Tag Archives: Professional Development

Mentoring 101: How to Choose the Right Protégés

Effective mentorship strategies can give enterprises a huge boost. The great minds and professionals of today were not born with greatness. They were all sculpted by their experiences, and with most success stories there is usually a fruitful mentor-protégé partnership that helped develop them and guide them to success.

Industries were built on great mentorship. Take, for instance, the iconic Oprah Winfrey who had well-renowned author Maya Angelou as her mentor. Steve Jobs mentored not just one but many of the current business moguls making an impact right now, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff of Salesforce. Fashion visionaries like Christian Dior were under the tutelage of haute couture designer Yves St. Laurent. Sir Felix Aylmer mentored Audrey Hepburn, who in turn mentored Elizabeth Taylor. And well, the list goes on.

But how do you find good candidates to mentor? Here are a few things you need to know when choosing the right protégé:

Their talents are aligned with your strategies

The key to good mentorship strategies are planning ahead and naturally embedding mentorship in the workplace.Continue reading→

It’s Just Lunch – Asking an Executive to Mentor You by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)

Businessman-Clock-300x280(This article was originally published on www.svprojectmanagement.com)

Some of the best mentoring I’ve ever received is from executives. Even when I was a mere pawn in the corporate chess game I longed to understand the game from the view of the king. Working in the basement of the building which is now the Facebook headquarters, I mostly had a view of the shipping and receiving dock. Although I had plenty to do in the bowels of what was then an analytical instrument manufacturing facility, I found working without a clear vision of where we were headed as on organization unsatisfying. And in my state of youthful exuberance I was truly convinced that I could make a meaningful difference to the success of our organization if only I knew what the goals were. Continue reading→

Mentoring Circles – Better Leveraging a Mentor’s Time by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)

Circle-of-Heads-300x199(This article was originally published on www.svprojectmanagement.com)

Having a mentor all to yourself might seem like the ideal, but it can get a little awkward sitting across the table from a person whose experience greatly surpasses your own. Sometimes having one mentor meet with several people at the same time can be very effective way to leverage the precious time of a highly experienced person. While you might like to keep them all to yourself, having a bigger audience could increase your chances of landing a highly skillful mentor, make the experience less awkward, and you might also learn a lot from the other people in your mentoring circle. Try group mentoring! Continue reading→

From Mentor to Colleague by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)

Ladies Using Laptop by stockimages

(This article is first published in www.svprojectmanagement.com. Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Some mentoring relationships last a single meeting, but others last a lifetime. Sometimes a mentoring relationship will turn into a long term relationship. (No, I don’t mean that you sleep with your mentor, or marry them.) I mean that they will come to value and enjoy the mentoring relationship as much as you do. This has happened in several of my mentoring relationships. Because we enjoyed our mentoring sessions so much we continued them beyond the point where I was seeking advice and guidance from them. Eventually they started to ask me for advice. Mentoring turned into co-mentoring, and eventually friendship. (I sometimes have joked that they were the mentor, but I was the tor-mentor!) Continue reading→

7 Deadly Sins of Global Biz Leadership Development

black devil with curly hair and angel on background

Originally published in collaboration with Yuko Shibata, executive at ALC’s Global Leadership and Talent Development Group, in a series of articles in KIGYOU TO JINZAI 企業と人材  Magazine.

Thomas Friedman said The World is Flat, and I certainly feel that the business world is getting smaller.  Many companies today are looking overseas for new markets and new customers in order to sustain the profitable growth of their businesses.  New behaviors, skills and thinking are required to succeed globally, and companies must act strategically in order to secure the talented people required to fulfill their increasingly global vision.  This has led many HR departments to pursue what they often call global leadership “training” programs, but you don’t “train” humans to be global leaders.  You train dolphins to do tricks in a swimming pool to earn fish treats.  Continue reading→