9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally... effective mentoring..., September 7, 2006
I came across a book that deals with an issue that is often discussed but rarely executed well... knowledge transfer. The book is Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader's Guide to Knowledge Transfer Using Peer Mentoring by Steve Trautman .
Table of Contents:
Roles In Peer Mentoring
Managing Time and Communication
Focusing On The Most Important Information
Developing A Training Plan
Teaching What You Know
Leveraging Learning Styles
Assessing Knowledge Transfer
Giving and Getting Peer-Appropriate Feedback
Peer Mentoring From a Distance
Peer Mentoring in Practice
Appendix A - Peer Mentoring Tools At A Glance
Appendix B - Sample Training Plans
Index
In every IT job I've ever had, there was an expectation that "knowledge transfer" would occur between you and someone else. It could be during your training period when you're trying to learn the ropes. Perhaps you've been "designated" as the person to train the new hire. Or as is often the case these days, you're supposed to learn from the consulting expert (or transfer your knowledge as the consultant to the staff). All this is easy enough to say, but the majority of the time it's approached in a very haphazard manner. Successful learning is more by accident than by design. Teach What You Know attempts to change this all-too-common situation.
Trautman lays out an 11 step approach to successful mentoring. This starts with accepting an assignment as a silo or primary mentor and proceeds through to assessing the learning and providing feedback. There's an acknowledgment than mentoring could be active (planned time and instruction) or passive (availability for questions), and both types can be appropriate given a particular situation. He also defines the roles that are present in the mentoring situation. There's the primary peer mentor (overall knowledge), the silo peer mentor (specific knowledge in a given area), the manager (the overall director of the mentoring arrangement), and the actual apprentice (the person needing the knowledge). In addition to plenty of assistance to the person doing the mentoring, the author also covers how the material should be viewed from the manager's and the apprentice's angle. That final perspective is very important, in my opinion. If you are "the new guy", you can use this information to take a level of control over your training plan. It may feel odd to tell the gurus what you want in terms of training, but that's far more effective than simply hoping for the best.
I'll admit to feeling certain levels of "uncomfortableness" when I was reading some of the chapters. It's not often that you'll hear someone giving you permission as the mentor to tell your trainee "don't interrupt me between times x and y, as I'll be busy and I won't appreciate the intrusion". Nor do you normally see someone spell out exactly what style of communication they prefer, and how adherence to that style will make the mentor much more pleasant to deal with. But if you think about it, those are the exact things that normally go unspoken, leading to a buildup of friction and resentment during the training process. Training isn't easy, and only adds to an already overloaded schedule. A different approach such as the one advocated by Trautman may be just the remedy for the general failure of knowledge transfer in most organizations.
So... You can continue to be put into these training and mentoring situations, and you can continue to muddle through them, hoping for the best. Or, you can take a step back, learn a few new skills yourself, and make the inevitable training sessions become more effective and less of a drain on everyone's resources and nerves.
I know I'll be approaching mentoring situations in a different light now...
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Making it painless to train people on the easy stuff, April 12, 2007
This book is a very clear, easy-to-read book about how to duplicate abilities to carry out repeatable tasks. And lest you think, "my task is special or too complex," think again. For better or worse, a lot of what we do every day is repeatable and not particularly creative. It makes sense to be able to train more people to share those burdens, anything from computer system configuration to project logistics, at the lowest cost to the current experts in our organization. It's all about getting more people up to speed, so we can all concentrate on the interesting part of the work: the creative and problem-solving parts.
For mentoring that part, try searching "lucid quality" on the web.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome. Great stuff., January 11, 2007
I highly recommend this book to people that value quality in the workplace. I'm amazed how relevant the information is to different companies and possibly even personal/family life. I work in the high tech industry, customer support. Everything I've read so far (I'm only half way through) has been totally worthwhile and applicable to me and the team I work with. I believe the ideas presented would also be much needed at the coffee shop where my wife works. Pretty basic sensible stuff once you get down to it, but isn't it the basics where we often come up short?
I like the clear writing style. It's refreshing to read something where the intent is obviously to educate the reader, as opposed to some authors that appear to be trying to convince the reader how intelligent the author is. It's one thing to show how much a writer knows, it's an entirely different thing to help a reader learn valuable information efficiently. I think Steve is clearly and thankfully in the second group.
I think this is one of the most valuable books in my library.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
