A Comparison of Mentor Versus Guide Roles

A COMPARISION OF "MENTOR" VERSUS "GUIDE" ROLES:

Providing Peer Assistance Structures That Are Matched to the Protege's Experience
By Barry Sweeny, June 2003

INDEX:

Does "One Size Fit All"?
We need TWO "Sizes" of Mentoring
Comparing Mentoring and Guide Roles
Potential Problems Solved by Providing Two Levels of Mentoring

Does "One Size Fit All"?

Thousands of new or other high potential employees are assigned to and work with mentors in every type of organization every year. Across all of these proteges there is a large range in their life and work experiences, needs, and in their goals for their involvement in mentoring. In all of these cases, the mentors which are assigned to support these proteges will have to adjust the intensity, frequency, kind, and focus of their mentoring assistance to fit the needs and prior experience of these proteges. Yet we almost always call all of this vast variety of help "mentoring".

We need TWO "Sizes" of Mentoring

One result of calling all of these forms of assistance "mentoring" is that the meaning of mentoring has been expanded to include almost everything, and so means almost nothing specifically. The net impact of this is that mentoring remains somewhat less than the special relationship it should be.

This author suggests that we create two levels of "mentoring" each with a different name, and level of status. Further, he offers that there are a number of significant benefits of doing this, which many organizations should try to capture for their program participants and organizations.

Comparing Mentoring and Guide Roles

Here is how typical Guide or "buddy" roles and mentoring roles are structured to work.

A GUIDE is assigned to any protege who has more than one year of recent, prior professional experience in their new assignment, and who is either:

A. New to the organization, or

B. Transferred within the school organization to a new assignment, level, or site.

A MENTOR is to be assigned to any employee who is:

A. A novice or beginner with no prior experience in the profession

B. A new employee to the organization who has two years or less of recent, prior professional experience in another similar field or organizational setting.

C. An experienced employee in the organization, but a novice in their new job assignment or anticipated assignment for which they are being prepared

MENTOR = >

does all 3 roles

A HELPER ROLE

1. ORIENTATION, as appropriate to:

The Local Site
The Job & Expectations
The Organization as Community
Staff's View of Their Profession
< = GUIDE does one role

A COLLEAGUE
2. A FRIEND, LISTENER, & CONFIDANT

A MODEL ROLE

3. CHALLENGING & FACILITATING THE PROTEGE'S PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT BY:

Acting as a one-to-one staff developer
Modeling the continuous search to be the best employee possible, through openness to learning and to feed back from others

Potential Problems Solved by Providing Two Levels of Mentoring

When the author was a Mentor Program Coordinator (1988-1992) he also coordinated a separate "Guide Program" which addressed the needs of experienced but new employees or staff whose job assignment had changed due to a transfer to a new location or a change of level. It was discovery of all of the unintended positive effects of that Guide Program that led the author to become such a strong advocate of two levels of mentoring,

Potential Problem

Solution Provided By Two Levels of Mentoring

1. Complaints and grievances about pay and work equity. "I can't believe I am mentoring a brand new novice and get paid the same stipend that you get paid (assumes a stipend is paid) when your protege is so much easier to help 'cause of having much more previous experience." Pay guides a lower stipend matched to their lower intensity tasks and shorter duration of responsibilities. Pay mentors a greater stipend matched to their longer, more intensive roles.

2. Too few people applying to serve as mentors. "I might consider being a mentor but I am not sure I can afford the time or do all that mentor might have to do." Experience in the easier Guide Program serves as a recruitment step for the Mentoring Program. "Finding the time for peer support was not the problem I worried it might be because I gained so much from the experience I hadn't anticipated and I wanted to give the time to it." Now that I know this, I am considering being a mentor."

3. Insufficient availablility of appropriate mentors for the needs of proteges and a resulting number of less-than-ideal mentor-protege matches. "We are sorry but we couldn't find a mentor with both the proximity and job experience to match your needs. The mentor we had to assign knows your job assignment but is at a different location. Do the best you can, sorry." Assign a remote mentor with the job experience that matches the protege's needs, but don't stop there. With two levels of mentoring, you can also assign the same protege a Guide at the same location who can assist the protege with the orientation to the local culture and procedures or to locally unique differences in expectations. Just be sure the Guide and mentor know who each other are and they are expected to coordinate their support of the protege. In other words, when one person is not available who can meet all the needs, assign two who can.

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Potential Problem	Solution Provided By Two Levels of Mentoring
1. Complaints and grievances about pay and work equity. "I can't believe I am mentoring a brand new novice and get paid the same stipend that you get paid (assumes a stipend is paid) when your protege is so much easier to help 'cause of having much more previous experience."	Pay guides a lower stipend matched to their lower intensity tasks and shorter duration of responsibilities. Pay mentors a greater stipend matched to their longer, more intensive roles.
2. Too few people applying to serve as mentors. "I might consider being a mentor but I am not sure I can afford the time or do all that mentor might have to do."	Experience in the easier Guide Program serves as a recruitment step for the Mentoring Program. "Finding the time for peer support was not the problem I worried it might be because I gained so much from the experience I hadn't anticipated and I wanted to give the time to it." Now that I know this, I am considering being a mentor."
3. Insufficient availablility of appropriate mentors for the needs of proteges and a resulting number of less-than-ideal mentor-protege matches. "We are sorry but we couldn't find a mentor with both the proximity and job experience to match your needs. The mentor we had to assign knows your job assignment but is at a different location. Do the best you can, sorry."	Assign a remote mentor with the job experience that matches the protege's needs, but don't stop there. With two levels of mentoring, you can also assign the same protege a Guide at the same location who can assist the protege with the orientation to the local culture and procedures or to locally unique differences in expectations. Just be sure the Guide and mentor know who each other are and they are expected to coordinate their support of the protege. In other words, when one person is not available who can meet all the needs, assign two who can.