Mentoring goals – importance, techniques and sample goals for Mentees

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Goals are the foundation of any mentoring process. Among other things, they are what make mentoring an actual development process, and not just chaotic conversations over coffee. They are so important that we decided to devote a separate article to them. In it, I will present techniques useful for setting goals and building self-awareness, list some sample goals, and finally address the topic of assessment and evaluation.

Getting to know yourself is the first step to developing mentoring goals

Before a Mentee joins a selected mentoring program he/she should reflect on the purpose of participation.

Often, the purpose of participating in a mentoring program coincides with the Mentee’s development goals, clearly defined whether as part of the Mentee’s own thoughts on career development or related to development within the organization, a promotion plan or annual evaluations.

But of course, this is not always the case. People interested in mentoring do not always have a clear path of development. In such cases, it makes sense to start with getting to know yourself, and only at the next stage to define short- and long-term goals.

It should be noted here that the topic of building self-awareness, seeking new perspectives or career planning is very broad and complicated. It is certainly impossible to summarize everything in one article. Often, too, this topic is so complicated that itself becomes the target of mentoring. Anyway, there is even a concept / type of mentoring called career mentoring.

Nevertheless, it is worth trying to go through the process of analyzing your own needs, capabilities and outline a plan for your own development yourself. To do this, you can use the clique of tools and techniques presented in our platform, for example:

• The “Know Your Resources” technique, which in short involves thinking about and listing your own strengths, as well as the activities that give you pleasure and those that are unpleasant for you. Here I especially recommend basing your thoughts on specific events or projects. It is easier to return to a specific event from the past and analyze it than to reflect on your entire life or career in general:
  • Recall your recent success.
  • What are your qualities and resources that allowed you to achieve this success?
  • Which activities did you enjoy while doing this project?
  • Which activities did you find difficult or unpleasant?
  • And this is repeated for several events.

• This technique can be developed using “Energy Balance” going even deeper into analyzing what we like to do and what inhibits us.

Once you know your strengths and your “pleasant” and “unpleasant” activities, setting goals should be easier and more effective.

Identify and refine the objectives of the mentoring process

Very often at the beginning of the mentoring process the Mentee has only a general idea of their own goals. Therefore, already during mentoring, the first sessions should be devoted precisely to clarifying the goals.

Here we are already dealing with working together as a mentoring pair. An experienced Mentor should know and apply techniques to help define goals. But of course, you can start working on goals even earlier. And here, too, there are some techniques to use:

• The first technique, or rather a type of guideline, is the SMART method, which defines the characteristics of a good goal. In short, the goal should be:
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-specific

• Working on a goal can be deepened by appropriately asking so-called coaching questions. They are usually asked by a Mentor, but we can also reflect on them ourselves. Here you will find an article on coaching questions.
• We have also prepared a comprehensive mentoring goal-setting exercise. It is best done together with the Mentor, but nothing prevents you from doing it on your own even before the mentoring process begins.

Examples of goals for the mentoring process

Below I have collected some sample mentoring goals. Of course, goals are a very individual matter and should not be copied. In fact, the very selection of these examples shows how great the variety of goals can be.

