What do AT&T, General Motors, DuPont and Federal Express all have in common?

They are all using mentoring programs to develop employee career enhancing skills and to leverage the knowledge and experience of their senior executives. In addition, leading publishing companies are using mentoring programs to develop future leaders and to retain their SuperStars. Our coaching systems will show you the important steps for creating a mentoring program because your people and their continued development are your company's greatest assets.

Why do mentoring programs work?
Mentoring programs will support the organizational mission of your team and will make a strong statement about the values within your publishing company. In addition, a mentoring program will help to rejuvenate long term employees as they see and watch the growth of their mentees. Since 1992 DuPont has created mentoring relationships for 6,000 of the company's 60,000 employees. Based on their experience, listed below are some of the reasons why mentoring programs work:

• Mentoring programs will help attract and retain publishing SuperStars.
• Mentoring provides targeted, individualized training and coaching.
• Mentoring requires mentees to be responsible for their own development.
• Mentoring provides timely information for a mentee.
• Mentoring can help with diversity efforts.
• Mentoring is time-efficient.
• Mentoring will set your publishing company apart from your competitors.
• Mentoring helps develop future leaders.
• Mentoring allows creative ideas to flourish.

As a leader, creating a mentoring program for your publishing company will have both tangible and intangible benefits. In addition, launching a new program of any kind takes confidence and courage. Ready to take the next step?

"Train-The-Mentor" Program
An Outline Of 50 Skills/Steps

Here are the 50 important skills a mentor must have/use for a mentor/mentoring program to be successful:

"Train-The-Mentor" Program--50 Action Steps/Preparation Done "Before" A Mentor/Mentee Meeting:

1. How to design a mentor/mentee meeting: the purpose, learning objectives and meeting structure.
2. How will we determine what resources/information to bring/prep/pre-share before a mentor/mentee meeting?
3. How will we frame each mentor/mentee meeting around.learning, policy, feedback and/or problem-solution.

Skills/Techniques Used/Required "During" A Mentor/Mentee Meeting:

1. What will we be doing as a mentor during the first five minutes of a mentor/mentee meeting?
2. Listening skills: how will this impact each mentor/mentee meeting?
3. How will we ask questions and make requests during a mentor/mentee meeting?
4. How will we facilitate a variety of personalities and behavior styles during a mentor/mentee meeting?
5. How will we use "acknowledging and safety" as powerful tools during a mentor/mentee meeting?
6. How and when will we know we are making a positive impact during a mentor/mentee meeting?
7. What is a toleration and how do we coach our mentee on this principle?
8. What is a racket and when do we refer a mentee to professional care?
9. Message, lesson, pain--how does this formula relate to the mentor/mentee relationship?
10. What is an incompletion and how do we coach our mentee on this principle?
11. What are boundaries and how do we coach our mentee on this principle?
12. What is a reserve and how do we coach our mentee on this principle?
13. What are standards? How do we raise them with our mentee?
14. What are needs versus wants and how do we guide our mentee on this principle?
15. What is coaching versus managing and how do we explain this to our mentee? Where does leadership come in?
16. Why is a mentor not attached to the results of his/her mentee?
17. What is a gap? How does we explain this principle to our mentee?
18. Why does a mentor always evolve and grow with his/her mentee?
19. What percent of time is spent listening versus speaking during a mentor/mentee meeting?
20. What are some ways we can use silence during a mentor/mentee meeting?
21. Ten important questions to ask your mentee during a mentor/mentee meeting!
22. What is extreme generosity and how do we coach our mentee on this principle?
23. As a mentor, what does being "totally present" for our mentee mean?
24. What is a leap and how do we coach our mentee on this principle?
25. How/when can we allow our mentee to observe us conducting business?
26. What happens when a mentee asks us a question and we do not have the answer?
27. How can we use Covey's principle, "focus with the end in mind" with our mentee?
28. Why is it important to have an extensive list of professional referrals, as part of our network? How can we coach our mentee to make use of this principle for themselves?
29. How can we speak truthful with our mentee and still get great results?
30. How do we handle mentee confidentiality issues?
31. How do we "pace" a mentee and not overwhelm them?
32. How do we handle a mentee that continues to have the same reoccurring challenges/obstacles?
33. How and when do we fire a mentee?
34. What is the value we provide our mentee, as their mentor?
35. What is story-telling and how do we use this principle with our mentee?
36. How do we "paint pictures" and use this principle with our mentee?
37. What is a "distinction" and how do we use this principle with our mentee?
38. How do we use "metaphors" when coaching our mentee?
39. Why do we use the word "we" instead of "I" or "you" during a mentor/mentee meeting?
40. Can laughter and humor be weaved into each mentor/mentee meeting?
41. How and when are role-plays appropriate during a mentor/mentee meeting?
42. How does our energy/enthusiasm impact our mentee?
43. Can a mentor/mentee meeting be flexible and still be productive?
44. How and why is it important to de-brief at the end of each mentor/mentee meeting?

Action Steps/Follow-Through Done "After" A Mentor/Mentee Meeting:

1. How will we decide on the most effective form of follow-up/action steps after each mentor/mentee meeting?
2. When/how will we schedule the next mentor/mentee meeting?
3. How will we address a mentee who does not come to a scheduled meeting?

Once we have completed the 50 important skills, steps, and techniques we will schedule an additional series of six TeleForums over the next six months. During these six follow-up teleforums, we will meet together with your company's mentors to insure the quality of their skills, communication and procedures are in place.

Do you currently have a mentoring program in place? Would you like our help in building or improving your mentoring program?

PowerHour^® is a thought-leader in coaching, training, executive recruiting, webinars, web strategies and investment banking services for our publishing companies and their advertising sales teams. Plus, we provide distribution services and software, web strategies and competitive analysis and are the author of the SmartMatch Alliances book. Since 1986 PowerHour has been a publishing profession leader and has coached/guided leading publications around the world since 1995.