Title:Mid-Career Mentoring Is a “Two-Way Street,” featuring Whit Blanton, FAICP
ملیسا دیکنز، AICP، با ویت بلانتون، FAICP می نشیند تا در مورد تجربه خود با برنامه پیشرفت شغلی برای برنامه ریزان سطح متوسط (CAMPs) صحبت کند، که توسط بخش Sun Coast از APA Florida Chapter ارائه می شود. این برنامه برای برنامه ریزان سطح متوسط علاقه مند به پیشرفت شغلی مربیگری ارائه می دهد و این برنامه ریزان با مدیران و رهبران برنامه ریزی محلی مطابقت دارند. ویت توضیح می دهد که چرا جستجوی یک مربی در مرحله میانی حرفه یک برنامه ریز بسیار ارزشمند است، و او نکاتی را برای کسانی که به برنامه راهنمایی دسترسی ندارند اما می خواهند برای مشاوره شغلی با یک برنامه ریز در جامعه خود ارتباط برقرار کنند، ارائه می دهد. راهنمایی. درباره آموزش در APA بیشتر بیاموزید: https://www.planning.org/mentoring/
بخش ساحل خورشید: http://www.floridaplanning.org/apa-fl-sections/sun-coast/
فصل APA فلوریدا: http://www.floridaplanning.org/ (برچسب‌ها به ترجمه) APA فصل فلوریدا
قسمتی از متن فیلم: Hi everyone my name is Melissa Dickens and I am a senior planner with the Hillsborough County City County Planning Commission as well as the chair of the Suncoast section which is a section in West Central Florida I’m here today with whit Blanton he is the executive director of forward Pinellas and has an
Extensive career in planning leadership he’s been involved in APA national state and local leadership and today we’re going to be talking about mentoring for mid-career professionals what one of the things that I’ve noticed is that a lot of the existing mentoring programs are targeted more towards students or maybe
People who are at the beginning phases of their career and so for someone like myself who’s at the middle phase of their career maybe I have a few years of experience why is mentoring still important for that level well I think it’s important for a number of reasons
We as planners are really focused on doing a good job in what we’re doing but we don’t always pay attention to how we advance and what’s next for us and what are our options and how do we how do we optimize those options and that’s why mentoring really plays an important role
For mid-career planners because it helps us to pause and really assess where our career is going what avenues we have for growth and how can we get there and I have a number of planners in my staff who are asking how do I grow what’s my future and that’s not surprising when
People get four five six seven eight years into their career they see others having success and they want to know how can I have that success too how can I grow and and do the amazing things I see other people doing yeah and it seems like a having a mentor really fills that
Gap it helps to bridge the gap between starting your career maybe understanding how planning works in your community and then transitioning into planning leadership that’s right and our profession is evolving so much twenty-five years ago or almost thirty years ago now when I saw you just got thrown into the job and you
Were given assignments and you just did them if you were fortunate you found somebody that you could look to who you could inspire you and you could model your behavior professionally after but I think the value of having a career coach having somebody who can be a rock in
Your profession is nothing to be ashamed of it’s something to actually have pride in because you’ve developed a relationship with somebody and it really does add value so I think there’s there’s a lot of there’s a lot of positive and having that support professionally absolutely and it’s
Someone that you can bounce ideas off of maybe they have handled a situation that you are in the process of going through and so it’s just an opportunity to really talk about those things and so what you have served as a mentor in our coaching for the advancement of
Mid-level planners program for the Suncoast section can you tell me a little bit about your experience and what you did with your mentee sure well first of all I learned as much from him as I think he learned for me it’s always good to have that transactional relationship because younger planners
Whether they’re you know mid-career or earlier they bring new ideas and fresh perspectives that you might not have what we did is very simple we discovered that we both like drinking beer so heam head for happy hour and bond and had had some really good conversations over a
Couple of years we met for lunch and then we met at a planning event and those three opportunities established us I think is easy to communicate professionals we corresponded by email we had a couple of phone calls and you know it wasn’t necessarily a long-lasting relationship but it’s
Somebody who I can go back to and I think can come back to me and sure yeah and keep that relationship going so it was a very easy casual conversation not anything too formal and that was really the beauty of it and like I said I learned a lot because
I understood better where some of my staff are coming from at 6 or 8 years of their career where they might feel they’re stuck and they’re trying to break through and just the opportunity to engage in conversation with somebody opened my eyes a little bit about how to
Address my staff maybe differently well and you brought up a good point mentoring is really a two-way street in a lot of cases we have a mentoring program for students as well and I find that when I mentor the students I’m learning a new technology that I don’t I
Didn’t understand before I met them but also learning a lot about what are some of the things people want to learn when they come into the field and then that helps me if there are more junior people on staff just having that relationship gives a really good perspective I also
