By Gina Blitstein

In a business world that moves faster and expects more daily, you need every advantage you can get to stay sharp and effective. Keeping on top of your game may mean the difference between effectiveness and success or incompetence and failure. Learning from the experiences of a mentor is one way to hone your skills in the workplace.

There are many choices available for mentoring services, depending on your specific needs and circumstances. Some companies have embraced the importance of mentorship and have developed in-house mentoring programs for their employees. Others rely on outsourced mentoring. EQmentor is a company offering a unique approach to traditional mentoring.

What is your EQ?

According to EQmentor's web site, "Smart decision-making requires more than intellect measured by traditional IQ. EQ is the ability to sense, understand and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions to facilitate high levels of collaboration and productivity (Cooper)."

They identify five components of EQ as:

1. Self-awareness:  The ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and drives, as well as their effects on others.
2. Self-regulation: The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods and the propensity to suspend judgment to think before acting.
3. Motivation:  A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status and the propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.
4. Empathy:  The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and the skill to treat people according to their emotional reactions.
5. Social Skills:  Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks and the ability to find common ground and build rapport.

Taking these emotional factors into consideration, EQmentor leverages a broad scope of techniques to mentor their clients.

EQmentor makes knowledge available to its mentees from these three sources:

1. The traditional mentor relationship. Mentors continue to be a great source of experiential knowledge.
2. Peer Community. Web 2.0 technologies allow for collaborative learning from a global community breaking down traditional barriers of geography, industry, and cultures.
3. Knowledge Sources. These are professional databases as well as user-generated content that harness and house repositories of knowledge.

In actual practice, mentees are provided with a custom-matched mentor in a private and confidential virtual environment. Mentors and mentees communicate at least three times a week. In addition, mentees get access to more than 250 learning and development tools, including 24/7 access to the EQ Village, an online community for working professionals which allows them to collaborate while remaining anonymous.

Why is this approach to mentoring effective?

According to Sharon Rich, an EQ mentor, "It can be difficult for managers to get support within their organizations. They can feel reluctant to reveal insecurities or challenges due to concerns about their job security. Yet, clearly having an experienced mentor can help people to develop as managers and leaders, to be more effective, to solve problems, to manage stress, etc...all results that would clearly be of great benefit to companies." Sharon goes on to say, "As a mentor, I can provide mentees with perhaps the only safe space they have to vent and process their concerns and insecurities, as well as (again, perhaps their only) time and structure for developing their management skills." Ultimately, Sharon says, "The direction of the mentoring is generally set by the mentee, although the mentor may probe into areas that seem relevant and see if the mentee is interested in exploring these further. I can share with them alternate perspectives they may not have considered as they approach a challenging situation. I can make available a wealth of resources on many management topics through EQ Mentor."

Sharon says she became a mentor because, "I loved the EQ Mentor concept and wanted to experience it in action. I became a professional leadership and productivity coach in order to improve the way that business is done in America. I’m a big believer in the triple bottom line: profits, people and planet. This provides me with another avenue to realize that vision. I also always appreciate that I continue to grow and develop my own skills, perspectives and understandings as I support clients and mentees through unique real situations. Each person I work with enhances my perspectives and skills to assist the next person."

How are mentors recruited?

"EQ Mentor trains their mentors in a two-week program which involves studying EQmentor materials, passing a written test and then doing a live mentoring demo with a Master Mentor who provides feedback and guidance," explains Sharon. "Each mentor continues to have Master Mentor support at all times even after earning their mentor certificate. One of the requirements is that each mentor take an Emotional Intelligence assessment and provide personal background information. Matches are made based on a combination of this information."

It's All Good

Summing up their philosophy, EQmentoring's web site states, "Working professionals in management and leadership roles are the ones making critical decisions everyday. We now live in an era when there really should be no reason for making poor decisions. Technology allows you to connect 24/7 to new (1) people (2) communities and (3) knowledge sources that can help you make much better decisions than by relying solely on what you know or the resources presently available to you. These connections allow you to learn from published material or someone who has already done what you are doing – giving you valuable insight to the decision you are making. The idea of going “outside” to acquire objective insight and knowledge is here to stay and those that take advantage of it are bound to accelerate in their careers and lives."

The combination of people-centric mentoring and ultimate availability could leave no excuse for failing to get employees the mentoring they need to stay competitive.

What challenges could mentors help alleviate in your workplace?