Whatever your level of experience, this resource will support you in developing the collaborative culture, skills and processes you need to get the most out of mentoring.
This resource can be used by individuals directly or by trainers to support in-house programmes - just access the sections that interest you most.
Hello, my name's Bob Garvey and I'm Professor of Mentoring and Coaching at the Mentoring and Coaching Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University.
My experience of mentoring and coaching goes back a long way really. Like most people I can identify people who have supported me and encouraged me in my past, going right back to when I first started work about 105 years ago! I'm very committed to the idea and have been for a number of years. Not only do I research it and write about it, but I do it and have it done to me as well, and find it extremely helpful. So that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate, because it's rooted in my own personal experience.
In terms of helping people to have a voice in development, personally, I tend to use what I would call a participative style of working with people, which isn't the same as consultation, which is a big buzz-word in management these days. Participation means you actually listen to people, take them seriously, and follow up on what they say. I refer to that as a kind of servant-leadership approach. You facilitate people, respect their ideas, recognise that because they do a job they know what they're talking about, because they're in there doing it day-in day-out.
Some of the techniques I would use would be things like mentoring and coaching so you have the one-to-one. But I also use larger group processes like open space and a technique called future search, which are very much like egalitarian approaches where nobody is in control or in charge.
‘Mentoring is an effective and deeply human process which contributes to the development of collaborative and high performance cultures.’
Use the controls below to listen to Bob Garvey's audio clip.
