Blogs

Having a mentor for the last few years has been like having a oak tree to sit under, resting my back against its trunk, taking time out of life to reflect, protected by the shade of the branches. A good mentoring relationship is a place where all the worries and fears that i have about the decision I have taken or the ones I am yet to take can be brought out into the open. A place where I can be vunerable and a place where&nbs...

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My first experience of the power of mentoring came in the Derbyshire hardrock mine where I started out as a young miner. Back then, miners worked in pairs – a Number 1, who was older and more experienced and a Number 2, who was younger.  Part of the responsibility of the older miner was to mentor the younger one, passing over skills, knowledge and insights into the world underground - and the ways of the community that sprang from it.  Imagine how hard it would be ...

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The whole studio has gone mentoring crazy.  Paul is using TV shows to look at different ways of doing it.  Deborah is writing an article for design week “You don’t know what you don’t know” based on her experience of being mentored by bbh founder John Bartle.  And lots of us have spent a good proportion of the last month phone mentoring new ventures with innovative ideas around aging as part of NESTA’s Age Unlimited programme. Myself I’ve had a couple of men...

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Over the years I have had several mentors. They have almost always been people outside of my social enterprise and especially people who aren’t afraid to give voice to their own opinion. I know where my skills lie and that I don’t have all the answers, and readily seek advice from people I have come to respect. To me it is important to run ideas past my mentors and I have different mentors with expertise in different areas. If the issue I want to discuss is work related it is important to me...

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