Peer Mentoring and Action Learning.

Traditional Mentoring Mentoring has been defined in many different ways. Traditionally, mentoring is seen as a relationship between an older, more experienced mentor and a younger, less experienced protege for the purpose of helping and developing the protege's career (Ragins & Kram, 1997). Caffarella (1992) talks about a relationship, which is both intense and caring, between persons who have differing levels of experience to promote professional and personal development. The relationships described here, between mentor and mentee, provide both psychosocial and career related support (Kram & Isabella, 1985). Zachary's (2005) description best fits the process we will discuss in this article: "Mentoring is best described as a reciprocal and collaborative learning relationship between two (or more) individuals who share mutual responsibility and accountability for helping a mentee work toward achievement of clear and mutually defined learning goals" (p. 3). Zachary's emphasis here on learning, and later references in her work to mentoring being a self-directed learning relationship and the need for skillful coaching in the relationship, all have strong tie-ins to the concepts of Action Learning (AL) and Action Learning Conversations (ALC). In the next section, we describe what AL and ALCs are to show how the role and actions taken speak to peer mentoring. Action Learning and Action Learning Conversations Action Learning (AL) is a leadership development process that can include processes useful for peer mentoring. In our practice, we define AL as: an approach to working with and developing people that uses work on an actual project or problem as the way to learn. Participants work in small groups to take action to solve their problem and learn how to learn from that action. Often a learning coach works with the group in order to help the members learn how to balance their work with the learning from that work (Yorks, O'Neil, & Marsick, 1999, p. 3). An Action Learning Conversation (ALC) is a structured protocol that we have developed for use within AL programs that can be used for peer coaching and mentoring. It is a critically reflective practice that we believe can support transformative learning (Marsick & Maltbia, in press). ALCs combine insightful questions with reflection and critical reflection to produce a process of group mentoring that can be used within an AL program or as a separate learning activity. Critical reflection, that is, reflection that helps identify underlying values, beliefs, and assumptions, is especially powerful in the context of ALCs because it enables people to see how they can change a situation by changing the way they frame it and act on it (Marsick & Maltbia, in press). ALCs involve working in peer groups (as small as three people, but preferably no larger than a group of six or seven) on a challenge or problem that is highly meaningful. While members of the group, either in an AL program or an independent group engaging in ALCs, are usually peers, diversity in the group is important. From a mentoring viewpoint, diversity is particularly important to maximize different perspectives and to provide a broad network. The ALC process takes the problem-holder sequentially through recurring cycles of: (a) framing of the challenge as a question; (b) unpacking meaning through sharing information about the context and prior action; (c) peer questioning (to which the problem holder does not immediately respond) to unlock mental models that make one blind to other points of view; (d) identifying assumptions that underlie current ways of framing the challenge; (e) reframing one's understanding of the situation; and (f) making more informed decisions and taking informed action to address the challenge (Marsick & Maltbia, in press). Figure 1 shows how we have structured our general approach to ALCs in three phases: (1) framing/ engaging, (2) advancing, and (3) disengaging. …