Customer Reviews

The Elements of Mentoring

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As the Chief Operating Officer for a large medical technology company, I have mentored many junior professionals for years. But until now, I've never found a guide on the art of mentoring that lays out the specific details and skills mentors should master. Imagine my delight at discovering a short but comprehensive resource for everything a new mentor should learn and a seasoned mentor should reconsider. The authors promise a "nuts and bolts" guide to doing mentoring based on the writing style of the classic "Elements of Style" guide to grammar. The authors do not disappoint on this score. Amazingly, they manage to cover all of the key ingredients to outstanding mentoring without resorting to stories or wordy narrative. In reading the "Elements of Mentoring," one gets the sense that he or she is gleaning the distilled wisdom of two master mentors. The book is brief but jam-packed with the crucial details of starting a good mentorship, managing it successfully, and even bringing it through difficult transitions. I was impressed that the authors (both college profs) used lots of research in putting the book together (see the references) without cluttering the pages with it. I am not a frequent Amazon reviewer, but after reading this thorough but brief resource, recommending it to several colleagues, and pulling it down from my shelf already to re-read a section relevant to one of my current subordinates, I felt compelled to recommend it to other managers and leaders. One of the few books on developing junior talent I've been glad I paid for.

This book may prove valuable if the reader has little or no background with self development and leadership as it relays a lot of truths from those areas with respect to mentoring.

However, this book is just not my style. I prefer down to earth, straightforward advice without excess words. My style may not be yours...if you find the following three sentences valuable this book may be for you.

1. "Reinforce creativity while tempering over-expansiveness with reality and pragmatics."

2. "Allow the protege to serve as your emissary at times--shielded by your reflective power and functioning on your behalf."

3. "Understand that your affirmative narration will be quite meaningful to your protege and that it will strengthen the mentorship bond."

I read this book front to back and there is a significant amount of repetition. This book is best suited as a reference...if you have an issue or an interest use the index to just read about that particular topic.

This is a valuable book. These authors have managed to distill a very broad topic into easily applied principles. As both a mentor and protege I am grateful for this book. I am now ordering this book as a gift for all my favorite mentors in my Harvard post-doctoral program. I recommend you do the same for those menotors in your life.

If you are looking for a comprehensive and well-structured guide to mentoring - this is perfect choice. Presented concepts are intuitive and have practical application. What is also important, the book is fun to read. I recommend it both to new adepts of mentoring as well to those more experienced.

A collection of thoughts about mentoring in the workplace. Mostly common sense, a few "a ha" moments. All in all I wish they backed up the information with more factual data about WHY. They start the book describing how they will distill all of the existing studies and work into this book. While they might have done this they did not get into the WHY or stats as to why this is the right way.

An OK skim from the library...not a purchase.

i skimmed through this book and was very impressed. it pointed out to me how i should mentor as well as pointing out how i should be mentored. i learned what has been missing in the mentoring that i receive. i am hoping that it will help me ask for the type of mentoring that i want and need.

I used this book in my research for a doctorate related to a mentoring program for church professionals, and considered it one of the most useful resources I found. The book includes an enormous amount of useful, practical direction on every aspect of mentoring condensed to a slim volume. People whose work includes the regular development of proteges would benefit from reading and re-reading this book as an accountability measure for their work. As a matter of fact, just today I was in a hurry when a protege needed direction. I would surely have failed her if I hadn't thought about this book and followed its admonitions.

I've read roughtly 20 books on mentoring over the past six months in the course of building a mentor training program for a major corporation.

This one, along with Larry Daloz's book (for very different reasons) is best for my purposes, because of its excellent use of good references, clear organization and explanations, and choice of topics. Very much like the Strunk and White book it's patterned after.

Thanks!