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3 Ways Mentoring Leverages Learning

Someone once said: “You have to learn from other people’s mistakes … you don’t have time to make them all yourself.” Yet mentoring is much more than learning from others.

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People often quote the 70/20/10 model of development. They say only 10% of workplace learning comes from formal education and training; 20% comes from observing, emulating and talking with other people; but a whopping 70% comes from experience.

But experience is the worst teacher! She gives you the test, then the lesson. That’s why we say: “I wish I knew then what I know now!” It’s hindsight, 20-20 vision in the rearview mirror!

Learning from experience only happens when you stop. Reflect. Get the lesson from the experience. That’s called insight. Without it, the person who says they have 10 years experience may really only have 1 year’s experience, repeated 10 times.

What mentoring does is use hindsight to create insight and turn it into foresight.

And that 20% observing, emulating and talking with other people? What if they are the wrong people?

When my youngest child was a teenager, I met a couple who told me they built a fire pit in their back yard. On Saturday nights their teenage kids and their friends would come around. Everybody was welcome. They’d put on the BBQ for all of them. Then sit around the fire pit with the kids, getting to know them, telling stories and just talking, while they toasted marshmallows on the fire. The dad said: “I want to know where my kids are and who they’re with. If you want them to fly with the eagles you don’t want them hanging out with the turkeys”.

You must pick your mentors.

Finally, the 10% formal education and training? This is the biggest investment for organisations and individuals, in money and time and lost productivity. Sending people off-the-job in the hope that they will return and apply learning on-the-job is delusional.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m a trainer from way back, I believe in life-long learning and I know the value of training and conferences. But I also know this. 80% of learning is lost – never gets applied – unless there is on-the-job coaching or mentoring (Jefferson et al).

The learning environment has evolved and mentoring is the key. Mentoring leverages the 70, the 20 and the 10. It adds value, extends and enhances all types of learning and when managers also mentor their people, learning can be applied on the job to make a real difference. That’s how mentoring works.

 

Reference

Jefferson, A., Pollock, R., & Wick, C. (2009) Getting your money’s worth from training & development. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CA

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About Ann Rolfe

Ann Rolfe is internationally recognised as Australia's leading specialist in mentoring, and is available for speaking, training and consulting. Here Ann shares her knowledge and allows you to ask your most pressing questions about mentoring.

One Response to “3 Ways Mentoring Leverages Learning”

  1. Lynne Sheather April 10, 2015 12:46 am #

    I love that “Experience is the worst kind of teacher. It gives the test before the learning” and “mentoring uses hindsight, to create insight and turn it into foresight”. To me mentoring is like holding a mirror up to the mentoree at different angles that they normally can’t see opening up new possibilities.

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