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So you’ve reached a certain point in your PR career where you feel
that you’ve accumulated enough experience that you want to share it
with someone. Have you considered becoming a mentor?
This article was written for PR Tactics, a monthly publication of the Public Relations Society of America. It is scheduled for publication in April 2005.
The Joys of Mentoring, by Fred Whiting, APR
About a year ago, members of the board of the National Capital Chapter in Washington, DC,
expressed interest in establishing a mentoring program that would be an
effective member benefit as well as a membership recruitment tool. I offered to coordinate it, on three conditions:
- It shouldn’t involve a lot of work..
- It shouldn’t take very much time.
- It should be personally gratifying.
As I learned, one out of three isn’t bad.
Seriously,
my experience in launching a mentoring program for the National Capital
Chapter has been one of the most rewarding of my professional
career. Working with Tracy Krughoff, whose interest in the
project was that of a protégé, we launched the program in June
2004. Since then, we have matched about 42 mentors and
protégés.
For
most of those participating in the program, the results have been
good. “I
became a mentor because my experience has been that the best lessons
learned in public relations are ‘boots on the ground’ examples,” says
Jim Engelhardt, APR, Communications Director for a public policy and
business research organization in Arlington, VA. “My expectations
were to offer assistance to a young practitioner. As
it turned out, my ‘protégé’ has been in the business for 10 years, so
we had more of a peer-to-peer discussion, which provided mutual
benefits.” For
a “protégé” who is now a working as a senior-level PR practitioner but
is new to the field of public relations, the program has also been
advantageous. “I hoped my mentor would be
patient [considering] my [relative] inexperience and willing to bring
me along slowly,” notes Mike Greenberg, an employee of the US Social
Security Administration. “I could not have been more pleased.”
However,
the chemistry between mentor and protégé doesn’t always mix well,
according to a mentor who prefers to remain anonymous. “I think
my expectations may have been a bit too high,” she says. “I
expected to develop a strong relationship with my protégé right off the
bat (as I did with my mentor), but we haven’t done that. Maybe
it’s too soon, but I do not feel we connected real well when we met the
first time. I
am not sure that a mentor-protégé relationship will be successful or
helpful in all cases, just because the needs of the protégé and
abilities are matched on paper. There’s a missing ingredient—the
thing that makes two people want to keep in touch. That’s kind of
organic—and it has to be there in order for the relationship to work, I
think.”
The
NCC Mentoring Program was developed based on the model provided by the
PRSA College of Fellows, who serve as mentors among their other
responsibilities. My colleague, Tracy Krughoff, developed a
profile form for both prospective protégés and mentors.
Candidates
complete the form, and we try to match those who work in similar
settings (such as corporate, nonprofit, agency, government) and
industries (high-tech, healthcare, government, education,
international). Then it’s up to the protégé to initiate
contact. The rest is between mentor and protégé.
My
experience in trying to match mentors with protégés is that it is
sometimes difficult to find a close match with a limited number of
applicants, and there are always more protégés than mentors. However,
most of those participating in the program say it’s been worthwhile and
suggest that it be undertaken by other PRSA chapters.
“It’s
a great PRSA membership benefit!” says Mike Greenberg. “Mentoring
programs build loyalty among chapter members and make for an attractive
recruiting tool.”
“I
would recommend it highly,” adds Jim Engelhardt, “and I would encourage
other chapters to make this a priority in any strategic plans.
There can be, and should be, an excellent return on investment.
“This is a superb value-added to one’s membership.”
“Anonymous”
agrees: “The benefits can be innumerable. Both sides stand to
gain. A protégé can become wiser to their future and planning for
it. They
can be shown (as my mentor has shown me—quite gently I might add) where
weaknesses are, or where poor habits can get in the way of
success.
“For
the mentor, it can be equally humbling and educational; as a protégé
can provide a perspective that the mentor may have lost sight of. When
the protégé is more junior to the mentor, the protégé can give feedback
on challenging situations with superiors in a way that is
non-threatening and generic…and that’s truly eye-opening for the mentor
(if the mentor’s eyes and mind are open to it.).”
Actually, being a mentor sometimes has unintended consequences. I
received a phone call recently from a young African-American woman who
works as an accountant but has a friend who has written a book for the
“hip-hop audience.” She said she found my
name and number on the chapter’s Web site and thought I might be able
to provide some advice on how to promote the book.
I
gently explained to the young lady that, I knew practically nothing of
hip-hop music or its audience. However,
we went over Media Relations 101 and came up with some ideas not only
on how to promote the book directly to her target audience, but how to
generate media placements about the novelty of such a book. As we
ended our 45-minute conversation, she told me she was interested in
going into public relations!
For more information on the PRSA-NCC Mentoring Project, go to www.prsa-ncc.org.
Fred
Whiting, APR, is a member of the PRSA-NCC Board of Directors and is a
communications consultant for the National Sleep Foundation. |
