Saturday 30 June 2012

As the Buddhist proverb says......

A few weeks ago I spoke on the phone to my first mentor as I'd wanted to share the thanks I'd been receiving from colleagues as my departure from HSBC loomed. I felt that I couldn't take all the credit as I would not have been mentoring and coaching people had he not mentored me.

As we reflected on the impact that mentoring someone can have he quoted a saying that I had not heard before. I subsequently googled the phrase and it turned out to be a Buddhist proverb "When the student is ready to learn, the teacher will appear".

My biggest regret is that I didn't pay more attention when we worked together on how he worked and in particular how he led a team of highly engaged people. But at that point in my career there were more pressing problems to deal with outside of work and it was only when they were resolved and I progressed into a branch management role that I was ready to learn. Fortunately for me he was still there, ready and willing to teach me.

Which brings me to this blog. Every time I've been in charge of a team I've felt the need to pull together my thoughts and share them with the team. Even as a branch manager of a team of 8 when everybody worked within sight of my desk I still put together a monthly newsletter, encouraging others to contribute and giving people the chance to take away the messages and maybe find the time to reflect on the content.

That need to share my thoughts, books and articles I've come across and the opportunity to continue to encourage and develop others is as strong as ever. But since I stood photo-copying page after page of my initial newsletters, things have moved on and I can now share anything and everything I want to using this blog.

The timing may not be right for you to read this even once, let alone taking the time to read what I post on a regular basis. That doesn't matter as when the time is right for you to find the answer to a question or to start a new thought process the previous blogs will all be here for you to refer. I hope that at some point you will find something on these pages that may help.

Today as I prepared to write this first blog I googled the phrase again and found a blog article written by a University Lecturer from Maryland, Les Potter, who used the phrase as a basis of an article on mentoring.

Here is the link to the article:
http://lespotter001.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/when-the-student-is-ready-the-teacher-will-appear-the-importance-of-having-a-mentor/

A quick glance at his site tells me I have much to look forward to reading - 5 years of his posts! As I look ahead to a new career and the opportunity to become a student again, to learn and to gain coaching qualifications, I hope to share some of the random things I find along the way and hope that they will be of interest to you too.