Sun Microsystems, Mentoring, and Communities of Learning

It isn’t often that a report emanating from a global corporation offers small libraries and nonprofit organizations some much needed guidance and inspiration, but Sun Microsystems has accomplished exactly that with its “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009,” by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon.

“Sun Mentoring” is both a report and a user’s handbook for anyone interested in designing and implementing a mentoring program, and it doesn’t much matter that the project is enormous, having matched more than 7,000 mentors and protégés worldwide between 1996 and 2009. Smaller organizations looking to create a program with much smaller numbers of participants will benefit from the details contained within the report. It covers topics including formal vs. informal mentoring, mentor selection systems, matching mentors and protégés, best practices for mentors, and mentoring in good times as well as bad times.

What is striking here for anyone who reads between the lines is that what works in that enormous global program can just as easily be replicated in settings with fewer resources since the principles remain constant regardless of the size of the organization being served. And the principles are equally adaptable. At Sun, for example, “people usually join a mentoring program because they are curious and want to learn, or are ambitious and motivated to improve their career, or are stuck personally or professionally and want to find a new way to proceed,” the writers note on the first page of the introduction to the report. That summary doesn’t sound much different from what we see among our library and nonprofit colleagues. The Sun program, furthermore, benefits tremendously from careful matching of mentors and protégés, from having well defined goals and objectives, and from engaging people who genuinely want to learn from each other; none of these elements are beyond the capabilities of even the smallest organizations.

When we look at all the components which coalesce to create successful mentoring programs, we begin to realize that they parallel the components of a successful workplace learning and performance program. They start with individuals, grow to meet increasing needs, and contribute to the development of a community of learners with far-reaching impacts for individuals, organizations, and the customers they serve. And for those who want to know that the effort produces results, the Sun authors conclude (in section 11 of the report) that mentoring “returns good value for the time and money it takes. ROI (return on investment) on mentoring can be 1,000% or better and grows as the program matures.” Who could ask for more?

Those interested in learning more about how to organize a successful mentoring program within a library or nonprofit organization will find plenty of guidance in “Mentors and Protégés: Creating Successful Workplace Programs,” the new online, self-paced course I’ve written for the LE@D (Lifelong Education @ Desktop) project through the University of North Texas.

Working With and For Each Other

Reading Huntsville-Madison County Public Library Staff Training and Development Coordinator Marianne Lenox’s wonderfully concise summary of learning theory and resources in a single posting on the American Library Association (ALA) Learning Round Table blog reminded me once again how close our cherished resources are these days.

Participating in web conferencing sessions through Maurice Coleman’s T Is For Training biweekly sessions, engaging in online chats and conducting interviews via Google Chat, and reading and responding to postings on individual and group blogs or LinkedIn discussion groups for trainer-teacher-learners means that we’re never far from Lenox and others who can help us in our training-teaching-learning endeavors.

What starts online can lead to treasures previously unimagined. Join the T Is For Training participants as they discuss challenges they are facing and resolving and you soon find yourself using and contributing to the links to training materials they are continuing to create on Delicious. Explore the links to individual and group blogs listed on the left-hand side of the T Is For Training page and soon you find yourself relishing Library Garden articles such as Peter Bromberg’s piece on “How to Ignite Your Passion” or John LeMasney’s “5 Great Tools and Techniques for Developing Presentations,” or discovering Jill Hurst-Wahl’s  “Assessing User Needs” article and following links to other resources. Respond to a posting by Lori Reed or Sarah Houghton-Jan and you are quickly on your way to being part of a community of learners that leaves you feeling less isolated than you otherwise might be.

The key remains engagement. Participating even at a rudimentary level in the various online activities available through these resources, the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), and other groups and organizations supportive of face-to-face and online learning soon leads to contacts which are only an e-mail, a Skype exchange, or a phone call away. And that’s the real pleasure and benefit of the brief moments we give to these exchanges: they remind us of how much we gain while working with and for each other.

N.B.: For more on working with and for each other, please read the companion piece on the ALA Learning blog.

The Spirit of Volunteerism (2nd of 3): Lori Reed

 

In writing about Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton-Jan and her decision to volunteer personal information about herself in the hope that it would make a positive difference for others, I was struck by the spirit of volunteerism which seems almost genetically imbedded into the trainer-teacher-learners I know.

There’s a willingness among them take risks; reveal personal details which contribute something meaningful to other learners; and ungrudgingly volunteer time and effort to support an incredibly large and significant number of projects, endeavors, and causes which make their—our—onsite and online communities better places than they otherwise would be.

