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Education and Learning

The Purpose and Practice of

Mentoring

As a member of the Security Institute, you gain access to our online Mentoring Platform. The platform
is designed to connect professionals with each other to provide essential peer-to-peer support,
helping professionals at all stages of their career with their development.

What is the best approach for a successful mentoring relationship?
When entering a mentoring relationship there is often a temptation to dive right in and “just get on
with it”. In our experience this can mean that mentoring conversations can drift, failing to focus on the
real issues and relationships can then stall. Following a structured approach is more likely to give the
relationship a real purpose and ensure a successful outcome. Formalising and scheduling mentoring
conversations can sound mundane, but without this methodical approach the demands of hectic work
schedules may mean that the process just doesn’t happen.

Suggesting a mentoring process is not to say that it is the only way to do it, but rather is a preferred
option. There is a generic four stage process that can be applied to most mentoring relationships.
Like all processes, it requires each stage to be properly completed for the whole process to work
successfully. Missing out stages or concentrating on one at the expense of the others can lead to
confusion and poor results.

Stage 1 – Analysis
Mentoring can only start when learners develop a need and desire to improve their performance or
change the way they have been doing things at work. The mentor needs to help the learner develop
this awareness because you can’t mentor someone unless they want to change

One of the ways in which learners develop awareness is through questions that analyse their current
performance and compares it to the level they want to move towards. Using self-assessment exercises
as a basis for future conversations is a powerful technique. We have SWOT and G-STAR tools inbuilt
into our mentoring platform to help with this process.

Stage 2 – Plan
Mentors shouldn’t attempt to impose learning on a mentee, the mentee needs to be actively involved
in the process. It is therefore useful as a second stage to develop a Personal Learning Plan (PLP).

This plan should cover the following questions:
• What is to be achieved?
• How it will be done?
• Where will it be done?
• When will it start and end?
• How will it be measured?

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