Blogs For Online Mentoring
Blogs has become a potent tool in advocacy and communication. Of late, blogs are slowly being utilized for education, like what Sir Martin and his “pisay” studes has done.
Inquirer’s Blog Addict, on their last two posts, has focused on the blogs potential in formal education. A UP Professor cited “Blogging as a Strategy for Teaching and Learning”. Likewise, Singapore has announced it will use “blogs, video-conferencing, tablet PCs, podcasts, 3-D software and interactive whiteboards” for learning. These two examples have effectively recognized the growing popularity and power blogs.
Blogs, unknowingly, has been effective in “mentoring” people– From simple “how to’s” of blogging to “SEOs”. From blogging as a “hobby” to becoming a “pro blogger”. Sharing tips and tricks on games, travel, cooking, etc. The steady flow of information has opened learning to a different level. It is up to the blogger how s/he intend to use his/her blog and add value to his (her) readers. And on the other hand, for the readers to maximize learning given the vast opportunity that is present.
A dear friend from Gen. Santos, Jhing Ureta, was recognized for her unselfish effort and introduced “online mentoring”, effectively using email, instant messenger and egroups in developing second generation of leaders. She presently heads HR Philippines. With the advent of blogs, podcasts and u-tube, online mentoring can be taken to another level.
With this powerful tool in our disposition, we can achieve more in advancing our advocacy, but will this be beneficial in the long run?
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@ Amit– As of this time, we are not setting up a formal group for online mentors, but we’ll keep you posted just in case.
@ Margaret– keep this in prayer so we can achieve more for the kingdom thru blogs
Hi Sonnie! I saw your blog on pinoys4education.elggspaces.com. BTW you can automatically push your blogs there too. Just go to “Your Resources” and publish your feeds. FYI
“DEVELOPING MENTOR-COACH EXECUTIVES”TM TRAINING
Program organized by Salahkaar Consultants
A description of the model and report of a 3-Days’ Training
Salahkaar Consultants successfully conducted a 3-Days workshop on a new concept to merge supervisory, mentoring and coaching roles into one, entitled as “DEVELOPING MENTOR-COACH EXECUTIVES” for a Fortune 500 and among top 5 Indian companies located in Western India. The workshops were designed with a highly utilitarian and organizationally viable concept to combine the three different roles Viz; Managers in the same line of hierarchy, coach and mentor into one.
PRELIMINARIES- The ‘why’ of the Concept:
One of the most frequently felt need of the younger and the junior level professionals in all types of organizations in this country and abroad is for a mentor or coach to help them navigate their way through an organizational lives and work and to assist with their career choices and development. Some people are lucky to stumble across a good mentor. However, this is usually the result of individual efforts and often of a well thought out program within an organization.
Today any organization to survive and thrive must learn to change with the market and times. If we are to have learning organizations, we must have learning and teaching/coaching executives. Learning refers to any change in behaviour. Organizational Behaviour (first seen as actions) is the sum of professional skills affected by personal skills and behavioural aspects such as; beliefs, values, attitudes, motivation, thoughts, and unconscious drives. Professional evidence based coaching is now recognized as the critical platform for successful organizational change and learning initiatives.
Many recent business-coaching studies have all confirmed that changing behaviour with the right coaching techniques and delivery mechanisms can have a dramatic, beneficial influence on human dynamics, the cultural and environmental context of an organization, and the output of the system - the organization’s performance.
If people are truly the primary resource of an organization, then they must be developed and managed not unlike any other asset portfolio. As every individual has a unique resource portfolio of strengths and liabilities -coaches need to be trained how to optimise and realise the potential of that individual’s assets, minimize the weaknesses and add lasting “value” to their overall personal and professional skills resources portfolio.
The third dimension of employee development program is to train managers and executives of all ranks how to mentor and coach empathically. Getting the work done is only part of the supervisor’s job. Supervisors are responsible for making the workplace safe, legal and harassment-free, vibrant and create a learning climate. They have to know how to motivate their employees to learn the technicalities of their jobs and they are also supposed to mentor and coach (teach) their subordinates to achieve the desired result.
