Event In Review – Dee Roche, The Art of Mentoring

Posted by Katherine Burnett on 23 October 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: events, leadership, women, mentoring

“Mentoring is a two-way street; a beautiful reciprocity.”  This is the message Dee Roche, Senior Management Consultant at AIM-UWA Business School Executive Education, so eloquently delivered in her presentation at our recent women-only breakfast event at the Parmelia Hilton.

As a mentor to 12 people and with three mentors of her own, Dee is well versed in the Art of Mentoring.

Citing that over 71% of Fortune 500 companies having a mentoring program, and 96% of executives involved in a mentoring program crediting it as an important development tool, Dee spoke of the professional and personal benefits of being in a mentoring relationship. 

Sharing with us her personal experiences as a mentor and of being mentored, Dee took us through how to establish a mentoring relationship and explained the importance of establishing ground rules and an understanding of what was needed and wanted from each party.  The key to a successful mentoring relationship was confidentiality and mutual accountability, with both mentor and “mentee” benefiting from the relationship.

Over our delicious hot breakfast in a private room at the Parmelia Hilton’s Globe Restaurant, Dee took us through a workbook on mentoring, having us question our thoughts on the mentoring process, think about mentoring relationships we have or we’d like to develop, and define what mentoring meant to us.

Dee’s energy and passion made for an entertaining presentation, and left attendees with concrete ideas on how to establish a mentoring relationship in their professional lives.