Development

Mentoring focuses on promoting your mentee's development and growth. Development by its very nature is future-directed and it creates its own momentum. When mentees see themselves succeeding, they become infused with energy and enthusiasm.

One way to help a young innovator to be able to track their own success is through a portfolio. The young innovator can keep an electronic version, a paper version or a hybrid version that contains both versions, electronic and paper-based documents and artifacts. Starting at the very beginning of the mentoring relationship with things like a mentoring contract, a list of initial innovation ideas, a draft description of the chosen innovation, a list of the innovation team (if there is one), notes from mentor-mentee meetings, etc.

Can you think of ways for mentors and mentees to work together to document the mentee's development during the innovation creation process?

--- TRANSITION ALERT! ----

We've just explored what mentoring is, its many facets and dimensions. Yet, in order to avoid mistakenly equating mentoring with other activities(e.g., attention-giving, caring), we're going to clarify the many things that mentoring is not.