by Alan Leftridge
March/April 2009
“How is your training program constructed?” I inquired.
Anna looked at me quizzically, and declared, “We don’t have a formal training program. New people are ‘taken under the wing’ of an experienced guide and shown how to give the tours. We then continue to work closely, sharing ideas and techniques.”
I expected Anna to detail an intricate, structured interpretive training program. Instead, she told me that none existed. In fact, none had existed in the 28-year history of the museum.
I wondered: Where did Anna acquire her interpretive abilities? Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, points out that successful people have life histories involving luck, opportunity, and people who offer them critical developmental stimulation. Anna’s 40-minute tour was one of the most informative, interpretive, and entertaining programs I had experienced. On the surface, it seemed reasonable to think that she had years of formal training as a frontline interpreter. Anna had not. Instead, she and the other 30 staff interpreters trained one another through informal mentoring, with more experienced guides sharing with newcomers their techniques.
Mentoring facilitates creative renewal of the profession. Director Steven Spielberg reinforced Gladwell’s thesis when he paid tribute to his mentors at the 2009 Golden Globe Awards where he received the prestigious C.B. DeMille Award. Spielberg declared, “None of the movies that I’ve made throughout my whole life would have been possible…without somebody first believing in me, and I really believe that being a mentor to talented newcomers is a very time-honored tradition.”
A mentor might be an advisor, a trusted friend, an acquaintance, a teacher, or a colleague. A mentor bestows a legacy—a lasting gift to a patron.
Take a moment to recall the people in your life who helped you become who you are: your mentors.
Mentors give several advantages to the interpretive profession, to interpretive programs, and to interpreters themselves. Individual interpreters benefit as their mentors help them develop research competence and communication skills. It is an advantage for younger interpreters to learn how to conduct deep research about their resource, and learn tried-and-true ways to convey a subject to multiple audiences.
Mentors themselves find intrinsic rewards by sharing their knowledge, skills, and techniques with less experienced interpreters. Mentors delight in passing along best practices to those who want to learn. Spielberg affirmed that he honored the opportunity to mentor others “beyond all else.”
The process of mentoring provides professional continuity as interpreters work together toward common goals, considering new ideas, developing skills, and sharing their talents. The process binds interpretation into a more cohesive profession.
Furthermore, the mentoring process carries forward institutional knowledge as more experienced staff members share the chronology of events and decisions that built the interpretive program. This sharing provides an outline of how the institution, as well as the profession, functions. Also, the mentoring process encourages professional development among staff members. Mentors help their partners find new source materials and suggest training opportunities.
There are two types of mentoring relationships: formal and informal. Informal relationships develop on their own between individuals. Partners may be friends, a parent and a child, a teacher and a student, or two co-workers. Anna was trained as a guide in an informal mentoring environment, co-worker to co-worker. Informal relationships evolve as staff members become acquainted with each other and help is requested or offered.
Many organizational managers understand the value of mentoring and have institutionalized the process by way of a formal program. Formal mentoring is an assigned relationship associated with an organizational training program that is designed to promote employee development. Formal programs have goals, objectives, and training strategies. Tangible incentives are awarded for meeting goals in prescribed time-frames. One advantage of formal mentoring is that it encourages investment in the process, thereby strengthening relationships, results, and the institution.
Whether formal or informal, we have all benefitted from the process—as a mentee and as a mentor, too. I am confident you can remember when a parent, colleague, or friend shared his or her enthusiasm and knowledge for the natural or cultural world. Whether you are aware or not, you may be serving as a mentor to someone, right now. That’s what interpreters do. Imagine if you made it intentional. That is how your legacy is carried forward.
Dr. Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana.
