Mentoring has become a valued and essential part of the career development of arts professionals in museums and beyond. But what is a mentor, how do you find one and how does the relationship best work?
A mentor can help you to find direction in your career, access networks and contacts, improve your managerial or leadership skills and gain the opportunity to work with someone who understands your job role. Mentors achieve an insight into another person’s challenges, skills and responsibilities, and develop their own mentoring skills and confidence.
Coaching and mentoring are both terms used in the development world to describe a supportive relationship, usually one-to-one, within a working context. In practice, coaching and mentoring may be very similar and the two terms are often used interchangeably.
To differentiate, a mentor uses their professional expertise and experience in a similar or complementary area of work to support the development of a less experienced mentee, while a coach is often paid and more likely to have specialist training to perform their role, but may not be from the same professional area as the person seeking support.
How do you find a mentor? Is there someone you know already, someone more senior within your museum or is there someone you can ask in another organisation? Can someone you trust make a recommendation or broker a mentoring relationship for you? It’s helpful to write a short specification of who you are looking for.
I always ask someone looking for a mentor to think about whether they want someone who has mentored before or who has some training, for example, some coaching or facilitating experience. Does it need to be someone with a particular set of experiences or someone who works in the exact area you do? Do you need a person who can offer more general advice and guidance? Is shared experience such as gender or ethnicity important to you? What is your appetite for challenge from your mentor?
What does it take to be a mentor? I believe it doesn’t necessarily need to be someone with training or experience of mentoring, though establishing good practice can be very helpful in setting up a mentoring scheme or programme. It is important to have a mentor you can trust and be open with. At the most basic level you need to know that your conversations are confidential and that you have a shared understanding of what that trust means.
Generosity, experience and good contacts are all necessary, but knowing how to share this in a way that is thoughtful and considerate is essential. Over and above this, mentors should have good communication skills, particularly the ability to ask good questions and listen, to reflect on their own career and development, an interest in the development of others and self and how this can be achieved.
In my experience, setting out the expectations of a mentoring relationship is very important. Even if it might evolve into a less formal relationship, agreeing at the beginning what the commitment is can make the process easier and more structured.
It is then important to establish how many sessions will take place. How long is each session, where will it take place and who is buying the coffee? Are you meeting in person or virtually? I think keeping in virtual contact can work well – I have mentored and coached people all over the world by Skype, but would suggest an in-person meeting to start with as it is helpful to build trust.
I have recently brokered mentoring relationships for participants in the British Council Australia’s ACCELERATE programme – a tailored leadership skills development designed to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the creative industries with the skills and networks to create, take up and excel in leadership positions.
I took time to understand the mentoring needs of each individual before asking them to write a specification, which was then matched to a number of suggested mentors for them to choose from. I will check in with mentors and mentees after the first session and continue to do so over the mentoring relationship.
Mentoring in museums can have huge benefits for both the mentors and mentees and for the organisation – and any return on investment will become evident very quickly.
Personally I have found formal mentoring through programmes such as the Southbank Centre’s Mentoring Cascade programme, and less formal mentoring relationships that I have established myself, to be incredibly valuable in building confidence, contacts and my career.
Nicola Turner is the director of NT Creative Arts, an arts consultancy specialising in leadership and entrepreneurship
A mentor can help you to find direction in your career, access networks and contacts, improve your managerial or leadership skills and gain the opportunity to work with someone who understands your job role. Mentors achieve an insight into another person’s challenges, skills and responsibilities, and develop their own mentoring skills and confidence.
Coaching and mentoring are both terms used in the development world to describe a supportive relationship, usually one-to-one, within a working context. In practice, coaching and mentoring may be very similar and the two terms are often used interchangeably.
To differentiate, a mentor uses their professional expertise and experience in a similar or complementary area of work to support the development of a less experienced mentee, while a coach is often paid and more likely to have specialist training to perform their role, but may not be from the same professional area as the person seeking support.
How do you find a mentor? Is there someone you know already, someone more senior within your museum or is there someone you can ask in another organisation? Can someone you trust make a recommendation or broker a mentoring relationship for you? It’s helpful to write a short specification of who you are looking for.
I always ask someone looking for a mentor to think about whether they want someone who has mentored before or who has some training, for example, some coaching or facilitating experience. Does it need to be someone with a particular set of experiences or someone who works in the exact area you do? Do you need a person who can offer more general advice and guidance? Is shared experience such as gender or ethnicity important to you? What is your appetite for challenge from your mentor?
What does it take to be a mentor? I believe it doesn’t necessarily need to be someone with training or experience of mentoring, though establishing good practice can be very helpful in setting up a mentoring scheme or programme. It is important to have a mentor you can trust and be open with. At the most basic level you need to know that your conversations are confidential and that you have a shared understanding of what that trust means.
Generosity, experience and good contacts are all necessary, but knowing how to share this in a way that is thoughtful and considerate is essential. Over and above this, mentors should have good communication skills, particularly the ability to ask good questions and listen, to reflect on their own career and development, an interest in the development of others and self and how this can be achieved.
In my experience, setting out the expectations of a mentoring relationship is very important. Even if it might evolve into a less formal relationship, agreeing at the beginning what the commitment is can make the process easier and more structured.
It is then important to establish how many sessions will take place. How long is each session, where will it take place and who is buying the coffee? Are you meeting in person or virtually? I think keeping in virtual contact can work well – I have mentored and coached people all over the world by Skype, but would suggest an in-person meeting to start with as it is helpful to build trust.
I have recently brokered mentoring relationships for participants in the British Council Australia’s ACCELERATE programme – a tailored leadership skills development designed to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the creative industries with the skills and networks to create, take up and excel in leadership positions.
I took time to understand the mentoring needs of each individual before asking them to write a specification, which was then matched to a number of suggested mentors for them to choose from. I will check in with mentors and mentees after the first session and continue to do so over the mentoring relationship.
Mentoring in museums can have huge benefits for both the mentors and mentees and for the organisation – and any return on investment will become evident very quickly.
Personally I have found formal mentoring through programmes such as the Southbank Centre’s Mentoring Cascade programme, and less formal mentoring relationships that I have established myself, to be incredibly valuable in building confidence, contacts and my career.
Nicola Turner is the director of NT Creative Arts, an arts consultancy specialising in leadership and entrepreneurship