Exercise 10-1: Identifying Your Mentoring Needs and Potential Mentors Mentoring is a personal professional relationship based on trust and common interests. Whereas mentors are often more senior and experienced than the people they support, many mentors can be at the same level, or even at lower organizational levels and with less experience than the mentee.

This exercise is designed to help you consider areas where you need help and identify a list of people you could approach to be your mentors.

Step 1: What Do You Need? You can identify areas where you may need development through the following:

Self-exploration and careful soul-searching

Looking at your most recent performance reviews

Considering the results of some assessment tools you have taken in school, or at work

Identifying patterns in informal feedback you get from family members, friends, and coworkers

Based on your review of that information, what are the three areas that you would like to develop to further expertise and competence?

Step 2: Who Do You Know? Keeping those development needs in mind, who do you know with expertise in those areas? Start with a long list; include as many people as you can think of. Bosses, instructors, acquaintances, friends, and family members may all be able to help. Your peers are also likely to have many areas of expertise and some less-experienced and younger members of your organization may even have specialty or skills in the areas you are interested in.

Your long list:

Narrow your list based on the following criteria:

Those you trust to help you:

Those you feel comfortable with:

Step 3: Creating a Mentoring Relationship You should now write down a few names for each of the areas you would like to target. You can approach each person and ask him or her for an informal meeting or to go to lunch or for coffee. If you feel comfortable, you can then ask them to help you in learning about the areas you are interested in. Most people are quite flattered to be asked to help and mentor someone, so they are not likely to turn you down. If they do, you may consider contacting them in the future.

A few things to keep in mind:

- Be very clear about how much help you need. Most of us are too busy to dedicate time to an involved process, so stick with a lunch or coffee once a month or so.

- Don't use your mentor as a "dumping" ground for all the problems you face at work or school; stay focused on learning about specific areas you think the person can help you with.

- Express your appreciation for their time and support, and send thank-you notes or e-mails after each meeting.

- Take the responsibility to keep the relationship going if you feel you are benefiting from it.

Although you may feel most comfortable with just one or two people, it is always helpful to have a broad network.