I have developed an eight-step approach to designing a mentoring programme with my clients. In this blog I am going to cover step 4, training participants in a mentoring programme.
Preparation can involve anything for a short face to face briefing to a two day training programme, with many organisations opting for short virtual training webinars these days which can ensure a global talent mentoring programme for instance can be run on a very cost effective basis.

Coach Mentoring Ltd now offers all David Clutterbuck’s CMI services across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It also provides the central resource to CMI for managing large global corporate projects.
Designing a successful mentoring programme
I’ve been amazed in the last two or three weeks how many coaches have made twitter comments and blogs about using “Mindfulness” practice to make you healthier, calmer, more creative, successful etc. However, there is so little written by anyone about how they as a coach are using “Mindfulness” apart from signposting their clients towards mindful practice.
Interestingly in the same week as David Clutterbuck and Kirsten Poulsen have published their new book, 
Whilst there have been considerable developments and expansion in the label “coaching”, there seems not to have been a corresponding development in mentoring. However, rather than seeking to work with the old debate around what the differences are between mentoring and coaching, Paul Stokes and I are planning to use our latest research findings on modern mentoring practice to develop our understanding of mentoring as a field of practice.
Organisational Change through Coaching Conference at York St. John 05 July 2012
Just returned from the Coaches Connect Conference in Leeds, which was a great event for local coach networking and good to see some old and new faces. Well done to Vera Woodhead for organising such an interesting day!