Skip to main content

Real world, Virtual world….Where in the World Have I been Mentoring?



It's been a year since I last showed up on my virtual world here - a year of much increased individual mentoring.

Right after my last blog post here, I was pleased to be selected as a mentor for the Aspire Foundation and for the Cherie Blair Foundation - 2 wonderful mentee women, one who was in the midst of a leadership opportunity in the midst of an organizational reorganization and the other an established health business owner who has been working to expand her business (both clients and product offerings), add a stable of employees, and also grow herself as well.

I have also been mentoring public health professionals studying for MPHs at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health – in this past academic year, one just starting her career and the other who is a mid-career professional who is expanding his evaluation skills.

These experiences are all long-term mentoring where we meet together every 2-4 weeks over 6-12 months or longer.

In addition, I have had shorter-term mentoring interactions with 9 other professionals ranging in their professional growth from a new public health researcher who is working while starting her prerequisites for her MPH studies to a woman who is well skilled and with many decades of experience but who wants to move from the domestically-focused work she has been doing leading large research projects into more direct technical work in global development settings.

What are the differences between these 2 groups? Here’s what I’ve seen, admittedly with a limited sample!

Those seeking Long-Term Mentoring are generally looking for career advice and ideas on professional growth areas for focusing. They feel they are at a crossroads and want to talk things through. I’ve also found that they want to develop and build on a long-term plan to move their professional growth to a new level. The regular, ongoing contact provides them with an external connection that keeps them on track with their professional growth plan so they do not get sidetracked by the busy-ness of their lives. Over time in the mentoring sessions, we review the complex threads of their lives as contributors to their moving to the next level. In between the sessions, each mentee and I agree on what the focus for the next period is. And we know when we’re done – when the mentee identifies that they’ve achieved what they had been seeking.

The people I’ve worked with who are in the category of Short-Term Mentoring have targeted, specific questions for immediate information. They need to be able to verbalize their plans and want to bounce ideas off me. They are usually not looking for solving life-plan issues, but are often contemplating making a move. They describe themselves as stuck – and one to a few mentoring sessions help them get moving again.

The commonalities…? That’s the next blog post – and there will be one quite soon.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mentor: Barbara Rawlins, Monitoring and Evaluation Team Leader, Maternal and Child Survival Program

Another feature of this blog is bringing you advice and perspectives from people who mentor, by answering 3 questions. Here are  Barbara Rawlins ’  responses: What are mentees looking for? ·  Career guidance ·  Technical advice ·  Moral support ·  Advice on how to negotiate politically-sensitive or controversial situation What 1 piece of advice do you give every mentee you work with? Figure out what they want to do (in the long term) and what steps they can take to get there Why are you interested in mentoring? To support younger colleagues, especially women, to help attain their career goals
20 comments
Read more

A mentor is like a mirror: Even a senior (expert) needs - and wants - mentoring #mentor (SueMentors.Blogspot.com)

I haven’t been posting for the past 3 months because of an extremely busy time. But I have been mentoring – and in ways that were surprising to me. In July-September, we at Social & Scientific Systems (SSS) were unexpectedly were facing the sooner-than-expected project close-out, and it meant that several staff needed to be looking for new jobs. I wasn’t surprised that some of the staff – mostly those still early in their careers – were asking for my help in updating their resumes. I was more surprised to have two very senior and experienced professionals ask for my help. When they gave me their resumes to review before we met, I realized that both were examples of why a mentor can be useful, no matter how far along you are in your career. One had an illustrious and varied career and many qualifications prior to coming to SSS two years ago. But her resume read like someone who had just finished graduate school. She was very detailed in listing all the things she did (both in her SS
2 comments
Read more

A Decade of SueMentors Mentoring!

The just-finishing 2019 marks a decade of my “formal” SueMentors mentoring. As I reflected on the decade over the last months of 2019, I realized I have learned so much – but haven’t always let mentees and other supporters know that. So I went back to my program-evaluation career and put together an infographic to summarize the 10 years. This shows you what I’ve learned from mentees, the ways mentees have shaped  my delivery of short- and longer-term mentoring, and how I’ve been able to expand from 1-to-1 mentoring to more 1-to-many methods that meet people where they are. Many thanks to the decade of mentees I’ve worked with directly: Mentees who connected through a mentoring program or a “self-referral” or a referral to me from someone else S everal of you who “discovered” me from an online source S ome who I’ve met in person at conferences or by happenstance (like waiting for ride-shares) T hose who have re-contacted me And a special thanks to Kristina Davis,
4 comments
Read more