As good as many mentors are intuitively, the potential of a really great mentoring relationship is too critical to leave to chance: truly effective and memorable mentors are not just born, they’re made. So, the art — the intention, commitment, awareness and skill — together with knowledge and experience, combine to create something much bigger than the sum of its parts.
Dani Ticktin Koplick:  THE NAME OF THE GAME:  The Making of a Mentor:  

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As you build your career, as you increase your effectiveness, as you commit to, and follow through on, the challenge of “getting better,” you need help.  A lot of help!

You need good teachers, and then good managers/supervisors, and then maybe a good coach, and then, a good mentor.  “It takes a village” to build a really effective worker in this complex work world of today.

But, it is a mistake to think that any one person can fill all of these “roles.”  It really does help to have that “village,” a team of career building, effectiveness building helpers and guides and patient “correctors.”

I recently created this chart, which I shared in my presentation on mentoring for a client – a client in the beginning stages of implementing a formal mentoring program for their current and future leaders.

• Developing people (developing leaders) at work

	Supervision	Teaching	Coaching	Mentoring
Relationship	Employee	Student	Team Member	Protégé
Duration	While in this position	While in this class	Short-term (for this season)	Long-term
Sessions	One-to one; and in “team meetings”	“Classes”	One-to-one; and in groups	One-to-one; “regularly scheduled” is best
Focus	Get the work done	Learn the skills – “skill development”	Refine the skills – figure out how best to use the skills	Mutual learning, giving shape to Personal values and personal development; “career development”
Visibility	Generally pretty visible	When in a live learning session (a class), very visible	One-to-one; and in groups	One-to-one; private/confidential

• There is also a need (at times) for:
• A Counselor
• A Sponsor

Here is another way to look at this “village’ of people-building professionals:

Problem:
Does the officer need to be supervised/managed (“this is what to work on this day, this week, this month)?
Solution:
— ongoing management and supervision

Problem:
Does the officer need to be taught – is there a gap in his/her education?
Solution:
— more education and formal training

Problem:
Does the officer need to refine some skills (“get a little better”)?
Solution:
— Coaching
• “A coach is someone who can offer correction without creating resentment.”  — John Wooden

Problem: 
Does the officer need help in “mapping out” a career, and figuring out what to develop/work on next?
• Note:  both hard skills and soft skills
Solution:
— mentoring

{Observation:
• Hard Skills are “easier” to teach, and certainly easier to measure.  “Soft Skills” are much harder to teach, and much, much harder to measure.}

Problem:
Is the officer facing a crisis, a “problem?”
Solution:
— counseling

In the olden days, a “journeyman” would take an “apprentice” under his wing and train the young apprentice.  But both the journeyman and the apprentice would spend a lifetime getting really good at one specific task.

In todays world, it is not a journeyman, it is men and women, in a growing, almost indefinable array of jobs and even professions.  People change jobs, and careers , and no one person can begin to understand all that any other person needs to know, and master.  It really, truly is much more complex these days.  So that “village” of helpers is not only useful, but essential.

And maybe the most valuable of all is that wise, sounding-board, co-learning mentor.