There’s a time and a place in everyone’s lives, both professional and personal, for all types of coaching and mentoring – group, 1-2-1, virtual, face-to-face.
Take it from a team that has tried everything; variety is the spice of life and every type of support you can receive can give you a varied and valuable outcome.
But we particularly love the rich, diverse, give-and-take nature of peer mentoring and want to make it an essential part of every Strivin members’ development.
What is peer mentoring?
Peer mentoring provides the opportunity for a group of individuals that are in a similar situation to come together and offer each other advice, expertise, or simply share a problem.
In traditional, one-to-one mentoring, it’s typical to have one person assume the mentor role and the other assume that of the mentee.
Sessions tend to be quite rigid in terms of the exchange between mentor and mentee; the mentor presents a problem or situation, and the mentee helps find solutions by sharing their experience.
While being a mentor or mentee is a beautiful thing, and both parties benefit, you’ll likely find that the mentor seeks out their own personal mentor relationships, too. We’ve all got things we need to discuss, no matter how experienced we are!
Peer mentoring allows people to take both roles; to table their troubles, while also sharing their own wealth of knowledge with the group.
What are the benefits of peer mentoring?
As we’ve said, there’s a time and place for all types of mentoring, but peer mentoring in particular is fantastic for the following reasons:
Benefit 1: establish a network of similar professionals.
You’ll click with some people, you won’t with others, but what we guarantee is that very quickly you’ll know 5 or 6 other people that you can turn to for advice (and may even become lifelong friends)
Benefit 2: access diversity of thought
…and experience, which allows you to assess possibilities and consider options more freely
Benefit 3: impact others
With peer mentoring you’re both the mentor and mentee and there’s nothing like the endorphin rush you get from knowing you’ve helped someone work through a situation by sharing your knowledge.
Benefit 4: validate your experience
…and grow your confidence. One of the biggest blocks we see when it comes to people becoming mentors, is that they’re not confident in their own abilities and wonder what value they could add. Trust us, you can add value and someone out there needs your help! Without the pressure of one-to-one mentoring you will be able to provide mentorship and (finally) understand that, yes, you do have great things to say!
How does it work at Strivin?
We have the wonderful Strivin app to help us manage all of our mentoring sessions, which Strivin members have access to 24/7. Here’s how it works.
Tell us your preferences
Before you get started we like to understand the types of challenges you’re facing and if there’s something in particular you’d like your mentoring to focus on. We then group you with similar people.
Meet your peer mentoring group
You’ll be introduced to your mentoring group via the Strivin app. Your group will be around five or six people and, where possible, we’ll include one of our expert mentors to keep the conversation flowing.
For the rest of your time as a Strivin member, you’ll have access to your private mentoring discussion group, where you can share discussion threads, resources and connect with your peers outside of the mentoring sessions.
Join monthly mentoring sessions
You’ll meet every month for 6 months. Each session, one person will be the facilitator and will lead the start of the conversation. Sessions will be 1-1.5 hours long.
If you’d like to access peer mentoring, you can as part of a standard Strivin membership (along with all the other juicy benefits). Check out our memberships here.
