Mentoring in the Law Firm

What Is Mentoring?

Mentoring is knowledge shared. It is a relationship built upon trust and respect. The conversation between the mentor and mentoree allows shared experiences to assist them in making informed decisions and act upon the ideas that are generated.

The goal of mentoring is to allow personal and professional development based in reality. It is about learning not teaching

In mentoring all parties to the process develop a relationship through conversation that enables the mentoree to set and achieve goals, make decisions and solve problems.

When a mentoring relationship succeeds it is enriching and satisfying to all parties to the relationship.

The Mentoring Process

Through a series of conversations and meetings, the mentoree begins to explore and define a pathway they wish to pursue to achieve personal and/or professional growth and development. The mentor encourages conversations and shares experience and knowledge that allows the mentoree to look at all options, decide a course of action, plan and implement it. Reviewing the results continues the learning cycle.

When mentoring is approached this way, the goal of the mentor should always be to expand the mentoree’s thinking process. The metoree should never become dependent upon the mentor. Rather the mentoree is empowered, having come with his or her own answers. They take responsibility for their actions.

The mentoring conversation invites the mentoree to reflect on their own experience with a situation, issue or problem, then gather information from a variety of sources (perhaps including the mentor), sort through options and decide on a course action, plan and implement it. Reviewing the results continues the learning cycle. They learn to take responsibility for their actions and they are less vulnerable because they have explored and understand the consequences of the action taken.

The mentor becomes a safety net as the mentoree starts a course of self-mastery which leads to professional mastery of one’s career. Mentoring occurs when there is a deliberate goal to learn, grow or develop wisdom through conversations

The Catalyst Mentoring Way

Catalyst believes in conversations with its clients that leads to ‘ah ha’ moments when suddenly there is understanding over something that previously was an obstacle to which there appeared to be no solution.

Catalyst is about encouragement, support and stimulated thinking. We believe shared knowledge leads to learning and growth.

We build a trusting relationship that is built upon our belief in our values and our commitment to see our clients succeed. We create situations whether it is through pre-planned meetings or informal conversations that allows our clients to seek solutions to problems, personal and professional.

We allow our clients to implement so they learn. We allow our clients to make the decisions so that they can see the consequences of the decisions. Consultants tell people what to do. Catalyst teaches people so they can do it for themselves.