Many thanks, and yes, I agree with what you write here. I’d be interested in what you think of my following post, now I’ve written it! As you will see, I agree with the “2 to 4 people” approach, but see it perhaps being used in an open network rather than a closed group. But a closed group would be an interesting testing ground, and probably much easier to set up.

And I also agree, it is not actual friendship per se that matters, it is the respect and trust that frequently goes along with real friendship.

Thanks for an interesting and pertinent post.

I’ve been reviewing the ‘learning culture’ in my own tiny organisation. Part of this strand of thinking has been to develop my own ‘job description’. As the business owner and managing director, I haven’t had an explicit one, but we all felt it would be useful to have a critical appreciation of my role. This has led to reflections about appraisal and mentoring in this context. We do 360 appraisal, which I’ve found to be very useful. However, it doesn’t perform the same function as mentoring or critical friending, as you’ve described.

I’ve definitely come to the view that some form of peer mentoring would be a good idea. I’ve now had some experience of Action Learning within the JISC Relationship Management Programme, as a Critical Friend, and I suspect that this may be the germ of an approach. The Critical Friend role in the Programme has got some extensive briefings from JISC CETIS (CAMEL, Action Learning, detailed role description), but it’s related to independent support to projects, including facilitating Action Learning sessions in cluster meetings, rather than mentoring individuals.

I think it might be useful to explore the Action Learning approach, as a refinement of the Critical Friend idea. The difficulty with the more extensive peer-to-peer group approach (and formal Action Learning sets) is that they require time commitment from a group of peers, and, as has been pointed out, this type of time commitment is difficult to get. I wonder if it’s worth exploring a one-to-one Action Learning set, or very small group (2 to 4 people?), to minimise the time commitment.

Also, in a peer-to-peer environment, I think that the ‘friend’ aspect is not as important as the ‘critical’. I’d be happy to engage in this with someone for whom I had respect, even if they were not classified as a personal friend – that would probably emerge from the relationship. The respect, confidence and confidentiality at the start would be vitally important.

Alan

I’d say the other potential problem with individual mentoring is the danger of top-imposed agenda.

So the practice you mention looks very interesting indeed. I quote “Others felt that their defense mechanisms had been released, enabling them to receive criticism and then use it constructively.” And other similar points, as well as what you point out, all of which is just what I was getting at. I’d love to be a member of a group like that.

So why isn’t it, in my words, “more widely acknowledged, tested, and incorporated into work cultures”? What an indictment of a work culture that people have to get out of it to be in (your words) a “trusted environment” and release “their defence mechanisms” (theirs).

Who is prepared to go the next step, beyond pointing out good examples of practice, to analysing what the obstacles are to its promulgation?

Great post although given your comment about “a robust peer-to-peer solution waiting to be more widely acknowledged” I wondered if you have ever come across the work of The Centre For Self-Managed Learning?

In essence, they create learning groups who contract to meet regularly for a set time period (e.g. a year), everyone creates and signs a personal learning contract and then, throughout the course of meetings, members update the group on their progress and discuss any difficulties encountered along the way. The group then supports and challenges them very much in the way you describe.

There’s more info on their web-site but I think this article gives a particularly good glimpse of the realities and huge potential benefits:

http://www.selfmanagedlearning.org/2001/05/09/my-first-learning-group-eight-years-on/

Although the learning groups are professionally facilitated, other group members sound like they are equally important in the questioning and challenging process. Moreover, as membership is usually different to normal colleague & peer groups, it sounds like it quickly becomes a trusted environment and people are willing to discuss work issues more openly than perhaps they otherwise would. In addition, I imagine this member diversity would also make it less susceptible to your concerns around group-think.

Individual mentoring can no-doubt be highly effective but, given the difficulties you highlight in facilitating such a network at scale, could a group P2P model like this be worth considering as an alternative?