Mentoring Scientists and Engineers: The Essential Skills, Principles and Processes

Mentoring is very much more than simple one-to-one informal instruction, or what used to be called ‘coaching’. Modern mentoring techniques are modelled on those of executive coaching as well as expert academic tutoring. Mentoring is simple but not necessarily easy. An estimated 40% of all mentoring schemes fail through lack of mentor training and understanding. No great effort is required to study the literature but, for mentoring to be effective, adherence to basic principles and exercising specific skills is absolutely necessary. The book provides an introduction to what we mean by mentoring and its basic skills – skilful questioning, active listening, building trust, self-management and giving advice and feedback. It further covers mentoring principles, how to conduct mentoring sessions and a wide range of practical applications. The final chapter gives the outlines and principles for creating a basic mentoring scheme within an organisational context.

This book is written for those practitioners in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the STEM fields, who have been pitched into the role of mentor without any prior training. Its objective is to alleviate anxiety, frustration and stress caused by not knowing exactly what is expected. In offering an introduction to mentoring it gives practical guidance as a quick and easy read.

John Arthurs, as a Chartered Geologist, specialises in mentoring, executive coaching and training to support vocational professionals, mainly geoscientists working internationally in the mining, engineering and environmental industries. In a career spanning 53 years John has travelled widely, often living in remote places and meeting people of many different cultures. He has worked with mining prospecting and engineering companies, third level education and government geological surveys. Until official retirement in 2002, John was Director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, the government’s chief advisor on earth science policy. Since then he has been consulting in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Guyana, Romania, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.