A Mentor's Companion - Softcover

Ambrose, Larry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0977754073 ISBN 13: 9780977754076

Publisher: Perrone-Ambrose Assoc Inc

Synopsis

A Mentor's Companion is a book written for the active or prospective mentor. Its goal is to be a focused, practical guide into the texture of the mentoring interaction between mentor and protg. Combining a unique recipe of live dialogues between a mentor and her protg, with guidelines that glean the key learning from the dialogues, the book teaches the "moves" the mentor should consider in maximizing the learning possibilities for the protg. Each dialogue and summary is followed by a third course - menus of questions and statements from which the mentor can sample when preparing a mentoring conversation. . As a part of their mission, mentors give advice, but this book is not a "how to give advice" book. The concentration, instead, is on using oneself as a catalyst with the mentee (who is also referred to as "protege" or "partner"). The mission of this book is to distinguish and dramatize the skills of the mentor-those probes, those challenges, those inquiries and provocative questions that will inspire thought, stimulate reflection, tap discovery, and generate a new intelligence in the protg.

The early chapters describe the mentoring process, the purpose of mentoring, what it is and what it isn't, and the kinds of skills necessary to develop as a mentor. The purpose of later chapters is to carry the mentor through the mentoring action itself, dramatizing it with examples, guidelines, and specific menus of questions and inputs for interacting with the mentee. Each chapter features a different major activity one can expect to engage in with a protg: making contact and getting acquainted, working on problems, giving performance and behavioral feedback, making developmental assignments, and conducting after-action reviews.

This is probably not a "beach" book. It's also not a book the mentor will likely read from beginning to end-in fact, skipping around is recommended, using what is most relevant at the appropriate moment. It is, however, a valuable reference and guide for any aspect of the mentoring charge. A Mentor's Companion's vision is to accompany the mentor as he or she takes on the important challenge of helping others unlock their true potential.

About this title

From the Author:

I wanted to write a book that would teach the mentor the specifics about behaving as a role model, teacher, coach, catalyst, ally and strategist. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate how a person can strategically affect the professional life of someone else by fostering insight, identifying needed knowledge and expanding the other person's horizons. I hope I've been able to do that through the live dialogues, explanations and behavioral menus in the book.

I needed to write this book, to pull together and share the lessons learned from being in the business of mentoring for years. The first reason I wrote the book is to help the reader to leap past all the mistakes I have made in trying to be a mentor and teach others how - the stuff that can help readers be the best mentors they can be - quickly. The second reason I wrote the book is what excites me about being a mentor and helping others to be. I want to change the world! I have learned that you can help change the world by subtly affecting what happens to people every day on the job. Workers have struggled for eons to achieve dignity in their work - no matter what that work is. People with dignity grow and blossom; those without it don't, they wither. It is terribly simple. Mentoring is a way to give people their dignity. You will change the world a little every time you help someone grow, learn something new, become more aware of what they can do, see new satisfaction, achieve a place. You will change their experience of each of their days, and that will change them.

About the Author:

Larry Ambrose brings over 30 years of varied experience as a manager, teacher and consultant to the field of managerial leadership and productivity. A co-founder of the management and organization development consulting firm, Perrone-Ambrose Associates in 1973, Mr. Ambrose' consulting has emphasized increasing the degree of trust in organizations and diminishing the distance between leaders and those they lead. Mr. Ambrose specializes in custom-designing mentoring programs for all types of organizations, including mentoring skill building for mentors and their proteges, or "mentees". Mr. Ambrose, with his partner, James Perrone, created the Mentors 2000 Series, which focuses on shaping the learning organization of the future through building the "mentoring culture". This innovative approach is currently being utilized by such progressive American organizations as Anixter Corporation; George C. Marshall Space Flight Center; Advanced Micro Devices, U.S. Steel; Advocate Health Care System; Cigna Insurance and a variety of other companies dedicated to the goal of assisting skilled and seasoned members of the organizations to pass on their expertise to others.

Mr. Ambrose has designed and installed comprehensive management development and performance management systems for a broad array of organizations, advising top management and human resources managers. He has authored complete performance planning texts to support these programs and has trained managers and employees in them for such clients as ESPN, Getty Oil Company, Commonwealth Edison Company, Holt, Rinehart & Winston Publishers. Mr. Ambrose holds a Bachelors Degree from the University of Illinois and a Masters in organization behavior from George Williams College. He is a member of the Human Resource Management Association of Chicago and the Organization Development Network.

Mr. Ambrose is the author of a new book, A Mentors Companion, published in October, 1998. The Companion is written as a practical compendium of action and reflection, designed to help individuals improve on-the-job performance in collaboration with colleagues, supervisors, senior executives and peers.

About this edition

• Publisher: Perrone-Ambrose Assoc Inc
• ISBN 10: 0977754073
• ISBN 13: 9780977754076
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 94