The concept of mentoring goes back a LONG time, and its track record is just about as impressive as it is long. Looking back over time, there are a remarkable number of famous and successful mentor-protege relationships. Think about Socrates and Plato, Medici and Michelangelo, or Freud and Jung. Many of mankind’s most remarkable minds and great contributions were made possible by lessons and crafts imparted from mentor to mentee. Without these special relationships, we probably wouldn’t have the Sistine Chapel or the David, or Analytical Psychology.
The importance of mentor relationships has been at the center of many studies over the years. In a 1978, conducted by Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson and McKee, researchers were able to link occupational success to mentoring. Likewise, other studies have linked mentor-protege relationships to increased job satisfaction, higher salaries and faster promotions for the mentee.
How amazing would it be if you could further your career and increase your financial success by collaborating with a mentor? Well, history and research both say that you can really benefit from participating in a mentor partnership.
In the IT industry however, matching yourself up with a mentor is a bit more complicated than in most fields. In academia, a mentor is virtually built into the system; the same thing applies to medicine. Many businesses also incorporate mentoring programs in their company activities.
But, when you work in a small IT support business, there aren’t many organic mentoring opportunities. That is where the Forums come into play.
We are very lucky to have a community of bright, competent, experienced and successful IT services providers, managed services providers (MSPs), IT consultants, etc. Our informed users cover an array of IT support occupations and a variety of areas of expertise. By bringing all users together in our Forums, we enable everyone to mentor each other, sharing their insights, successes, struggles and lessons learned.
In our Running an IT Services Business forum, for example, users can ask each other technical questions, workflow and business related questions and customer relationship management (CRM) questions.
By utilizing the forums you can benefit from others’ experiences and areas of expertise.
For IT professionals, it’s very apropos that you find your mentors out in cyberspace. While fostering mentor relationships in user forms is avant-garde and modern, it’s no less beneficial to IT support providers looking to learn, succeed and grow.
If you haven’t yet, check out our Forums, and start sharing your questions, experiences and expertise with the community by registering as a forum user.
Forum registration is free and only takes moments to complete!
Until next time,
Success Team