The “What” and “How” of Mentoring (April 2010)

Recently I attended an International Mentoring Conference and found that our mentoring program is well accepted by both academics and professionals as a proven method that leads to highly effective results. Yet in the same conference, it became very clear to me that often mentoring is seen as a single action rather than a combination of skills used at different times for different reasons.

Realizing this, I reviewed what it is about mentoring that we do and how we accomplish our mentoring missions to serve the purposes of both our partners and our contracts. It is very clear that mentoring is clearly divided between the what and the how elements of the mentoring process. The better we understand the relationship between what we do (often by requirement) and how do it (our own expertise, experience and skills), the more successful we, and our partners, will be in the exchange of knowledge, which is the essence of mentoring!

Regarding contracts, it is fairly evident that anyone who receives a contract can complete the contract successfully if all they do is fulfill the contract deliverables. The aspect of how the contract is fulfilled, under the provisions of the contract, is what makes the difference between contractors and companies. We, at MPRI, have always prided ourselves in accomplishing contracts in such a manner that we give more value than what is expected by how we perform the contract mission. This does not mean that we step outside the contract specifications, nor does it mean that we provide services that are not contracted. It means that we find the best way to accomplish the mission, not just the acceptable way.

Mentoring provides us with the best opportunity to take the elements of what we do and how we do it to the highest level, but it requires that each of our contractors know and understand their functional skills (the what we do) and then be able to clearly transmit that knowledge (the how we do it) to our partners and their organizations. If we don’t take the initiative and make the extra effort to raise our skill level, we will not set ourselves apart from our competitors.

Having worked with more than 1400 of our mentor-contractors over the past two years, we have found that the greatest success comes when we share a common motivation toward a goal, aptitude for change, support from leadership and increased knowledge and skills with our partners. This is not a quick process, but can be accomplished in steady steps with a continuity of purpose and planning. Mentoring is more than what we accomplish; it is how we accomplish our tasks, often on our own!