When Odysseus embarked on a twenty-year journey due to the war in Troy he left the care of his son Telemachus to his best friend – Mentor. He knew that someone had to take care of the future king of Ithaca – to accompany and support him on the journey.

Deep inside all of us flows a river of development. The need for development is naturally related to life in the same way as the need for love. When the river of development comes to an obstacle, vortices are created that cause dissatisfaction and unrest. Mentor does not change the appearance nor the course of the river, but helps mentee to remove the obstacle himself so that the river of development may continue to flow as it intended. With the help of a mentor, a mentee gains experience and knowledge faster, which would require much more time if he was alone.

The mentoring process has existed since ancient times – Charles Darwin had great support from his professor John Henslow as a student, who motivated him to embark on an expedition aboard the Beagle ship. Darwin’s family wanted him to become a doctor or a priest while the young man absorbed available natural literature, studied marine invertebrates and collected insects…Henslow, a priest and a professor of botany and geology showed and opened the door to his student, and the five-year trip will change Darwin’s life and change the hither ingrained attitude about the origin of species.

The process of mentoring has gained structure in our time. It is becoming popular in both profit and non-profit sectors. The reason is simple – experience and studies have shown that managers who have a mentor develop faster and earn more, but they also possess greater satisfaction for their job. Also, managers who have had a mentor, pass on that knowledge as mentors to younger colleagues.

SAM (Serbian Association of Managers) has a pioneering role in the development of mentoring in our country.

So far five generations of mentors and mentees have gone through a exclusively voluntary nine-month process.

I will try to describe key impressions from my two-year engagement in this program, with a remark that mentoring can only in practice be experienced in a right way.

The golden rule is that mentoring is not a dogma – every mentor and mentee is unique. So are mentoring styles, and therefore results are unique. Mostly it’s a change for the better in life and career both for mentee and mentor.

Mentoring is a mutual process in which, after a few months of getting used to, a relationship of trust is created and the line between who is a mentor and who is a mentee is slowly being lost.

I learned from my mentors about how to run an entrepreneurial company and the importance of innovation and flexibility in business. On the other hand, I shared the experiences of large corporation when it comes to processes, organization, management and delegation. Probably the most important thing for me was that by working with Generation Y I learned to better understand my children as well.

“We all learn, there is no counseling” is a slogan that my mentee has used –it indicates the reciprocity of the process, as well as my refusal to solve his problems by advising. I believe in asking questions, listening, as well as the time it takes for a mentee himself to come to what is important to him, to choose between more possibilities and to take responsibility. Of course, this is not a rule that is not deviated from. Sometimes we can give advice and thus transfer knowledge as the mentor experiences it. If the mentoring style is based mostly on giving advice, it’s hard to develop a mentee and we risk creating an addictive relationship.

The pattern of behavior is important, current situation in mentee’s career not as much. For example, when the topic is the current relationship with superiors, the general pattern of relations towards authorities is more important. There are no universal rules, mentor’s experience does not necessarily have to be applicable in career as a mentor, and vice versa.

As a mentor I tried to help remove obstacles in the way of mentees’ careers, I was happy when they made progress and I was worried when they faced problems. Sometimes I didn’t know what to say or ask but I learned to trust the mentoring process. Not everything is about rational, there is something in the field that mentors and mentees create with their work.

A thin line separates mentoring and coaching. What unites them is setting a goal or mentee’s expectations. Experience teaches me that a goal should not be set in initial meetings, but to let the mentee sort out the impressions after the first meetings and to slowly define the main goal of the process. During the process we should periodically return to set goals – how far we have come, how we are progressing or maybe we are on the wrong path…

Mentoring is civilization’s legacy that helps people become better. We may not have used that word 20 or 30 years ago but there have been people who supported us and who we learned from. It’s hard to achieve success in any segment without a friend who accompanies us on the wondrous path of growth and development.

(NIN, January 2020)