will be providing his services to the organisation is also necessary to be mentioned and the same needs to be signed by the Head of the Organisation and the Mentor both for good order's sake.

The inclusion of SMART Goals in the Appointment of Mentor is very much needed for an organisation. These must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. In an organisation mentoring is a process in which an experienced individual helps an organisation develop their goals and skills through a series of time-bound, confidential, one-on-one conversations and other learning activities. Both the organisation and Mentors also draw benefits from the mentoring relationship.

The successful organisations are running such 'Mentorship' by training mentors and mentees on their roles and expectations, with effective communication strategies, and relationship-building exercises. For mentors, this type of training tends to focus on ways to talk to and build trust with mentees and develop their skill sets as per the requirements of the organisation.