The mentoring business has established itself in the current market environment nicely. Every organization and department now looks for these mentoring programs to boost performance and sustain in this competitive world.
When we talk about mentoring programs, we mainly come across one-on-one mentoring sessions where the participants are the mentor and mentee discussing their problems at length in search of solutions.
In any traditional mentoring session, the mentor is the senior or expert guiding their juniors with less knowledge and experience of business circumstances.
Business organizations now consider mentoring a primary strategy to grow in their professional domain. These have led to increasing mentoring programs and forming different kinds of mentoring sessions for diverse groups of individuals, such as group mentoring, career mentoring, peer mentoring, reverse mentoring, etc.
Among the various kinds of mentoring programs, group mentoring is gaining popularity within the current population.
In this work, we will learn about the group mentoring program and how organizations can use it to help others in need.
What is Group Mentoring?
- As the question being asked, group mentoring is a category inside the mentoring programs that deal with traditional mentors and mentees only with the difference in numbers.
- Here, one individual is serving as your mentor, and multiple participants or groups of people serve as mentees. It can also be upturned when a solo mentee is looking for assistance from numerous mentors.
- They join the meeting or session regularly and solve their queries with each other’s help.
- Group mentoring is another level of the traditional mentor-mentee relationship having its profits and losses counted.
- In a basic group mentoring session, we will find that there may be one or two individuals working as a mentor and providing their knowledge on various subjects to the mentees, whose count is around five plus members at least.
- The group is formed with an ambition to accomplish specific goals by each participant.
However, these groups are most commonly created to help the seekers set their goals with the experience and knowledge offered by the best experts around the world or to help the mentees by delivering them different approaches and outlooks of professionals to broaden their perspective.
You can quickly characterize the group mentoring programs based on the following points mentioned:
- The participants have a common objective or interest,
- Mentees create a cooperative environment to learn from each other and compare themselves on a larger scale in the market,
- They support each other and help each other to develop,
- All members meet at the same time to discuss the topic.
- The participants value each other’s timing and always meet at the same time for everyone’s convenience.
How to Start Group Mentoring
Group mentoring is a great way to bring various individuals together with similar interests. When people come together, they tend to share close ties and bonds. It creates strong relationships between participants and mentors too.
When connections are well established, the development process also speeds up its pace. They learn and adapt things much faster when there is a flow of opinions, conversations, decisions, perspectives, etc.
The mentors and mentees can become each other coaches and reduce the overall pressure built on them.
Let us look at a few points to consider starting a group mentoring program.
Have Rigid Goals
- In group mentoring programs, there are various heads with similar goals but not the same. Hence, your goals must be evident and rigid.
- It would help if you were determined about the objectives you want to achieve in your life from this mentoring session.
- Having a thriving group mentoring program is the first thing you should be confident about. You can also put your objectives in front of others and discuss ways to accomplish them.
- Your goals might have attachments with others and can offer you best practices.
Know Your Group
- People must have a brief idea about being a part of any group.
- It is essential to know your group as it will provide you with the experience and knowledge you need for your growth and development.
- The team or group is your home of professional grounds and will help you to move further; hence, never neglect or compromise on anything before choosing a group.
You Need an Implementation Plan.
- For the success of any mentoring program, there must be a structured plan.
- Your program might consist of the various steps on how the sessions will happen, how we can divide teams, how we will analyze the performance, etc.
- The schedule will prove effective when there is a pattern followed.
- This step in group mentoring programs becomes vital as there are multiple participants, and handling them might be challenging. Thus, having an action plan is the best strategy you can trust on.
Group mentoring is a practical mentoring technique if followed with respect and obedience. You have a great chance to learn, explore and develop skills and qualities that will lead to prosperity.
Following specific steps, you can quickly form a harmonious intelligent group of people engaging themselves with high productivity to boost the quality of their professional lifestyle.