Reading Sarah’s revelations about the health challenges she and others with Ehlers-Danlos-Syndrome face and knowing that she will do whatever she can to help others, I immediately thought of another friend-colleague-associate who is an equally committed trainer-teacher-learner with an incredible penchant for volunteerism: Lori Reed, the Employee Learning & Development Coordinator for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, a blogger whose work is highly admired and frequently read, and a volunteer who is active in the American Library Association’s training group (CLENE—soon to become LEARNING) and the American Society for Training & Development.

And, like Sarah, she faces challenges—in Lori’s case, a diagnosis of “a form of muscular dystrophy called charcot-marie-tooth disease,” which she disclosed in a blog posting in October 2008.

Neither Sarah nor Lori have spent much time talking about their conditions; each chose to make those revelations in one-time postings to help others learn something important. And then they have moved on.  Because they are far too busy volunteering and being paid to make significant contributions to libraries and those who use them. To training-teaching-learning. And many other causes to which they give themselves heart and mind and soul.

Lori, for example, currently serves as Co-VP of Membership on the board of directors for the ASTD Charlotte Chapter. She also frequently volunteers to speak at more conferences than most of us will attend in a lifetime; is a frequent presenter on webcasts and webinars; writes for publication; and maintains her Library Trainer blog and LibraryLearning Google group which provide our community of learners with additional virtual meeting places to exchange ideas and become better at what we do.

If you’re at all interested or active in training, teaching, and learning—particularly in libraries—you’re going to find Lori and Sarah at the center of the world where workplace learning and performance professionals meet. And, in the spirit of volunteerism which each so clearly and effectively displays, Lori and Sarah won’t be there as self-aggrandizing rock stars, but as passionate movers and shakers, as Library Journal acknowledged this year. Through words and deeds, they help keep the rest of us alive. Awake. And inspired.

Next: The Spirit of Volunteerism—The One Who Got Away

The Spirit of Volunteerism (1st of 3): Sarah Houghton-Jan

 

Sarah Houghton-Jan, our wonderful Librarian in Black, has volunteered a teaching-training-learning moment so breathtakingly profound that it begs to be acknowledged before the largest possible audience.

Some of our colleagues continue to try teaching and training by the old fire-hose method: shoot a stream of lessons so strong, so relentlessly forceful, that they leave learners soaked, nearly drowning in information—an educational version of waterboarding that leaves no one unscathed. 

Sarah, on the other hand, draws us in and serves as an open and engaging partner in a teaching-training-learning process where all of us are partners, members of a community of learning. Hearing her, reading what she writes, and talking with her always brings us unexpected pleasure. When Sarah, for example, wrote a wonderfully detailed article on “Being Wired or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope with Information Overload” (published online in the July 2008 issue of Ariadne), she inspired many of us to carve out time we didn’t have to read the piece. And think. And breathe. The only reader who may not have benefitted from the writer’s wisdom was Sarah herself, as I noted in an article originally posted on Infoblog and reposted here on Building Creative Bridges for those who missed the original; the result of her posting was an increased number of requests from people wanting her to speak on the topic she had just covered in writing. Requests which she accepted, of course. 

Those of us who follow her work see her as an engaging and prolific writer-trainer-consultant who appears inexhaustible and completely dedicated to improving everything she touches. That would be one of the many reasons why she was honored this year by Library Journal as a mover and shaker. 

But perhaps nothing will move and shake her readers more than the article she recently posted to make everyone aware of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and what it means to her and others who have it. Don’t go looking for a single word of self-pity here; that’s not what Sarah offers us, nor is it something to which she willingly succumbs. What she has voluntarily offered is free entry into the challenging world she and others among us inhabit. 

And it works.

A topic which would hold little interest for most of us suddenly becomes compelling. Understandable. And real. Because of Sarah’s writing skills. Her personality—all that makes her the person she has become. Her humanity. And her decision to share personal and painful information in the least painful of ways

In case it isn’t absolutely clear from all I’ve written here, let me be blunt: I love volunteers and the spirit of volunteerism. I work with volunteers and am an active volunteer myself. So when I see the sort of volunteerism that Sarah displays through the posting of her article, I stand in awe of all she does and all she represents. And hope that by taking the time to call additional attention to what she is teaching us, you will too.

Next: The Spirit of Volunteerism–Lori Reed