As an engineering professional, you are most likely to be faced with two kinds of mentoring relationships: in your company or sharing what you have learned and experienced with students.

This module will discuss the benefits of mentoring: to you, your company, and to people you mentor during your career. We'll talk about what mentoring is, offer suggestions on how to be a good mentor, and provide guidance on mentoring in specific situations: in the workplace, with university students, and electronic mentoring.

Mentoring relationships work well when the protégé and mentor can identify with one another. But this is not to say that mentors and protégés with different backgrounds cannot form effective relationships. The mentoring relationship may require both you and your protégé to relate to each other outside your comfort zones. This is a real opportunity for personal growth for both of you, so we'll describe ways to embrace diversity in your mentoring.

If you are interested in being mentored, this module will offer suggestions for selecting a mentor and getting the most out of the mentoring relationship.

What is a Mentor?

The term "mentor" is rooted in Greek mythology. Odysseus entrusted his son, Telemachus, to his close friend, Mentor, to act as advisor and counselor to the youth while Odysseus was away fighting the Trojan War. The more current notion of mentoring is of a mutually beneficial and rewarding relationship, usually between an experienced individual and a less seasoned protégé in what has been described by author Gordon F. Shea as "a developmental, caring, sharing, and helpful relationship where one person invests time, know-how, and effort in enhancing another person's growth, knowledge, and skills, and responds to critical needs in the life of that person in ways that prepare the individual for greater productivity in the future."

In simpler terms, mentoring is a process that links experienced persons (mentors) with those less experienced (protégés) in a paired relationship that benefits each. It is also a nurturing process. A mentor can be a source of information and a thoughtful guide through the complexities of unspoken, but potentially career-enhancing or career-limiting, organizational norms.

Benefits of Mentoring

Mentoring isn't simply a noble gesture of social correctness. Mentoring is good business, enhancing an organization's recruitment and retention efforts. Enlightened businesses understand that strong mentoring programs represent one of the most cost-effective ways of first, attracting the best and brightest of the dwindling supply of young engineers, and then, importantly, capitalizing on the increasingly diverse workforce to convey and enhance the collective corporate knowledge and rich traditions for continued success. Mentoring helps develop great leaders and it helps those leaders develop leaders. It can assist in furthering the cause of workplace diversity, increase retention of talent, reduce turnover and enhance creative problem solving. Finally, as part of a company's management development strategy, mentoring helps shape future leaders through continuous learning, personal development and career enhancement. Mentoring benefits both the mentor and the protégé.

Benefits for the protégé include:

	Higher performance and productivity
	Higher career satisfaction
	Increased knowledge, both technical and professional
	Long-term, targeted career development
	Increased likelihood of success
	Access to the pipeline (be it into engineering studies or into a successful career path)
	Better insights into the "informal" rules
	Awareness of new idea and new contacts
	Guidance in dealing with problem situations

As a mentor, you gain information and satisfaction in satisfaction in several ways:

	Sense of pride in seeing your protégé learn and grow
	New knowledge about interpersonal skills, cultural diversity and personal development;
	An opportunity to model productive corporate citizenship
	Personal satisfaction that comes from being relied upon
	A sense of personal value that comes from being of service to others
	An opportunity to "give back"

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