[Ailist] Re: Appreciative Mentoring

[Olen Jones]

Check out Jackie Kelm's newest book, The Joy of Appreciative Living.
She has developed a curriculum for this book that is designed for small
groups (Appreciative Living "Learning Circles"), and could easily be
adapted to a mentoring relationship. You can find the curriculum on her
website, www.appreciativeliving.com. 

Olen Jones, Community Relations
National Community Renaissance 
National CORE
9065 Haven Avenue, Suite 100
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 
(909) 483-2444 Ext. 122
(909) 483-2448 Fax
ojones at nationalcore.org 

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 17:11:14 -0400
From: McKenna Maureen <maureenmckenna at sympatico.ca>
Subject: [Ailist] Re: Appreciative Mentoring
To: ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
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> In my experience, mentoring works best when you can sit down  
> together and define (co-construct) what the term mentor 'mentor'   
> means for both of you and create a shared image of what you both
> want to achieve (Definition phase of the 5D Model). Once you have  
> completed this work, I believe you have a good foundation for the  
> 'mentoring' to begin. It is important (in my view) to emphasis that  
> this is a 50:50 relationship and that the person being mentored has  
> an important role to help ensure that they are getting what they  
> need to help them develop.    It truly is a learning journey for  
> both parties. I have learned that when I mentor people, I learn as  
> much (if not more) than they do. It is a great process for  
> reflection and deepening my awareness of what we are discussing (and  
> often helps me to shift and/or reframe some of my mental models /  
> long held beliefs).
>
> Marty Seligman talks about three areas for us to focus on for
> happiness - the pleasured life, the engaged life and the meaningful  
> life. I believe that mentoring is about both the engaged and  
> meaningful life (and I have lots of fun doing it so it does touch  
> the pleasure life too). Mentoring (for both parties) is about  
> discovering and/or focusing on the strengths that help us to be  
> 'engaged' in our work and hopefully the mentor gets the added  
> benefit of experiencing the meaningful life as we focus on the  
> person we are mentoring.

Some books that I think might help are:
Dynamic Relationships by Jackie Stavros and Cherri Torres Appreciative
Living by Jackie Kelm Appreciative Intelligence by Tojo Thatchenkery.

If you would like to have a telephone conversation, please get in  
touch with me directly - mo at thesumoexperience.com
regards
Mo McKenna
www.thesumoexperience.com

Upcoming AI Foundation Workshop in Toronto, Canada
June 9th to 12th, 2009 with Jane Magruder Watkins & Ralph Kelly