This book is meant to be a practical guide for mentoring others. It is based on five years of research on high impact mentoring. The authors gathered the best practices, methods, and tools that successful mentors use to create powerful relationships. The goal was to provide a mentoring guidebook for success.
The book offers a three-step formula for mentors that guarantees mentees achieve their desired results. The formula is:
- Create two-way trust.
- Build a Work Life Map with the mentee that will be their roadmap going forward.
- Provide sure-fire ways for mentors to prepare for important conversations with mentees along the way.
The book can be used by a first-time mentor which they can adapt to their own style. It can also be used by seasoned mentor practitioners who want to advance their techniques.
Each of the four chapters are summarized so mentors can quickly find answers to questions in their mentoring work.
The introduction is important as it outlines the mentoring lessons of Warren Bennis. In our studies of the best mentors, Warren Bennis emerged as having made the most significant contributions over a long lifetime. The reader will learn much about Warren’s way in practical terms. The authors talked with many of Warren’s mentees who all spoke of his special ways of influencing and guiding them in their lives. As one of Warren’s mentees said, “I hear his voice and feel his presence and influence whenever I mentor someone. It has helped me to improve the lives of those I mentor and fortunately has made my life a purposeful journey.”
Readers will also hear about Maya Angelou who was the mentor to Oprah Winfrey who she credits with making her the leader she is today. Maya Angelou stands above the crowd and readers will want to pay close attention to her specific techniques.
The authors conclude from both Warren Bennis and Maya Angelou that the job of the mentor is to clarify and reduce complexities in opening the door to disentangle life’s pressures. They promise that the tools, methods, and practices collected from the greatest mentors will help others craft their own mentoring approach.
This book introduces the concept that a mentor is more than a friend and a role model. A mentor helps another discover who they truly are, uncover what they really want, and guides them to where they want to go. Thus, this book demonstrates that the art and practice of mentoring begins with understanding and listening in practical ways. The research further suggests that the most important thing mentors do is show up.
The conciseness of the book makes it easy to read. One reviewer stated, “Pick up the book and start anywhere.” Yet the art and practice of adding value as a mentor introduces an important new concept: the Work Life Map—perhaps the most important thing a mentor can do to impact others.
Turning fear into faith—the last chapter—is about how to have conversations that matter most. It presents four critically important real cases.
The appendix in the book provides the tools and then notes the extraordinary mentor models that were studied as part of the research.
Along the way, the authors/researchers installed mentoring in a number of companies that have proven the concept that even at work mentoring is a must in today’s complicated world.
