Practice: Design
Practice: Design
Practice: Design
DESIGN
PRACTICE
Mentoring
TOMORROW’S
DESIGN
LEADERS
The
UK Design
Skills Alliance
WRITTEN By Kevin McCullagh, Plan Strategic
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
TOP MENTORING TIPS 6
HOW TO FIND A MENTOR 9
RESOURCES 13
From October 2007 to April 2008 the Design This booklet shares what we learned about
Council ran a pilot leadership development mentoring for designers. It may be useful
scheme for designers called NextNet. if you are interested in becoming a future
design leader, or nurturing someone to
As part of it, we tested a mentoring become one.
programme which paired 13 mid-level
designers with different senior designer.
In this booklet
For the mid-level designers this was an you will find:
opportunity to develop skills and leadership
qualities through regular, confidential Tips on finding a mentor
meetings with a more experienced designer.
For the mentors – many of whom had no Helpful pointers on maintaining an
previous experience of formal mentoring effective mentoring relationship
– it was also a chance to develop new skills,
helped by training sessions and meetings A list of resources if you’d like
where they could share their experience of more information.
being a mentor.
‘Leaders ask
exploratory
questions
and think
abstractly.’ Dena Michelli, management development coach
ho?
W
4. Ears wide open When?
It’s tempting for mentors to tell war Where?
stories and treat their protégés simply What?
as an audience, rather than focusing Why?
on them and their needs. Mentoring How?
conversations shouldn’t be focused on
the mentor – unless they are sharing their
thoughts, experiences or opinions for the 6. Accentuate the positive
mentee’s benefit. To build self-belief, mentors shouldn’t to
be too harsh or negative in their feedback.
‘Mentoring
relationships
either click or
they don’t, but
the ones that
do click can
last a lifetime.’
Les Wynn, Design Manager
Xerox Europe and NextNet mentor