Mentoring resources

It's been a little while since I shared any mentoring resources, and since the deadline for applications for new mentors is fast approaching (there's still time to apply!), here are some resources for new mentors:

Guide for Mentoring: Do you want to be a mentor?
This includes what details in the role of a mentor, what it takes to be a good mentor, tips for a successful relationship, how to help your mentee learn and finally, what to do after goals have been achieved.

Guide for Mentoring: Appendix
Although this is a separate document from the one above, it is more or less a continuation. It includes questions and answers, common myths, useful websites and resources, a mentoring agreement and a feedback questionnaire. Although to some extent Databank Foundation will set the terms of your mentoring agreement and will provide mentees with a feedback questionnaire at the end of the programme, you are free to experiment with others.

If you'd like to apply for the next Young Leaders Mentorship Programme, click here for eligibility requirements and application details. If you know someone you think might like to apply, simply point them in our direction. The deadline's this Friday though, so you'll have to hurry!

Coming Soon: eBook Library

When we hit the 100 posts mark a couple days ago (yes 100, whoo!!), I began thinking of ways the blog could improve. After some thought, it occurred to me that I could introduce an 'eBook Library'. I'm open to suggestions, but here's how I think it should go. Anytime you come across an eBook you think might be helpful, just give me a shout and I'll put it up. I'll do the same whenever I find one. This doesn't necessarily have to be limited to just books per se, we could include fact sheets, dissertations... the whole nine yards. Over time, we should be able to build up quite a handy little 'library'. You'll be able to access the library under the eBook Library label up on the top of each page (along with About Us, Meet our Mentors, etc). I really hope it turns into something useful!

And speaking of the 100 post mark, I'd also like to take this time to say a huge thank you to all YLMP blog readers. Whether you're here for the first time (welcome!) or have been following for a while (welcome back!), your company means a lot. As usual, if you have any suggestions, comments or critiques, just let me know!

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

I'm sure you are all familiar with Stephen Covey's bestselling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. First published in 1989, it has sold over 15 million copies and has been translated into over 38 languages. We were toying with the possibility of adding this book to the reading list for this year, but we decided against it. It might feature in programmes to come though, so you might want to keep an eye out if you're a fan.

I've decided to a feature on it today because it's been a while since I've done anything on books. Which reminds me - if you've read anything that you think might be relevant to the Programme and what we're about (leadership, mentoring, development, etc) and would like to share, please let me know. You can have a look at all the books that have featured on the blog under the Books tag.

So, onto The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The title makes the message of the book pretty clear. On Stephen Covey's website, there is a brief breakdown of each habit. I'll share an excerpt of each (clicking on each habit will take you to the corresponding page on Covey's website):

Habit 1: Be proactive
Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather. All of these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power - you have the freedom to choose your response. One of the most important things you choose is what you say. Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself. A proactive person uses proactive language - I can, I will, I prefer, etc. A reactive person uses reactive language - I can't, I have to, if only. Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do - they have no choice.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
Habit 2 is based on imagination - the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill. Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.

Habit 3: Put first things first
Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation. This habit is where Habits 1 and 2 come together. It happens day in and day out, moment-by-moment. It deals with many of the questions addressed in the field of time management. But that's not all it's about. Habit 3 is about life management as well - your purpose, values, roles, and priorities. What are "first things?" First things are those things you, personally, find of most worth. If you put first things first, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities you established in Habit 2.

Cheat Sheet supplements

I was just over at Youthink! - the youth 'branch' of the World Bank - when I came across some fantastic information that I think can be used to supplement your Cheat Sheets. I'm particularly excited because everything is put together with the youth in mind. Even better, there is information that goes with almost all of our cheat sheets. Here are the links (pages are linked to the titles of our Cheat Sheet, not the web page itself):

Corruption
Environmental Cleanliness
Health & Personal Hygiene
Gender & Development

Each contains a wealth of information and has further links should you wish to look at them in more detail. The logo above is also a link - it will take you to a page with links to all the issues the site addresses. Youthink! also has a blog; unfortunately I can't add it to our Interesting Blogs widget because they do not have a feed associated with their posts. I'll be adding any particularly interesting posts to our regular 'We've been reading...' feature. In the meantime, check out the site and have fun! :)

Mentoring resources

June has come by so fast! I've just come across a few resources that I think would be very helpful for anyone in a mentoring relationship. I thought I would share them with you. They aren't very long; I hope you find them useful.