Think that management can get into a certain mindset if they’re not careful they’re focused on budgets that are focused on elected officials in the day to day grind of being in a management position and when you take a pause and you engage with a mentee then it really
Helps you reframe how you manage people how you guide people in their career growth and that has really helped me and that’s really why that two-way dialogue is important I have a number of planners not only on my staff that I’ve worked with over over many years who ask
Questions like how can I be a project manager how can I go to the next level and for me a lot of it is seeking out people who are successful in asking questions of them and finding somebody who you can model your behavior after also not being afraid to just doing
Things taking on an assignment don’t wait for direction and not be afraid to make mistakes and those are some of the simple pieces of advice that I like to give folks I was brought into this profession by somebody who taught me to not be afraid of making mistakes
To be bold and to be creative and it served me really well that I find that a lot of mid-career planners they’ve been really good at the one thing and they haven’t been told that they can be creative they’ve been told to produce a certain level of work and they need to
Be freed from that shackle sometimes of I’m just going to produce good work how about if I think out of the box how about if I bring a new idea to the table and that’s incredibly freeing when somebody gives you that ability yeah and it’s and it’s very much not just you do
Good work that’s only one piece of the puzzle you can do great work and if you don’t have some of the soft skills that go along with moving into leadership you’re you’re going to do great work but you’re gonna do great work at that level and having access to a mentor having
Someone that you can talk to I think really helps mid-career mentors or excuse me mid-career professionals really think big picture right so they see all the different angles that folks who are in more executive positions have to think about strategy timing communication relationship building all of those things are things that we’re
Not taught in school it’s something that you learn on the job and having a mentor someone who can show you those things is is really invaluable yeah and I would just add having a diversity of skills and understanding a wide variety of planning activities techniques or issues
Is really important as you grow in your career because you need to be conversant on a number of different levels and not being afraid to explore and investigate and ask for those opportunities at that mid-career level is really important to that career growth it absolutely is
It absolutely is and so for someone who maybe does not have a formal mentoring program where they are what sort of advice would you give to someone who has a few years of experience when they’re looking for a mentor how should they go about approaching an executive someone
Who may be very busy what’s the best way to try to start to establish a relationship I think there are a number of ways first in in this era of social media that’s a good way is to follow somebody on Twitter who you admire and and engage
With them that way or Instagram or any other platform that you feel comfortable with don’t be a stalker use that as a basis for engaging and saying hey I really like what you’ve been saying do you have a few moments to chat making the phone call or meeting up with
Somebody after a meeting so if you have we have technical coordinating meetings we have planners Advisory Council meetings for gosh sakes or it’s a number of opportunities after that meeting is over just go up and introduce yourself and say hey I really like the work you’re doing you’d be able to talk with
Me sometime and most people would be very flattered with that and they would make time in their schedule there’s a myth that all senior managers are super busy but honestly they control their time and and have a lot of ability to carve out time for people and if you’re
At that level in your career and you’re doing well you do make time for people so don’t be shy and just reach out but I do think the social media aspect gives you a common platform of following somebody seeing what they’re about and then engaging them in things that maybe they find interesting
Yeah social media is great too because it helps you connect with some of those folks who have the broad perspective have the different perspective on on planning issues and what I found in seeking out really informal mentoring relationships is that every time I reached out and emailed someone or even
Met up with them after a meeting everybody was so willing to help and so willing to meet with me to talk about different issues I feel like I have a mentor for every aspect of my career that I want to work on because people have been so willing to help and go the
Extra mile towards helping other planners succeed that’s right and I had some great advice early in my career when I was thinking about becoming a leader within APA and running for office and the advice was do it you will meet the most amazing planners from all over the country and you will learn
From them and that’s proven true whether I was a division chair or on the board of directors or anything like that so one of my piece of advice for mid-career professionals is if you haven’t get involved in APA whether a section or the state or the national level and
Contributor time and you will meet amazing professionals and you will have that Network and it served me well in my career absolutely I totally agree but thanks so much for talking with me about mentoring today this was a great oh it’s always a pleasure my let’s say anytime thank you
ID: 64wCxyQGIAc
Time: 1528124520
Date: 2018-06-04 19:32:00
Duration: 00:11:32
