Maximise your mentoring experience

A message from one of our ‘serial’ mentors, Dennis Roberts: If you’ve invested in a mentoring program how can you ensure you get the biggest bang for your buck? Some twenty years ago the concept of Adult Learning emerged and has grown in popularity ever since. It holds significance for the mentoring experience. Simply put, adult learning acknowledges that the student comes equipped with knowledge, skills and experience. The whole educational experience relies on the student to set the learning agenda. It is therefore incumbent on the mentor to use this learning as a resource. The mentoring engagement brings live-in-the field challenges and opportunities. There is a learning loop that oscillates between Do-Learn and Learn-Do. The well orchestrated dance is from insight to action and vice versa. There is always movement. Change is constant. You will make mistakes. That much is certain. But as the saying goes, ‘It’s not the cards that life deals you that matters. It’s how you play them.’ I wholeheartedly encourage my mentorees to identify how intuition presents itself in their lives. When it does, and it does often, there is only one path and that is to honour your intuition. It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about honouring yourself or not. If you are to make a mistake – make your own mistakes not someone else’s. Dennis Roberts www.CoachPRO.com.au