I think mentoring is the only process in which both the teacher and student receive significant benefit. Formalizing mentorship is difficult. First the mentor needs to want to do it, and the mentored needs to want it. Second it is difficult to mentor those under your immediate command structure.
I am not sure where I read this (possibly Dave Ramsey) but I have been told those that want to be mentored should look for 6 types of mentors. I am using the word love below to describe a relationship in which the mentor has an emotional and financial reason to support the person. The six types of mentors I have been taught to look for are:
1. Someone that knows your business and job well, and loves you. This could be a supervisor in a parallel unit of your company, or your supervisor.
2. Someone that knows your business and job well, but does not have any vested interest in you. This could be a supervisor from a previous company, a colleague from another company.
3. Someone that knows your business well, and loves you. This is someone that has a vested interest in your success, understands civil engineering, but does not necessarily understand your specific job title (in my case hydrologist). This would be a senior manager in your company.
4. Someone that knows your business well, and does not have a vested interest in you. This could be a previous senior manager, or a professor.
5. Someone that does not know your business, but loves you. This is often a spouse, but could be a minister, parent or other person like that.
6. Someone that neither knows your business, nor has a vested interest in you. This is the hardest one to fill, but could be filled with a relationship at a civic association, chamber of commerce, or peer to peer network.
1 and 2 understand your business, and your job, and help you develop strategies to become better in your business. 1 will also consider work/life balance in their help. 2. provides an objective view on your work and business.
3 and 4 understand your business, and overall company, and its place in the big world. Their viewpoint helps you determine if your business is a good one to be in right now, and whether your company is the right one for you to be in.
5 and 6 help you to understand and perfect the rest of the things beside work that you need to know to live in the world. They help you balance the business success formula that 1 and 2 encourage with the life success formula you need to be a complete person.
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Dwayne Culp, Ph.D., P.E., P.Eng, M.ASCE
Culp Engineering, LLC
Rosenberg TX
(713)898-1977
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-07-2018 16:40
From: Bevin Beaudet
Subject: Mentoring Programs
Recently on the Professional and Career Topics Discussion Board of ASCE Collaborate, we held an interesting and informative discussion on the topic of mentoring. I personally consider that the two most important contributors to my career were having good mentors and the networking involved in relevant associations like ASCE. Many ASCE members would like to see our association get more involved in the support of mentoring our younger, upcoming leaders. In that spirit, I am going to re-open the topic in the hopes that you, our collaborators, will weigh in on issues to help guide ASCE toward that goal. Here are two questions that I hope many of you will discuss:
1. How should a young engineer go about choosing a mentor? Or conversely, should experienced engineers choose those who they would like to mentor?
2. Should engineering companies or agencies develop formal mentoring programs? If so, would guidance from an energized ASCE mentoring program be helpful?
If I get enough thoughtful responses, I am going to ask a Hot-Topic question next!
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Bevin Beaudet P.E., M.ASCE
President/Owner
Bevin A. Beaudet, P.E., LLC.
West Palm Beach FL
(561)225-1214
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