What is it?
A beautiful relationship between mentor and mentee, wherein the mentor wants to share years of experience and knowledge to mentees, who are inclined towards exploring the world with strategy.
Why?
Destiny plays an important role but to improve performance, Mentee needs to contribute and it is preferable to seek help of Mentor
How?
Trust someone, who is more knowledgeable and experienced.
For Whom?
Age is not a criteria hence mentoring is possible during any stage of life like, during education, initial days of career, after a couple of years in career, for mid life strategies. In this article, focus is on career/professionalism
What is Mentoring?
It is a combination of sharing wisdom (Mentor) and it is a learning experience (Mentee).
Interaction with someone can be for a shorter duration (couple of hours) to find out answers for basic queries. But when it’s for a longer duration with proper guidance on career & personal growth, then it’s about mentor and mentee relationship.
Evolution: It is a magical link, wherein a mentor is pleased to transfer his/her wisdom to a mentee who will implement it in a new era.
Benefits:
- Mentor motivates Mentee
- Mentee have a role model for inspiration
- Mentee gets multiple views to find answers to queries
- Strategy based direction compared to self learnings
- Strengthening introspection for both mentor & mentee
Sensitivity of mentoring:
- Mentor wants to create clone
- Unbalanced mentoring for Career and personal growth
- Mentee lacks dedication
It’s a beautiful journey, if and only if,
- Mentor share wisdom and knowledge
- Passionate mentee is keen to improve the achievement trajectory
- Implementation, monitoring & controlling of defined action plan
Why?
Learning is always helpful and human beings are students all over the life because the universe has too much to offer.
Mentoring is a preferred choice, to grab the opportunity of learning from someone’s wisdom to deal with competition, technology & innovations.
For example: GPS: We know the path to our destination but still opt to reach out to GPS (Google maps) for direction because the satellite has better vision.
Benefits of GPS:
- To know about current traffic situation
- Gaining confidence for duration of journey
- To be sure about the location (In case of new location)
- To be aware of alternative route
- Have liberty to choose desired route based on options available
Why opt for mentoring?
Upgrading oneself is the need of an hour. It always makes sense to learn or get directions generally from knowledgeable seniors.
It’s an opportunity to reach a desired destination through somebody’s wisdom and/or vision. Mentoring is also instrumental in linking up present technology to make a decision for evolving future strategy.
Mentoring-Introspection-SWOT-Self respect
One of the process during mentoring is introspection, in which Mentee goes through SWOT analysis (Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat). Mentor frames strategies with Mentee to enhance outcome of SWOT. Mentor guides Mentee to be aware of Weakness and Threat but on the same time action plan is set to improve Strengths and Opportunities. Implementation of this process improves confidence and self respect of Mentee.
How?
TRUST: Yes, believe in Person and Technology to enhance self confidence.
We choose multiple mentors (Knowingly/Unknowingly/By default) at multiple times in our life. As a child, in school, during college, career (work or business), at personal front.
To choose a mentor for a career/professionalism, first decide requirements or expectations and then do research for available mentors or identify mentors within your reach.
Select a mentor of your choice by matching your expectations with his/her wisdom.
Expectations from Mentors:
- Helpful in developing multiple capabilities & exploring the hidden talent.
- Guidance in upgrading vision, personality and attitude
- Honest in sharing his/her wisdom for framing career development and implementation plans for defined strategies.
Contributions from Mentee:
- Passionate enough to achieve defined things in life.
- Willingness to explore difficult, unknown paths.
- Guts to accept challenges and dedicated efforts to overcome it.
How to improve on learnings from mentoring:
- Implementation & interaction with seniors for improving performance
- Modifications in strategies to address market requirements
- Regular monitoring and controlling
- Sharing of learnings to improve self confidence
For Whom:
Any stage of life, during education, initial days of career, after a couple of years in career, for mid life strategies, some of us need answers for our questions.
Mentoring for the Young generation:
Example: Mentoring in Real Estate Industry:
Mentoring in the RE industry is preferable to define a path due to its diversity.
There are 22+ types of organizations, 8/10 different major departments, 24 profiles in head office & 16 profiles at projects and N number of processes and systems. So it’s recommended to have mentor to steer the professional life.
Let’s look at the challenges for a few youngsters in the Real Estate industry.
- Young owner: Understanding of complete business, Organization development policies, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning software)
- Young Engineers: Specialization, innovations in technologies plus soft skills, such as communications, presentations
- Young architects: Creativity considering commercial point of view, coordination, construction methodologies, software
- Young marketing & sales officers: Technologies, strategies for sales/lease, CRM, social networking,
- Young finance graduates: Software, funding, project and portfolio management, budget tracking, cash flow management,
Diversity in RE industry:
1. Types of projects, residential (Villas, multistoried, high rise, affordable, luxury, premium), commercial, retail, office, hospitality (hotels) hospitals and townships.
2. Number of organizations in the real estate industry ( See article 1.1 to know about 22 organizations (1.1 Professionals in Construction Industry: Career Mapping) Such as Developer, Contractor, Project Management Consultant, Cost Management consultant.
3. Number of departments in an organization ( See article 1.2 Brief about 22 Organizations: Part 1 and 1.3 Brief about 22 Organizations: Part 2) to know about 8 to 10 major departments) Such as Legal, Business development, Finance, Marketing and Sales and multiple sub departments like Engineering consists of Design, Planning, Coordination, Monitoring, Services, Contracts and Cost
4. Understanding of hierarchy in organization structure which varies from organization to organization and also for local, national & International level.
5. Number of profiles at HO (24) & Project level (16) (See article 1.4 Functions-Roles-Expectations-Head Office & 1.5 Functions-Roles-Expectations-Project level)
It’s about professionalism, processes & systems and Technology
6. Number of processes (4 Segments, 31 activities from land till financial completion of the project (See article 2.1 Flow chart for Project Life Cycle and 2.2 Detailed project life cycle), Project budget consists of 125+ to 200 items in 2 segments & 8 sections ( See article 2.5 Project Budget: PMC & Template)
7. It’s management of all available resources.
Example: Coordination- Number of agencies involved architects, consultants, engineers, contractors, manufacturers (materials and machineries), financial institutions, branding agencies, marketing and sales agencies, use of technologies for new construction methodologies, respective government departments for multiple approvals, agreements, financial transactions, audits, safety, environmental factors, etc.
Mentoring for mid level?
Yes, Glass ceiling for everyone (Difficult to grow in present profile) Hence try to find out more…
- Redefine strategies as per market situation
- Understanding the impact of new policies, opportunities, technologies
- Evaluating competition, favoritism, office politics
- Balancing responsibilities with authority
- Upgrading skills for bigger/better role
- Strategies to create a new target for self by constant learnings, group relations, contributions
- Realigning self goal by revisiting strategies
Hence as indicated above, due to diversity in the real estate sector mentoring is recommended, not only for youngsters but for mid level professionals also.
It is important to both Mentor & Mentee to keep themselves updated with technology to avoid being redundant in the system.
Last but not the least:
Generally in mentoring, it’s a win-win situation for both mentor and mentee.
Read More…….
1.1 Professionals in Construction Industry-Career Mapping
22 Organizations, 3 Levels, 55 Opportunities
1.2 About 22 Organizations: Part 1
9 Ownership Based
Function, Structure
1.3 About 22 Organizations: Part 2
11 Services based & 2 Specialized fields
Fees, Structure, Duration
1.4 Functions-Roles-Expectations-Head Office
40 Functions
24 Functions at Head Office
1.5 Functions-Roles-Expectations-Project
40 Functions
16 Functions at Project