As Iron Sharpens Iron 1
by Howard and William Hendricks

Part One: For Men Who Want To Be Mentored

Chapter Two: “I Believe in You”

• “Two are better than one” (Ecclesiastes 4:9, NASB)

Chapter Three: Know What You Need

• You must assess you own needs to determine what sort of mentor you should look for.

“Know Thyself” – Easier Said Than Done

• People often lack insight into themselves.
• Not only can a mentor guide you into greater insight, he can help you translate that insight into action. Furthermore, he can motivate you to action, and, equally important, hold you accountable for what you do or do not do.

Discovering You Needs

• What do you want?
• One way to clarify your objectives is to ask, “Where do I want my life to be in ten years?”
• Another way to uncover you objectives is to take an inventory of the basic categories of you life: your work, your marriage and family, your spiritual life, your relationship to your church, and your involvement in the community at large. How would you evaluate yourself in each of them?  Then ask the hard questions: “Where do I feel inadequate?” and “Where do I experience repeated failure?”
• A third way to identify your objectives is to think in terms of four levels of human competency: knowledge, attitudes, habits and behaviors, and skills. In other words, what knowledge or information do you wish to acquire that you don’t currently possess? What attitudes or values do you feel you must cultivate? What habits and behaviors are you trying to establish or break? What practical skills do you wish to develop?

A.W. Tozer’s Rules of Self-Discovery: The late A.W. Tozer suggested seven areas that reveal our values and our true commitments:

1. What we want most
2. What we think about most.
3. How we use our money.
4. What we do with your leisure time.
5. The company we enjoy.
6. Whom and what we admire.
7. What we laugh at.

• What price are you willing to pay?
• How do you plan to accomplish your objectives?
• Most of us don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan.
• What is your personal dynamic?
• Knowing yourself means recognizing and affirming your personality and temperament, your natural bent, and the instinctive ways in which you relate to others.
• The key is knowing your personal dynamic. For instance, do you focus primarily on tasks or relationships? Do you tend to be outgoing or introverted? Are you more fascinated by ideas or by people? Does high energy or low characterize you? Do you arrive at conclusions by investigating and analyzing all the facts, or more by intuition? Are you willing to play your role, whether it’s the quarterback (in charge), or a lineman (dedicated player)? Are you motivated by gaining recognition or by meeting a challenge (or some other drive)?  Are you a morning dove or a night owl?
• How do you learn?
• Here’s an exercise to help you identify your unique approach to learning. Imagine that you have received some new piece of equipment that you have never used before – a bicycle, a pair of skis, a computer, whatever. How would you go about learning to use that equipment? Would you open up the owner’s manual and read it cover to cover? Or would you be more likely to ignore the manual and figure it out by trial and error? Would you call a friend and ask him to show you how the thing works? Or would you enroll in a class for instruction?

Chapter Four: What Mentors Look For

The Profile of a Protégé

• There are a few things that any mentor would want to see before he commits to such and important relationship.
• Is he goal-orientated?
• If you have no intention of getting anywhere, there can be no wrong heading. There can also be no progress.
• Is he actively seeking a challenging assignment and greater responsibilities?
• Mentoring is all about personal growth and development.
• Is he an initiator?
• Is he eager to learn?
• Is he willing to assume responsibility for his own growth and development?
• What are you doing to manage that responsibility? Or are you expecting someone else to pick you up, tell you what do, and mange your life for you?

My Selection Process

• For me, initiative is the key. I invariably pay attention to initiative to qualify my prospects.
• Another thing I look for is a guy who follows up on suggestions.

What About You?

• How do you stack up?

Chapter Five: The Marks of a Mentor

Being Intentional

• You must be intentional about looking for a mentor. You must be proactive. You must deliberately and strategically place yourself in the path of opportunity, where you can increase your chances of linking up with a person who can influence you.

Marks of a Mentor

• A mentor seems to have what you personally need.  Find someone who really knows something about the area in which you want to grow.
• A mentor cultivates relationships  He has to be willing to give of himself.
• A mentor is willing to take a chance on you.  A mentor is going to make a certain investment in you – an investment of time, energy, emotion, trust, and other resources.
• A mentor is respected by other Christians.
• A mentor has a network of resources.
• A mentor is consulted by others.  One of the best indicators that a man would serve well as a guide is if he is already serving as a guide to others.
• A mentor both talks and listens.  The issue is communication.
• A mentor is consistent in his lifestyle.
• A mentor is able to diagnose your needs.
• A mentor is concerned with your interests.

Chapter Six: How To Find A Mentor

Places to Look for a Mentor

• The where of finding a mentor is deceptively obvious: potential mentors are all around you.
• Many of the best mentors are not spectacular – just solid.
• Say you’re a college or university student; the most obvious place to look for a mentor is among the faculty.
• What about your church? Check out the pastoral staff and some of the more mature laymen.
• How about your workplace? Think through your coworkers, your supervisors, or your vendors.
• If you really need help in terms of your family or marriage, you should look in you church for a mentor.

