It is described here as it applies to an individual mentee seeking to realise their personal vision.
- the purpose of the mentoring, and
- the means by which that purpose is achieved.
The purpose of mentoring is always to help the mentee change something - to improve their performance, to develop their leadership qualities, to develop their partnership skills, to realise their vision, or whatever. This movement from where they are ("Here") to where they want to be ("There") provides one dimension of the mentoring model.
The means by which the mentee gets from Here to There is by taking action into their environment. Without action nothing is achieved and nothing changes. This movement from within to without, from the mentee to their environment provides the second dimension of the model. (This framework is derived from Danielle Roex's Right Relations work.)
Combined, these two dimensions create the Mentoring Wheel which describes a change process made up of four phases; Freeing Up, Envisioning, Implementing, and Sustaining.
Freeing Up describes the process of developing autonomy, responsibility, and the ability to choose freely unconstrained by personal history. When working in this phase, the mentor's stance is nurturing and supportive and aims to help the mentee develop a strong positive self image and sense of self worth so that they have a solid, stable foundation to their lives. The basic question which the mentee seeks to answer in this phase is "Who am I?".
Envisioning is the process of connecting with a sense of purpose, identifying and choosing values, creating a compelling and stretching vision which is aligned to and supports the corporate vision, and committing to realising it. A key skill at this stage is the ability to create and hold a tension between the current reality and the vision. Without the ability to hold this tension, the vision merges with the current reality and merely reinforces the status quo. The mentor's role is to inspire the mentee and to help them answer the question "Where am I going?"
Implementing consists of identifying the goals which will lead towards the vision, deciding on the strategies and actions to achieve these goals, and then taking action. The mentor's role here is to coach and to help the mentee answer the question "How will I achieve my vision?". This may include helping the mentee improve specific management skills in areas such as communication, team leading and time management.
Sustaining is the process of getting feedback from the environment about what is being achieved and the extent to which the vision is being realised and its achievement sustained. When the mentee is able to see clearly what they are creating and to take responsibility for both their successes and failures, then there is the opportunity to learn from experience and gain insight into the changes necessary to deliver and expand their achievement of their vision. The role of the mentor is to challenge the mentee to see clearly the impact of what they are doing and to help them answer the question "Am I creating my vision?".
Underpinning the whole mentoring process is the development of two key skills - the ability to be self aware and the ability to exercise will. The development of these two skills provides the underlying context for the mentoring process and the degree to which the mentee enhances these two skills is one of the best indicators of the extent to which the mentoring process has created lasting changes in the mentee's effectiveness.
Experience has shown that executives can readily understand this framework, that it provides a meaningful way to think of their own change process, and that it reflects their experience of the mentoring process.
