Customer Reviews

Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning

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In today's employment market it is very difficult to find and retain hard-working motivated employees. Many companies are restructuring, down-sizing, and outsourcing many segments of their administrative activities, and employees have become less productive, less interested in performing quality work, and less satisfied with their jobs.

Today's better salary market does not encompass all employment levels, especially those employees just entering the job market with minimal skills. Salary budgets do not always stretch to provide better wages. Teambuilding works well in bridging part of the gap between wages and self-confidence and pride in job performance.

"Managers as Mentors" provides in-depth insight for approaching management from a teambuilding perspective. Managers can recruit, train, motivate, and inspire their employees to perform at peak levels in numerous settings by following the recommendations for mentoring employees. The techniques detailed in this book are practical, straight-forward, and easy to understand and implement. Examples illustrating the steps are clearly described.

Many organizations now offer internal staff mentoring programs, and my employer is one of those groups. Managers and volunteer mentors are involved, and "Managers as Mentors" has become required reading before a volunteer mentor can be paired with a protege.

I had read a few books on mentoring as I was recently promoted after having hired 8 new people in a short period of time. My challenge is that all 12 people I would supervise are located in all parts of the country! And, I didn't want to "supervise" these very competent people. The other books were academic, stale. Enter Managers as Mentors! That book really spoke to me. I'm buying one for my boss, highlighting all the sections as I did after I read my copy for the 2nd time, so he will know the scope and strength of the mentoring program I intend to use. I purchased the book for my two senior regionals and we will meet to study the book. The best part of mentoring?? You CAN influence all directions - subordinates, peers, superiors. Watch out! Here we come!

and so I have. My second read of "Managers as Mentors" leaves me even more satisfied and full of ideas and strategies than my reading of two years ago. Chip Bell is a phenomenal speaker and author. Just the time he spends and the guidance he gives in the prologue to this book will inspire managers who want to give back primarily by coaching and teaching. Read the first time to give me insight in a new job assignment; working again with new managers and many youthful workers instead of the skilled team that I had had in the northeast, I wanted to inspire myself to be more than just a "good boss". I hope I have succeeded in making their work experience with me memorable, and, if I have, I owe a lot of my ability and willingness to guide and teach to the lessons I solidified by reading this book the first time.

This time, my division is planning to embark on a formal mentoring program. The first five chapters and the SAGE principle will be my inspiration for the design of the introductory course, and we will utilize Bell's book in many ways as we move on through the test program for new managers and the final version for non-salaried employees to add to their personal growth, and perhaps become managers in turn.

It may be some time before institutions of higher learning catch on to the fact that teaching lifestyles skills such as mentoring is crucial, not only to the success of their graduates in the workforce, but also in helping them obtain some harmony, balance, and personal satisfaction in addition to honing their technical skills. When they do, the competencies needed to succeed in a learning organization, and one that succeeds through building relationships to build productivity may find a home in undergraduate degrees of all kinds. Until then it is critical that those of us in the workforce develop the emotional wisdom it takes to be a successful leader, and also to keep learning ourselves, from the new and unfamiliar experiences we gain from the people we supervise.

What a wonderful book to utilize in your own learning, or in your teaching (couple it with scenes from the movie "Finding Forrester" and you will have a powerful tool)...Bell's book not only sets the stage and expectations for a mentoring relationship, but gives practical advice, such as how to mentor around equipment, and a quiz to assess your mentoring skills.
One of today's most valuable business books...6 stars would not be enough!

Mentoring is such a "hot" topic these days, I was concerned that this was going to be another one of those fluffy books that don't give you specific actions. How wrong I was! Each page is jammed full of pratical how-to's supported by both the concept behind the how-to and examples of it at work.

Mentoring is a popular topic because it's so valuable in today's organization and this book is an absolute must read for anyone in a leadership position. Within days of putting what I learned to work, my team started responding. I also found that the techniques work well in my volunteer work with the local humane society.

Buy this book today and read it right away.

We look at work force readiness from two perspectives. My husband and I both manage full-time careers. We work with a number of people who are beginning their careers. In addition, we have college-age children (three in three different highly regarded schools). From both perspectives, we know that colleges and universities do a good job of exposing students to a lot of information and to the process of learning. However, we feel young professionals are not well equipped with actual job skills. Managers as Mentors helps us to share the information and knowledge we have in manner that is enjoyable for us and our younger colleagues. Most importantly, we used the SAGE principal to help guide our most precious proteges, our own near-grown children. Thank you, Dr. Bell!

The author of Managers as Mentors intorduces how relationships between two people can be a learning and growth experience in any environment. The topic of mentoring is a huge issue in the business environment and I have found that this book offers basic keys of advise to the executives of large organizations. Bell shares practical experiences and guidance in short easy to read chapters, while getting away from the typical referance book material.

Self-assesments, tools, and communication tatics are just a few of the practical ways that are offered in this book. Often times I found that Mr. Bell cites other authors and practices. I believe that these methods are a wonderful way to bring multiple factors to a single situation and base those experiences on resolving the matter at hand.

I recommend this guide to anyone that wishes to begin a healthy relationship of mentoring. It really brings the basics to focus and prepares you for further knowledge in this field.

In my leadership development work with top executives around the world, I have found one thing that separates the "best of the best" from others is their dedication to growing a new generation of leaders. I have long recommended Managers as Mentors as the guide book for leaders who wish to leave a real lasting legacy, and the 2nd edition offers even more than did the first. I particularly like the new chapters that address mentoring from the perspective of the protege' because they help ensure that the relationship formed is a true partnership. While the final chapter - Arduous Alliances - begins to address the difficult task of maintaining a mentoring relationship in today's fast-paced business environment, I left hungry for more help in this area. Overall, though, Chip has another winner here and I will make the 2nd edition a "must read" for my "best of the best" leader clients.

Chip Bell has an extraordinary ability to take a subject that at first glance seems mundane and overused (mentoring, teaching, coaching)--and breathing life and excitement into it. This book is both practical and poignant. It's practical inasmuch as it's chock full of clear, do-able steps to take in order to mentor people so as to boost their performance. It's poignant inasmuch as it's chock full of examples of real people doing genuine, inspiring work in helping others improve. In today's Knowledge Economy, the manager's ability to mentor others is a critical asset. Managers as Mentors is a great tool to help build that asset.

I enjoyed reading the first release of this book, and used it regularly in my role as a senior leader. Now, rather than leading a function, I'm coaching other executives, and I plan to include this book as a must-read for many of those I coach.

The executives I work with are more interested than ever in developing others, as well as in improving their communication. The gems of this book help with both. I only wish I'd known before Christmas that it was now available in paperback, because it would've been my book-gift for the season!

Besides offering solid tools, checklists, and self-assessments, Dr. Bell's writing style is a breath of fresh air for those of us looking for something more engaging than the stuffy academic business books, and more meaty than the standard fable business books.

Chip Bell talks to us at a very practical level. He knows how to coach/mentor employees and gives very specific guidance on how to do it. This was true of this book when it came out in first edition; it's even more true now. This second edition is worth buying even if you already have the first edition. In fact, if you liked the first edition, you are an especially good candidate for this new one because of the content (whole chapters) he's added. And the self-assessment tool.

The way this book is written encourages you to act on what you've learned. Chip all but holds your hand as he describes what works and gives examples. I recommended the first edition to managers I work with; I'll continue to do that with this new version.