Finding a Mentor: Three practical suggestions for finding a mentor:

• Pray for one.
• Start looking – get your antennae up.
• Make contact – start to experiment with the process.

Chapter Seven: First Steps

Twenty Ideas for Initiating a Mentoring Relationship

• Call him up and ask for an appointment to see him about a specific issue.
• Use a go-between to set a meeting.
• Get a referral.
• Praise the person on his expertise, then ask him to use it to help you develop yours.
• Offer to join the man’s team or project.
• Offer to solve a problem for him.
• Bring him an interesting opportunity that you have.
• Bring him information in which he might be interested.
• Ask him to read and react to something that you have written.
• Respond to something that he has done.
• Ask the man to tell you about his mentors.
• Interview him in connection with a project that you are working on – or one that he is working on.
• Send him something that you have produced – a book, a product, a photograph – with a note thanking him for his inspiration.
• Honor him publicly.
• Take advantage of any structured opportunities for interaction that he offers.
• If he has ever told you to look him up sometime, take him up on his offer.
• Enlist the man’s support even before you need it.
• Give him periodic updates on yourself.
• Wait for the right timing.
• Pray for a mentor.

One Thing Not to Do: Avoid using the terms “mentor” or “mentoring” unless your prospect uses those terms first.

Chapter Eight: Strategies for Growth

Formal versus Informal Mentoring

• There are two basic kinds of mentoring. One is structured, facilitated, and formal. The other is nonstructured, spontaneous, and informal.

Five Examples of Formal Mentoring Programs

• In government. The Executive Candidate Development Program pairs executives with between fifty and sixty ECDP candidates each year.
• In a business. All one hundred employees in a California-based accounting firm are eligible to participate in a volunteer mentoring program overseen by the personnel manager. Twice a year, the company calls for volunteers to serve as mentors.
• In education. Several dozen Yale University students serve as volunteers in a science program called DEMOS (Daringly Educational Marvels of Science) for the New Haven, Connecticut, elementary schools. Working in teams of three, the volunteers visit a classroom twice a semester, putting on an hour-long demonstration related to science.
• In parachurch ministries. One of the most well-known programs for spiritual development is the 2:7 Series sponsored by The Navigators.

Informal Mentoring

• Two men serving on a church committee get together for coffee.
• A mechanic invites a teenager to help him fix a car.
• A student decides to pursue a particular major, largely because he is drawn to one of the professors.
• A man in his late twenties becomes friends with a man who has just turned forty.

A Difference in Expectations: Don’t get hung up on whether the friendship that you and another man are building qualifies as “mentoring.” Just pursue the relationship.

Getting Down to Basics: It starts with the things you want to work on, and ideally leads to the things you need to work on.

Expecting Too Much – Or Too Little

• This distinction between surface issues and core concerns has a lot of implications for how you and your mentor structure your time together.
• Recognize that you always have to start with where you are. If your mentor is wise, that’s where he’ll start.

Setting an Agenda – Sooner or later, the man you perceive as your mentor is probably going to ask you, “How can I help?” Or else, you are going to say to him, “Here’s how I need you help.”

The Learning Contract – The clearer you are about where you are going and how you are going to get there, the faster you will tend to arrive at you goals and the fewer problems you will tend to encounter on the way.

Some Suggested Activities

• Get on his turf. Visit you mentor’s workplace.
• Invite him onto your turf. Let him come into your home or your workplace.
• Take on a responsibility. Let him observe you in action.
• Go through a process over time.
• Give a speech or other presentation in front of a group.
• Do a leisure activity together.
• Involve him in a significant decision you are making.
• Pray and worship together.

Chapter Nine: Caution: Men at Work!

Unrealistic Expectations

• Unrealistic expectations can go both ways. You can expect more of your mentor than he is capable of delivering. He may demand more of you than you are capable of performing.
• If you are feeling disappointed with your mentor, you need to stop and ask a few diagnostic questions:
• What did I expect to happen that hasn’t happened?
• What grounds did I base my expectations on in the first place? Where did they come from?
• Did I ever communicate to my mentor what I wanted? Did he agree to provide that?
• In general, what am I hoping that this relationship will do for me? Is that hope realistic? Can any relationship satisfy it, or am I wishing on a star?

No Unlimited Commitments – Whatever authority you relinquish to someone else should be limited and temporary.

An Outsider’s Perspective – Never be afraid to check out anything your mentor says or does by consulting another trustworthy person.

Whose Life Is It, Anyway? – One final way to test whether your mentor is exerting too much control over you is to ask yourself whether you can regain control whenever you wish.

Chapter Ten: Taking Responsibility

Your Responsibility

• Find a mentor.
• Make mentoring a way of life.
• Find mentors for your kids.
• Mentor someone else.

Part Two: For Men Willing to Serve as Mentors

Chapter Eleven: A Call for Mentors

Why Aren’t You a Mentor?

