Building and managing the mentoring relationship

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Building and managing the mentoring relationship
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Building the Mentoring Relationship Empathy
and Rapport

• This section of the advanced mentor training aims
  to show the student mentor the importance of
  empathy and rapport in building a good mentoring
  relationship.

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The Process of Mentoring Building Empathy

• Being open to the ideas of others.
• Showing sensitivity to the values and feelings of
  others.
• Showing you are interested and you understand.
• Showing an awareness that everyone has their own
  perspective or mental model. People are
  different, some are practical and deal with facts
  whereas others use metaphors or images. The
  empathy builder notices this and reflects back
  through matching and mirroring.
• Reflecting back - reflects back what the person
  is a saying.
• What do you think empathy is? When have you
  experienced it?

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The Process of Mentoring Building Rapport

• Rapport can happen naturally but more often it
  grows out of a series of communications as trust
  develops. It is built through upholding
  confidentiality, showing warmth, demonstrating
  good listening ability and being empathic.
• You can encourage this by the way you look and
  present yourself, using positive body language
  and gestures, the tone of voice and carefully
  chosen language.
• Think about a relationship youve had with
  little or no rapport
• how did you know, what was missing?

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Carefully chosen language Jargon busting

• Remember that not everyone understands
  specialist words or jargon. This is
  particularly important when working with young
  people who have had little experience of Higher
  Education.
• Words such as those below can be confusing and
  intimidating
• HE, FE, Degree, Seminar, Lecture, Tutorial,
  Undergraduate, Faculty, BA, BSc, Campus ...
• What can you do about this as an Outreach
  Ambassador?

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Establishing the relationship

• Your work as an Outreach Ambassador may involve
  working with an individual or a group over a
  period of time. This enables you to establishing
  a positive relationship.
• You do this through your mentoring skills and
  making it clear you are on their side. You are
  there to help, to inform, to listen.
• Be clear about the purpose and expectations of
  the relationship. What is the contract? How long
  will it last? How often will you meet?
• In order to build rapport and trust there needs
  to be confidentiality however there is a need
  to break this if you have reason to believe that
  a young person under 18 or a vulnerable adult is
  being abused.
• What are the building blocks necessary for
  establishing a positive
• helping relationship?

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A professional approach

• The way you present yourself is important in
  building trust, respect and a successful
  mentoring experience.
• Be punctual, reliable and appropriately dressed.
  Do what you say you will do. Know the limits of
  what you are going to do so dont promise what
  you cant deliver.
• Be personable - smile, show an interest, be aware
  of peoples needs, listen.
• Be prepared show good organisation, have all
  materials at hand, be aware of Health ands Safety
  issues.
• Be positive always look for the good side, use
  humour appropriately. Avoid criticising.
• Be honest if you dont know the answer, say so
  , but suggest a way to find out.

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Telling your story

• As a champion of the University of Worcester one
  of the best ways of building trust with your
  mentees and communicating the advantages of HE
  is to tell your story.
• What is your background, what are you studying
  and why? What has your journey been like. Talk
  about your feelings as well as the facts. Be
  honest but positive. Expect a wide range of
  questions some of which will be surprising.

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Emotional Intelligence

• A key aspect of successful mentoring is emotional
  intelligence (EQ).
• Emotional intelligence is the ability to
  recognize your emotions, understand what they're
  telling you, and realize how your emotions affect
  people around you.
• Emotional intelligence also involves your
  perception of others when you understand how
  they feel, this allows you to manage
  relationships more effectively.

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Emotional Intelligence

• This is essentially being aware of your own
  feelings and those of others.
• People with high EQ
• are able to recognise and label their own
  feelings
• take responsibility for their feelings and use
  them to make choices
• They respect the feelings of others and dont
  blame, command, criticise, control or judge
  others
• Its about managing ourselves and understanding
  others.
• Those with low EQ may lack confidence and
  motivation.
• Think of a time when you had strong feelings
  about
• study issue e.g. some criticism about your work.
• How did you respond to them?

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Emotional Intelligence

• "The ability to perceive emotion, integrate
  emotion to facilitate thought, understand
  emotions and to regulate emotions to promote
  personal growth." Salovey Mayer (2001)
• Perceiving emotions the ability to detect and
  decipher emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and
  cultural artefacts including the ability to
  identify one's own emotions.
• Using emotions the ability to harness emotions
  to facilitate various cognitive activities, such
  as thinking and problem solving. The emotionally
  intelligent person can capitalize fully upon his
  or her changing moods in order to best fit the
  task at hand.

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Emotional Intelligence

• Understanding emotions the ability to
  comprehend emotion language and to appreciate
  complicated relationships among emotions. For
  example, understanding emotions encompasses the
  ability to be sensitive to slight variations
  between emotions, and the ability to recognize
  and describe how emotions evolve over time.
• Managing emotions the ability to regulate
  emotions in both ourselves and in others.
  Therefore, the emotionally intelligent person can
  harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage
  them to achieve intended goals.

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Emotional Intelligence

• Daniel Goleman (1999) suggests these
• Self-awareness the ability to know one's
  emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values
  and goals and recognize their impact on others
  while using gut feelings to guide decisions.
• Self-regulation involves controlling or
  redirecting one's disruptive emotions and
  impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.
• Social skill managing relationships to move
  people in the desired direction
• Empathy - considering other people's feelings
  especially when making decisions .
• Motivation - being driven to achieve for the sake
  of achievement.

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Improving Emotional Intelligence

• Being aware of how others learn and how they
  respond are parts of developing an emotional
  intelligence. Being aware of others feelings and
  your own and relating intelligently help build
  good mentoring relationships.
• Observe how you react to people. Dont rush to
  judge other people. Try to put yourself in their
  place, and try to be more aware of their point of
  view and needs.
• Put the focus on your mentee, give them a chance
  to develop, dont worry about getting praise for
  yourself.

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Improving Emotional Intelligence

• How you react to stressful situations. Keep your
  emotions under control when things go wrong.
  Learn to stay calm and in control in difficult
  situations so that your mentee does not
  over-react.
• Take responsibility for your actions. If you hurt
  someone's feelings or make a mistake, apologize
  directly. People are usually more understanding
  and able to forgive and forget if you are open
  and honest about your mistakes.
• Be aware of how your actions will affect others,
  put yourself in their place.
• Think before you act!

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Prompting action and moving on

• It is good to encourage others to commit to a
  next step. As a mentor and Outreach Ambassador
  you can help this process by asking commitment
  questions.
• A good techniques is to ask for a score
• For example Out of 10, how committed are you
  to attending the open day at the university?
• Think of a time when you made a commitment which
  changed your life. What was the process you went
  through?

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Moving on and endings

• As the mentoring and Outreach work comes to a
  close its important that this is done smoothly.
  It is good to plan for this so there is time to
  reflect on what has been achieved.
• It is always good to summarise what you have done
  together and to thank people for their
  contributions and engagement.
• If possible this can be a closing event of some
  kind. This is especially appropriate for a group.

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Moving on and endings

• There is often a degree of sadness and regret at
  the ending of an effective relationship.
• It is important that the relationship finishes on
  a positive note and celebrates success in the
  final review.
• It is useful to provide contact details for the
  university or department but not your personal
  details.

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Any Questions?
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