CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

WHY MENTORING?

APEGGA recognizes the benefit to society of mentoring and how it supports the goals of every organization. The transfer of skills and knowledge from experienced professionals to less experienced professionals in the organization provides continuity, succession management and continued learning for all involved. Mentoring empowers younger professionals with skills they may traditionally have acquired through trial and error.

Becoming a new professional or MIT can be similar to climbing an unknown mountain without a map or a guide. New climbers may do all right on the lower slopes, but when the going gets tougher they may fall. If they have a guide to help them up and to point out the dangers ahead, they may safely climb higher. On the other hand, without a guide, their next fall may end their career as a climber. All members of APEGGA are encouraged to be actively involved in mentoring activities, either as mentors (guides) or protégés (climbers).

To that end, APEGGA is committed to assisting the mentoring program by facilitating the formation of effective mentoring relationships. This handbook is designed to provide a map to mentorship for mentors, protégés and their managers.

It should not be used as the only resource. APEGGA encourages you to consult the print and electronic references available on the APEGGA web site. Colleagues in other professional associations are also excellent sources of background material on mentoring. There is even a Coaching and Mentoring for Dummies available at your local bookstore.

In today’s workplace, two types of mentoring relationships are generally recognized – informal and facilitated. The APEGGA Mentoring Program is a hybrid of these two styles. In general, mentor/protégé relationships will receive some initial facilitation through workshops, written support materials and possibly through software. The mentor and protégé are then responsible for establishing goals and timelines for their individual mentoring relationships, working toward them and evaluating their efforts. The program is designed to last for one year with personal evaluation at the end of six and 12 months.

This handbook provides best practices, advice and hands-on worksheets that will enable both mentors and protégés to enter into a relationship more confident of each party’s expectations and what can be accomplished. You will find that to work effectively, the relationship should be driven by the protégé whose goals you are trying to achieve. This advice is provided as a result of extensive literature research and working with Alberta companies in launching their mentoring programs in the APEGGA Mentoring Pilot Project. It is strongly recommended that both protégés and mentors keep track of how their relationship is developing by keeping a logbook.

When climbing a mountain, the person on the other end of the lifeline is the most important person on the planet. Mentors hold a lifeline for their protégés.