- The Mentoring Life Cycle

- Getting to the Gold (Building a relationship with your mentees)

- Tools for Mentoring Adolescents

- School Based Mentoring: 'High risk' and economically disadvantaged students

They all come from MENTOR, which is a good website for you to check out. It's a shame they don't have a blog, it would probably be a very helpful source. They do however, have links to all sorts of information and resources you might find interesting. The information is all quite condensed; they cover each topic quite extensively.

Conselling based education

One of the tools that we aim to promote through the YLMP is Counselling Based Education (CBE). Below is a brief description of what CBE entails and hopes to achieve. It was written by Seth Tandoh, who works with Media Youth Project:

"CBE is a style of sharing information that utilises the trainee's own curiosity and life experiences. Unlike a typical Ghanaian classroom set-up where students are "lectured at" from rigid, inflexible notes, the trainee is required to give something of himself.

Here are some of the unique aspects of CBE as practiced by Media Youth Project. The first four relate to training methods:

1. We throw away conventional 'chew and pour' teaching.
At Media Youth Project the trainee himself becomes part of the learning process.

2. We keep learning groups small so we can give everyone individual attention.
By keeping the numbers small (between 3-10), the leader can give each individual attention and, in love, help him or her to chart a consistent course of self-development.

3. We place great emphasis on practicals.
Emphasis on putting what one has learnt into immediate use.

Who is a Mentor? Tips for building successful mentoring relationships

This article is adapted from the Indiana University's Office of Mentoring Services & Leadership Development website.

While there are many different ways of answering the question of who is a mentor, a basic definition with which we can begin is that a mentor is a special kind of helper who works with others in a positive, constructive way so that both mentor and protégé (or mentee) have the potential to grow through the relationship.

Mentoring is a way of offering a variety of services to mentees throughout the duration of the mentoring period, and sometimes even after. The program takes what's called a 'developmental' approach, which in everyday language means that we're working to create services that support mentees as they grow, learn, and mature through their living and learning experience.

Therefore, a mentor is an individual who creates a paraprofessional working relationship with students aimed towards personalizing and improving the quality of student life and learning.

So, how do mentors fulfill their role?

As we consider what mentors do that leads to achieving the goal of 'personalizing and improving the quality of student life and learning,' it's important to realize that:

1. many of the same things we do in everyday life to 'help others are similar to the role of a mentor, and
2. it is a mentor's responsibility to take what we do in everyday life and develop those 'helping' abilities into a set of paraprofessional mentoring skills.

Some of the things that one might do to help a friend who's having a hard time might include:

• providing information and advice based on your experience and ideas;
• encouraging him or her to take a healthy, positive, and constructive risk;
• 'being there' just to listen and understand;
• offering honest and positive feedback;
• planning and thinking with her or him about how to work through a challenging or confusing situation;
• sharing different points of view to understand an issue or problem from as many different ideas and ways of thinking as possible; and,
• making use of multiple perspectives to base decisions in choosing from the best of all the options, creating an action plan, and following through with that plan.

Helping, providing, encouraging, being there, offering, planning, sharing, and making -- these are all things we do to help one another as we grow, learn, and change through everyday living and learning. And, in large part, this list provides another dimension of understanding who is a mentor and what he or she does. But, we need to go further to understand what it means to become a skilled mentor.

Who Moved My Cheese?

As you might be aware, one of the books this year’s mentees will be studying is the hugely influential Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson. First published in 1998, Who Moved My Cheese? addresses the concept of dealing with change through a witty parable that compares the behaviour of mice and ‘Littlepeople’ - beings that look and think like people, but are the size of mice.

When the cheese the mice (Sniff and Scurry) and Littlepeople (Hem and Haw) depend on suddenly disappears form Cheese Station C, the two sets of characters react very differently. Having previously noticed the supply of cheese dwindling, Sniff and Scurry simply pack up their things and leave to find new cheese. Hem and Haw however, are determined to get to the bottom of the issue and try many different things to try and get ‘their’ cheese back. The story follows Haw, who eventually leaves Cheese Station C after realising that complaining about having not having cheese isn’t going to make the cheese come back, or get him any answers. See here for a more detailed synopsis of the book (as well as some criticism).

Who Moved My Cheese? is a truly enlightening story that explains very simply how to change your perspective on change in a way that makes it seem less threatening. It is a must read for anyone – change is inevitable no matter who you are, so why not learn to make it a platform for innovation and success?

There are editions for teens and for children, and even an award winning movie, so everyone can relate to the story and learn from the simple lessons that it puts forward.

If you have not read the book and would like to, you can find copies at all major bookstores. For more information about the books and the movie, you can also see the Who Moved My Cheese? website.

Say Cheese!!