The idea that the only way to get ahead is by earning a college degree has grown deep roots in recent years. As evidence, consider the fact that few high schools offer shop classes any longer. The lack of industrial training at that age may exacerbate the difficulties many foresee in the future for maintenance and manufacturing in this country. Factor in the difficulties associated with diversity initiatives, the retirement-induced brain drain and every other reason you can think of to explain our current state of affairs.
So, you hire who you can get, even though maintenance is getting to be a pretty sophisticated field of endeavor. Consider the cost to train that new employee. No doubt about it; you’re going to need to do some in-house education, even if your newbie already has a college degree. One-on-one training is a viable approach. That’s why I’m taking you on another dive into the morass we call the Web. Let me show you the practical, zero-cost, noncommercial, registration-free Web resources that will help you with mentoring, from both sides of the table. Remember, we search the Web so you don't have to.
In the ivory tower
Mentoring is a practice more commonly encountered in the education field than in the plant environment. Its purpose in the academic venue, obviously, is to enhance the teacher’s performance and the student’s educational experience. As you might suspect, sometimes things go awry and the effort turns out to be a waste of time. It’s not fair to place the blame on the new teacher, though. Teach your mouse to visit www.educationminnesota.org/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=9688, and you’ll be able to read “Six qualities of the good mentor,” an article by James B. Rowley, an associate professor at the University of Dayton. The piece reveals the basic and essential mentor qualities he’s identified, along with the implications these qualities have for designing your mentor program.
The British connection
Andrew Gibbons, an independent management and development consultant in Gloucestershire, U.K., includes mentoring training in his marketing mix. Naturally, part of his Web site is dedicated to the topic. Gibbons certainly provides a rich environment, but many of his hyperlinks lead to Word documents instead of HTML pages, a configuration that slows down your browsing experience. Nevertheless, if you’re not in too much of a hurry to absorb wisdom about mentoring, pay a visit to www.andrewgibbons.co.uk/mentoring.html for a good grounding.
Management Mentors in Brighton, Mass., a consultancy led by Rene Petrin, also offers information about the topic. Send your desk rodent to www.management-mentors.com and focus on the left side of the screen. Clicking “FAQ” brings you, amazingly enough, the answers to about 20 relevant inquiries. For example, did you know that mentoring and coaching aren’t synonymous? When you finish with the questions, go back and look for the “best practices in mentoring” link. Clicking it opens another page that asks you to register before it will reveal the 43 slides in the PowerPoint presentation. Ignore that invasion of privacy. Instead, click on the “view the presentation” link, just as if you are already registered. A new window should open to reveal the content.
The craft guild
It could be the case that a plant would benefit by reverting to the old ways whereby a skilled worker teaches an apprentice or new worker how to do what needs to be done. That’s getting to be almost like the guild system in Europe between the 11th and 16th centuries. If such an approach might work for your organization, you might be interested in reading “Inclusive Mentoring” by J.A. West, found at www.production-machining.com/columns/1101last.html. In his article, West describes, in a bare-bones sort of way, the six-step program that you can use to establish a practical, hands-on, in-house training program. All you need to do is fill in the blanks with a plant-specific approach.
The homebrew approach
Robin Chandler and Jo Ellen Grzyb are the owners of Impact Factory, a London, U.K.-based consultancy that focuses on professional personal development. The two published “How to use a Coach or Mentor” at www.impactfactory.com/gate/coaching_mentoring_skills_training/fungate_1740-4103-11306.html. Because most companies lack a formal mentoring program, Chandler and Grzyb show you how to establish your own unofficial personal mentoring program in the plant. After all, we each fill a perhaps narrow niche in our organizations and we’re expected to know it all, aren’t we. The problem is that maybe we don’t know it all. Asking for help just before everything hits the proverbial fan is inefficient, at best. Their article starts by showing you how to avoid feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed about asking for support. There’s a lot on this site, but if you explore, be aware that the material associated with the “Jolly Good Read” requires registration to access it. Of the free material, about half conforms to the concept of content as we define it here at magazine central.