• “I don’t care.” Many would-be mentors simply aren’t interested in the process.
• “I feel inadequate.” the second reason why men beg out of the mentoring role is also the most common: they have real doubts as to whether they can pull it off.  The older you are, the more likely you have:
• Experience
• Knowledge
• Access – To people, including other maturing Christians.  To networks. To information. To authority.
• Money
• Resources
• Friendship
• Time
• Yourself
• “No one ever asked me.” A third reason some men are standing on the sidelines with respect to mentoring is because they’ve never been recruited into the contest.
• “I don’t know how.” Mentoring is a bit of an art. But it’s not that difficult. Almost any man can learn to do it.

Chapter Twelve: Why Be A Mentor?

The Benefits of Being a Mentor

• A close, personal relationship with another man.
• Personal renewal and revitalization.
• A sense of self-fulfillment.
• Enhanced self-esteem.
• The confidence of having made a difference with your life.

Chapter Thirteen: What a Mentor Does

Mentoring is Defined by the Relationship – A mentor serves his protégé (or follower) in any of several key ways:

• He is a source of information.
• He provides wisdom.
• He promotes specific skills and effective behaviors.
• He provides feedback.
• He coaches.
• He is a sounding board.
• He is someone to turn to.
• He helps devise plans.
• He nurtures curiosity.

What Is a Mentor?

• “Mentoring is a relational process [in which a] mentor, who knows or has experienced something…transfers that something (resources of wisdom, information, experience, confidence, insight, relationships, status, etc.) to a mentoree, at an appropriate time and manner, so that it facilitates development or empowerment.”  Paul Stanley and Robert Clinton (Connecting)
• “In modern-day terms, mentors are influential, experienced people who personally help you reach your major life goals.  They have the power – through who or what they know – to promote your welfare.” Linda Phillips-Jones (The New Mentors and Proteges)
• “Defining mentoring is sort of tough, but describing it is pretty easy. It’s like having an uncle that cares for you for a lifetime, and wants to see you do well. He’s not your competitor; he’s there to support you, not to compete with you or discourage you. He’s not your critic as much as he is your cheerleader.”  Bobb Biehl (1993 Promise Keepers workshop)

Chapter Fourteen: How to Spot a Protégé

Questions to Ask Your Prospect

• “What would you like to do with your life?”
• “You seem to really be interested in such-and-such. Tell me about that. What else are you interested in?”
• “What are you good at?”
• “Tell me a little of your history.”
• “Tell me about your family.”
• “Do you have faith in God?”

Questions to Ask About Your Prospect

• “In what ways is this young man like me?”
• “What are his needs, as I see them?”
• “Do I respond to this person’s need or situation?”
• “Is this the right time for me to help this fellow?”
• “If I were to put everything I know about this guy into a story, how would that story read?”

Assessment Tools and Inventories
Spiritual Gifts Assessments:

• Basden-Johnsen Spiritual Gift Analysis, by Paul Basden and Lee Johnson, McCart Meadows Baptist Church (817-370-9900).
• Discover Your Gifts Manual and Workbook, by Charles R. Shumate and Sherrill D.
• Houts Spiritual Girt Inventory (charismatic and non-charismatic versions available); available through the Charles E. Fuller Institute (818-449-0425).
• Network: The Right People…In the Right Places…For the Right Reasons, by Bruce Bugbee; available through Zondervan (800-876-7335), or Network Ministries International (800-588-8833).
• Mobilizing Your Spiritual Gifts Series, Unleash Your Church, by Paul R. Ford; available through the Charles E. Fuller Institute (818-449-0425).
• Natural Gifts Assessments: The System for Identifying Motivated Abilities (SIMA), by Art Miller, People Management Inc.; available through the Ministry by Design Division, David McKnight (612-337-9550).
• Motif, by Ralph Mattson, DOMA Inc. (612-895-1544)

Personality Style Assessments:

• DISC (formerly Performax); available through the Carlson Learning Company (800-777-9897); or see the book , Understanding How Others Misunderstand You, by Ken Voges and Ron Braund.
• Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI); requires certification through the Association for Psychological Type (816-444-3500); or see the book, Please Understand Me, by David Kirsey and Marilyn Bates.
• Role Preference Inventory, by Bobb Biehl, Masterplanning Group Intl. (800-443-1976).
• Styles of Influence, by Gene Getz, Center for Church Renewal (214-423-4262).

Interests Assessment:

• Holland’s Self-Directed Search (assessment booklet) and The Occupations Finder; available through Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. (800-331-TEST).
• Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS); available through NCS Assessments (800-627-7271).

Chapter Fifteen: You Can Do It! - Attracting a Protégé

• Pray for God to point them out.
• Start with your area of expertise.
• Place yourself in Proximity to younger people.
• Set up “low risk” opportunities for interaction.
• Invite a likely prospect to join you informally

1 Review Notes Prepared by Ron Bonar – July, 1999

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