With new technologies coming at learning professionals like rapid-fire, it should come as no surprise that age-old programs such as mentoring are also being updated. Randy Emelo, author of Modern Mentoring, makes the case for a new approach to organizational mentoring programs in a special podcast interview.
Modern mentoring is mentoring 2.0—it goes beyond traditional face-to-face formal interactions, allowing “mentoring” to occur through new technologies. Rather than relying on super-senior managers to take the lead, modern mentoring embraces the idea of peer-group learning. It expands past generational, hierarchical, and geographical boundaries to a network similar to today’s social networking structure.
Steps to Shift From Traditional to Modern Mentoring
Before modern mentoring can be successfully implemented, your organization needs to:
- shift its mindset to acknowledge that traditional practices will soon become outdated
- change the terminology—from using mentee and mentor to learner and adviser; shift from using mentoring to collaborative learning or group learning
- be ready to leverage technology to cross traditional mentoring boundaries
- stop using a super-seniors as mentors, and connect people closer in job rank
- look at how your organization is using mentoring, determine how it is leveraging the program, and ask what more you could do for mentoring.
To learn more about the concept of modern mentoring and the work that Randy has done around it, listen to the full podcast and check out his book.