Going solo
A person who wants a mentor but has no formal program to turn to is forced to go it alone. The upside is that constructing a customized program can provide more benefit than can be achieved through an existing program. The downside is the amount of work and diligence needed to plan and execute it. Because self-reliance is such a good thing, you might want to investigate the offering from the Office for Women, Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women Inc. “Mentoring for Women” is a 22-page self-help PDF document designed to help you prepare and plan the mentoring experience as well as choose the optimal mentor and execute your plan. Hop your mouse Down Under to www.wis.sa.gov.au/publications/OFW_Mentoring_A5.pdf to get the goods, mate.
Alike, only different
The degree of match between a mentor and a protégé is a key variable in the success of the mentoring initiative. The players are, after all, real people, not mass produced, predictable pieces of machinery. You can imagine the pros and cons that result from matching similar and different personalities. Richard Hale reviewed the available literature on the subject and concluded that similarity breeds rapport and difference breeds learning. Before you develop your mentoring plan, be sure to read “To Match or Mis-Match?” at www.mentorresearch.net/tomixormatch.htm.
For women only
Much has been written about females being relatively under-represented in the industrial maintenance arena. To the extent that a lack of mentoring is to blame for that sad state of affairs, I recommend a look at “Cross Gender Mentoring” by Rajashi Ghosh. The paper is the result of her survey of the extant research on cross-gender mentoring, a good idea that can be thwarted in many ways. Specifically, Ghosh cites research on factors that affect mentoring, the reasons for cross-gender mentoring, the different needs of male and female protégés, benefits and problems of cross-gender mentoring, pitfalls in formal cross-gender mentoring and the alternatives to traditional cross-gender mentoring. The unexpected part was the discussion of the disadvantages of woman-to-woman mentoring dyads. The details are at www.indiainfoline.com/bisc/ari/cros.pdf.
Head, heart, hands and health
Mentoring is a person-to-person activity that can occur anywhere people gather. The concept has been around for a while now and will remain a viable means of knowledge transfer for the foreseeable future because it can address immediate problems that society encounters. Navigate your way to www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/citizenship/DH6447.html and you can access “Mentoring in the '90s and Beyond” by Sheryl Nefstead and Scott Nefstead, both with the Center for 4-H Youth Development, which is part of the University of Minnesota Extension Service. Besides giving a brief history of mentoring, the article discusses the importance of having a recruitment plan and the components of such a plan. It even lists some of the recruitment methods they’ve found helpful, but you’ll need to improvise your own in-plant recruitment methods, as those the Nefsteads listed are aimed at the general community. They also suggest that you have some sort of public recognition to compensate the participants for the time they devote to the program.
Can you do it?
Being someone’s mentor doesn’t confer dictatorial rights to specify what that person does or how they are to do it. Nay, my friend, mentoring requires acting in more of a civilized and supportive activity, a skill that might be sorely lacking in some quarters. For those of you in readerland who might be interested in trying out for the mentor role, I’d recommend investigating www.rexelarchive.com/drupal-4.4.2/node/view/87, where you’ll find “Become a Mentor: Step into a Long and Rewarding Journey” by Mark Lamendola. Here is where you can learn about the eight potential benefits that accrue to a mentor, an expose of two misconceptions and at least seven of the possible roles that an effective mentor can fill. Audition for the role. The world needs you.
The down side
An obvious purpose of having a mentoring program is to give the subordinate employee higher visibility in the company than what could be achieved going it alone. The degree to which the mentoring effort is successful in this respect depends on a smooth interaction between the two personalities involved. It’s this people factor that can make the experience go sour for either party. Office politics being what it is, however, it’s usually the subordinate person who suffers the most. That pain can take many forms, says Lillian Eby, a psychologist who has studied the phenomenon. A summary of her results was published in Business Week a few years ago. Steer your subordinate mouse to www.businessweek.com/careers/content/apr2001/ca20010417_638.htm and it will bring home “The Hidden Pitfalls of Mentoring.” It’s a good document to have on-hand if your organization decides to institute a mentoring program.
Without comment
www.prepcenter.org/pt_m_rsch_pl.htm
www.edu.salford.ac.uk/scd/documents/docs/Mentoringonlinepaper.rtf
www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/ResourceCentre/Articles/ViewArticle.asp?artId=51