• Mentee’s expectations: Re-entering the job market after a long break
  • Formulated goal: In the next 3 months, I want to find a job that is satisfactory to me.
  • What I care about: A satisfying job is one in which:
    • the offered salary will be in the range of 6500 – 7000 PLN gross
    • form of employment: contract
    • I will be part of an international team, I care about using English
  • The actions I will take to achieve my goal:
    • I will develop a list of my desired roles and the organizations I would like to work for.
    • I will prepare a resume
    • I will be sending at least one application a day
    • After being invited to the next stage, I will meet with my mentor to prepare for the interview
  • Implementation criterion: Start of work.
• Mentee’s expectations: Improved leadership skills
  • Formulated goal: Within the next year, I want to improve my competence to achieve a noticeable increase in my team’s satisfaction with the kind of leader I am.
  • The actions I will take to achieve my goal:
    • I will read at least 2 books on effective leadership in the organization
    • I will participate in training on constructive feedback
    • For 12 months, I will participate in weekly sessions with my mentor, during which we will discuss my challenges as a leader
  • Performance criterion: Obtaining the results of the 360 survey on my work as a leader from employees at a level of at least 70%.
• Mentee’s expectations: Developing an understanding of Google’s cloud solutions
  • Set goal: In the next six months, I want to develop my knowledge of Google’s cloud solutions to a level where I can manage my company’s information infrastructure.
  • The actions I will take to achieve my goal:
    • I will implement at least 3 selected training modules within Google Qwiklabs
    • In a step-by-step process defined together with the mentor, I will review the current documentation and information architecture in the company’s cloud
    • I will pass the Cloud Digital Leader certification exam
  • Performance criterion: Assuming the role of self-administrator of Cloud solutions in my company
• Mentee’s expectations: Testing yourself as a workshop facilitator
  • Set goal: Within the next quarter, I want to independently prepare and conduct a workshop for my team.
  • The actions I will take to achieve my goal:
    • I will prepare min. 3 potential thematic tracks, based on which, in consultation with my mentor, I will choose a final topic to pursue
    • I will develop a draft of the workshop scenario, which will include a description of the exercises, their objectives and the time required for implementation, which I will then present and discuss during the mentoring sessions
    • I will implement the training according to the established scenario for my team.
  • Performance criterion: Implementation of the workshop completed with a positive result in the satisfaction survey for participants (satisfaction of at least 75%)

As you can see, the goals can be very different and depend only on the needs of the Mentee. One would like to say here that there are no bad goals. Although, in practice, a goal will be bad, inappropriate, if it is incorrectly defined – for example, bypassing the SMART method.

Achievement and presence of goals during the process

Mentoring goals should define the path the Mentee will take during the process. They should be a signpost pointing to what is at the end of that path. To keep this goal in mind, it is necessary to keep the goals in mind at each mentoring session.

We suggest going through each goal at the beginning of each meeting checking to see if they are still relevant and what the Mentee has done since the previous session to move closer to meeting that goal.

In addition, the topic of each mentoring meeting should also relate to the achievement of the chosen or selected goals. And here, too, a few techniques to support goal achievement will come in handy:

• Scheme may-I-want-to-do – an exercise that will help motivate Mentee to complete a given task.

• The 5 Options Technique – useful for solving problems and overcoming obstacles.

Of course, there are many more of these techniques, to get acquainted with them and select the right one we invite you to our platform to get a list of all the mentoring tools.

Evaluation of the degree to which the objectives have been met and closure of the process

An important stage of the mentoring process is its completion. First of all, it is worth together evaluating the whole process discussing and evaluating such elements as:

• Degree of achievement of the goal (in terms of measurable effect)
• Feedback on the whole process – given by both the Mentee and the Mentor(s)
• Evaluation of satisfaction with the mentoring process of both people in the pair
• Self-reflection on the entire process and speak it out loud in pairs, taking into account issues such as: 
  • What blocked the development and participation in the sessions / process,
  • What was difficult,
  • What was easy in the process,
  • What I learned, I learned,
  • With what I am particularly pleased,
  • what I would/should do differently

Such feedback is worth discussing during the meeting, but also note to yourself for further development and the possibility of going back to the process after some time.

In addition, in addition to the mutual evaluation of the process, the Mentor makes his own summary and shares it with the Mentee. This summary should include, among other things:

• What the Mentee has achieved from the Mentor’s point of view,
• Which he is still working on,
• What are the recommendations for further development of the Mentee.

This summary should address each of the objectives identified at the beginning of the process.

In conclusion

In the article, I presented the entire journey a Mentee goes through in relation to mentoring goals – from the beginning, analyzing their own needs and capabilities, through working on the goals and their implementation, ending with the evaluation of goal achievement and plans for further development. On this occasion, it is worth mentioning that Mentiway as a mentoring platform provides dedicated tools and a ready-made knowledge base to support both people – Mentor(s) and Mentee in the implementation of the mentoring process, including planning, monitoring and evaluation of mentoring goals.