Mentoring is very much more than simple one-to-one informal instruction, or what used to be called ‘coaching’. Modern mentoring techniques are modelled on those of professional executive coaching and expert academic tutoring.
It is simple but not necessarily easy. An estimated 40% of all mentoring schemes fail through lack of mentor training and understanding. Although no great effort is required to study the growing body of mentoring and coaching literature, adherence to some basic principles and exercising a specific skill set is essential for mentoring to be effective.
Mentoring Scientists and Engineers
While mentoring has been practiced in all professions since the dawn of civilization, the book described here, Mentoring Scientists and Engineers. The Essential Skills, Principles and Processes, is addressed to those who have been pitched into the role of mentor without any prior training.
Because of the author’s own experience and training, that is mainly practitioners in the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics, although it is generally applicable. In aiming to alleviate anxiety, frustration and stress caused by not knowing what is expected of a mentor, the book offers an introductory practical guidance to mentoring as a quick and easy read.
There’s an introduction to what we mean by mentoring and its basic skills – skilful questioning, active listening, building trust, self-management and giving advice and feedback. Modern mentoring principles are based on those of client-centred counselling, in that it emphasises self-responsibility and an adult-to-adult professional relationship with the mentor. Initially, most new mentors will not know how to conduct a mentoring session and so practical advice is offered and a range of applications to common mentoring situations is discussed. Finally, a simple organisational mentoring scheme is outlined.
The book was published on 30 July 2021by CRC Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Group. (ISBN: 978-0-367-72400-9). The retail price is £34.99 for the paperback edition. Editions in hardback and eBook are also published. The book is also available on Amazon and can be obtained through other booksellers.
Currently, readers of Business First Online can receive a 20% discount by entering the code FLY21 at the checkout on the Routledge website. Please visit the Routledge website at: https://www.routledge.com/Mentoring-Scientists-and-Engineers-The-Essential-Skills-Principles-and/Arthurs/p/book/9780367724009.
Mentoring Scientists and Engineers author John Arthurs
As a Chartered Geologist John specialises in mentoring, professional executive coaching and training to support vocational professionals, mainly geoscientists and engineers working in the mining, engineering and environmental industries internationally. In a career spanning 54 years John has travelled widely, often living in remote places and meeting people of many different cultures.
He has worked with mining and engineering companies, third level education and government geological surveys.
Until official retirement in 2002, John was Director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, the NI Government’s chief advisor on earth science policy. Since then, he has been consulting in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Ghana, Romania, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.
