Dr. Joan's Mentoring Book: Straight Talk About Taking Charge of Your Career

By Ren Penden

Like most employees, Dr. Joan L. Mitchell made a lot of mistakes during her career. As she developed her mentoring skills, she became recognized as someone who was able to make a difference and helped make other people shine. DR. JOAN'S MENTORING BOOK shares many of the lessons she has learned during her 32 year career as a research scientist with IBM. While mentoring other employees, Dr. Joan found that she was repeatedly communicating the same stories to illustrate important lessons. She found that she had trouble keeping track of which stories she had shared with which mentee. It was at Thanksgiving 2005 that she decided to write an e-mail a day to her father with 1 sentence of current news and the remainder focusing on an aspect of mentoring or carreer advancement. She wrote fast and didn't bother with spelling mistakes or poor grammar. She would complete the e-mail in the morning before leaving for work. Word spread and before she was finished around 150 others were copied on these e-mails. Dr. Joan then recruited her Sister-in-Law, Nancy Walker-Mitchell, to organize and edit the e-mails. The first draft came to 120,000 words. Ultimately Nancy edited it down to 80,000 words. One of the purposes behind the mentoring book was to provide a foundational document that could be handed to new mentees. The important stories that she usually shared with her mentees were included in the book, so she didn't have to take the time to retell them. Dr. Joan believed that she could save lots of time and be an even better mentor if she knew that her mentees already understood the basics of the relationship. She could focus her efforts on assisting with the unique areas where that mentee needed guidance. Others who are called on to mentor many people have started using the book in the same manner, by asking a new mentee to read the book. Dr. Joan believes this book is the only book that covers the mentoring topic so thoroughly from the perspective of the employee. Most mentoring books have been written by management or university professors. Although Dr. Joan's career has been technically based, the book has purposely been written at a level so that students can read and understand the various points presented. The advice presented is very universal in nature and most employees will benefit in some manner from reading the book. At the recent IBM Corporate Technical Recognition Event (CTRE)just prior to her retirement from IBM, Dr. Joan provided a free copy for all attendees and their guests as a farewell gesture. Some of the spouses questioned why they needed two copies. It was explained that they would not be able to finish reading the book without thinking of someone who needed to read a copy of the book. Many of those who only accepted one copy, returned the next day to pick up the second copy and shared who they had determined needed to read it (usually a close relative). This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Perfect Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0979524008
• ISBN13: 9780979524004
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Mitchell & Mitchell, LLC
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Age Range: 16 years and up