In brief, the whole idea and philosophy of the present 3-day workshop was based on the three dimensions of leaning, mentoring and coaching activities and skills.
As you all know the three roles are supposed to be performed by three different individuals. Its a worthy experiment and we shall watch for the outcome.
Meanwhile the feedback was excellent and the company has decided to give this training to all of their 200 and odd identified manger mentors and coaches in the company.
The workshop was conceived, designed and conducted by the Asia’s leading mentor-coach-HR Consultant, trainer and scholar Dr. C N Daftuar, D.Litt (CMD, Salahkaar Consultants).
The claim that they are making is that instead of any harm as normally believed by most mentoring and coaching experts who believe that the three should not be given to one person ie. Supervisors should not be given the roles of mentor and coach this model of training will greatly add to the bottom line of the company while reducing the burden of the likely dysfunctional aspects of supervisors becoming mentor.
Course objectives: After completion of the course, the participants were expected to know, understand, practice and develop the following:
• Basic concepts of managing, mentoring and coaching, and what a mentor-manager does to coach?
• How the processes work - the where, what, how and when of them?
• What they can and cannot expect from their protégé and whether their protégé are making progress, and what to do about it if they are not?
• How to avoid common pitfalls and constantly improve as a mentor/mentee and as coach?
• How mentoring and Coaching differ from leading, managing and supervising?
If readers are interested they can ask for the working paper on individual basis citing their company’s name and designation.
The basic model of the concept can be displayed in the following figure.
Figure-1 MODEL OF MENTOR-COACH MANAGER
The training program was divided into following:
Day-1
Phase 1: INAUGRATION, INTRODUCTIONS AND SETTING PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
Phase 2: SELF AND ORGANIZATION INCLUDING SELF AWARENESS
Phase 3: AN OVERVIEW OF MENTORING AMD COACHING
Day-2
Phase 4: EMPOWERING (MENTORING-COACHING PROCESSES AND TECHNIQUES)
Phase 5: FOLLOW-UP IN MENTORING AND COACHING
DAY-3
Phase 6: COACHING
Phase 7: INTEGRATION
Phase 8: CLOSURE
We aimed for following BENEFITS OF THE “MENTOR-COACH EXECUTIVES”TM TRAINING:
• Improvement in mentors’ characteristics
• Development of Mentors’ skills to coach
• Acquiring the benefits of managers being mentors and coaches
• Benefits to the organization in terms of :–
• Increased efficiency, productivity
• Increased interpersonal relationships
• Decrease in training time and cost
• Faster integration of the trainees into the mainstream of the company
• Decrease in the lag time between placement, training and return (ROI)
• Increase in profitability (per trainee)
• Increased utilization of mentees’ and mentors’ potentials
• Increased satisfaction among all employees
Evaluative Report of the training:
Result of the program……..
Series of training assignments on Mentoring and Coaching assigned to Salahkaar from the client company.
Hi chittranjan,
At this point, we don’t have a specific blog yet dedicated to online mentoring. But I will send you an invite so you can share your thoughts at HR Philippines Blog
[…] reading my post on “Blogs for online mentoring“, a successful entrepreneur sent an encouraging email. Describing himself as […]
online mentoring will definitely grow, no doubt about that… i wanna be a part of it… please do include me in your list. 
@ Andrea & Chiqui– Thank you for expressing your interest. Am finalizing details on the project and in the look up for sponsors so we can have a dedicated domain.
@ Andrea– I was encouraged when I read your email at PBS, my advocacy got some attention in the blogosphere. Again, my sincerest thanks.
This is a repost invite. Just sharing something that could perhaps help. My group (educators) has set up a site called Mentorings.org (http://mentorings.org). It’s free to join. You can even push your external blogs via RSS into that platform. You can even create your “walled garden” community within, with adjustable privacy settings. See you there!
yes,I wanted to become a part of the group.
please inform me of the process asap.
rgrds,
amit