UDES PROJECT: MENTORING PROGRAM
The University of Deusto and a group of professionals who compose the Mentor Team have formalized a collaboration agreement whereby both entities commit themselves to incorporate a Mentoring Program for managers from February 2002 on. This highly innovative program is the first phase of an ambitious project called UDES (Universidad de Deusto-Empresa-Sociedad), which has been conceived as a plan to connect University with Businesses and both of these with Society.
MENTORING PROGRAM
Mentoring is intended to be a one-to-one relationship by means of which the mentor invests their time, knowledge and efforts to help the mentee reach all their potential as a person and as a professional in their behaviours, knowledge and skills.
Mentoring is a very old formula of human development whose origins lie in the Stone Age, when the artists who painted on cave-walls, the stone-carvers, the medicasters who used medicinal herbs to heal sicknesses and others instructed the youths of their clan, in order to transmit them their knowledge, thereby contributing to the evolution of civilization.
Mentoring owes its name to Greek Mythology. Mentor was Ulysses' close friend, the protagonist of Homer's Odyessy. Before setting off to Troy, Ulysses bade Mentor to take care of his son Telemachus and to prepare him to succeed him as the king of Ithaca. Mentor had to be like a father, a master, a model, an asequible and reliable counselor and challenge-stimulating instructor, so that Telemachus could become a wise, truthful and prudent king.
Mentoring is very extensive in the USA and is starting to be applied in Europe. It has gone through a process of transformation as a consequence of the changes that the business world has undergone from the industrial age to the age of knowledge. In the industrial age, the mentoring model was orientated towards the achievement of higher positions in the hierarchical scale; in the age of knowledge, this orientation is turning towards the development of the individuals' inner power, which originates in mental ability, persuasion, vision, creativity, capacity to solve problems, passion for the results of business activity, capacity to create teams..., which turns high potential professionals into managers who contribute effectively to the growth of the business.
The majority of companies in every economic sector have got flatter and leaner structures. They are demanding continuously growing profits, higher quality products and services, capacity to compete in a more open and globalized market, capacity for creation and rennovation in a technology changing environment, etc... Therefore, the managers must perform more broad and versatile roles like the creation of new vision, the development of strategies, the direct involvement in operational issues, team building and leadership etc.
It turns out to be crucial for companies to be managed by professionals with a great scope of knowledge and capacities, who feel enthusiastic about leading their teams in the right direction, so that the company can the highest challenges.
The modern form of Mentoring satisfies this demand and achieves a balance between the requirements needed for the goals of the company and the accomplishment of the professional's goals as far as his personal and professional development is concerned.
The Mentoring Program should last approximately two years, with 140 hours of one-to-one relation between the mentor and the mentee matching the aims of each company and the aims of each professional. So it is a personalized relationship specifically adapted to each case.
It is preceeded by a 60 hours' teaching phase with three basic purposes. The first one is to give the mentors (professors of the teaching phase) as well as the the mentees (pupils of the teaching phase) the chance to get in contact and to achieve the best possible matches between the mentor and the mentee. The second one is to present the mentees a broad vision of the subjects concerning business - like company values and principles, knowledge-management, risk-evaluation and management, team-creation and leadership... - which provoke the biggest multiplying effect on the effectiveness of their activity as professional managers. And the third purpose is to provide the mentees a training for their role in the relationship with the mentors.
For all these reasons, this program is directed towards professionals with a business experience of 5-10 years, who already know management-techniques related to economics, value-creation, the essential competences, etc...
By means of this Mentoring, we intend to endow the Company with effective professionals who through the execution of their own activity are the 'best fit' for the required reflection at the right moment and in the right way.
THE MENTOR TEAM
The MENTOR team has been promoted by José Antonio Garrido as President of Bilbao Metrópoli-30 and is directed by José Miguel Martínez Urquijo. It is formed by outstanding professionals with a great business experience including Santiago Rivero, Michael Peck, Juan Luis Urrutia and some others.
The professionals of the Mentor team find ourselves in the fourth phase of our development as persons and professionals:
The first one was the starting phase, of about 1-2 years after graduation. In this phase, we got into the company and learned from the others.
The second phase took place approximately between our 2 and 15 years of experience, and was basically dedicated to execute, even though we had to carry on learning, and therefore we went forward to the third phase.
The third one corresponds to the period between 15 and 30 years of experience, during which we have directed, although we have likewise carried on learning.
And we begin now this fourth phase of our professional life, in which we intend to be mentors for others and at the same time to carry on learning.
With a business perspective and with deep-rooted ethical convictions, by means of this mentoring project we intend to return to society what society has given us by allowing us to be at the front of important entrepreneurial projects. The success of these projects - not without some mistakes- have given us the possibility to acquire very deep knowledge which we desire to share because, in doing so, we continue to learn. Mentoring intends to help those professionals to learn efficaciously and rapidly, who because of their potential can undertake the most trascendental tasks in the business world.
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