The sleeping beauty

19/07/2021

AICR Mentoring BlogNo Comments

Author: Martina Knitter, Mentoring Team Switzerland, July 2021

Our fairytale of implementing Mentoring in the international organisation AICR.

What does it need for a good fairytale? Some good characters for sure, maybe also a bad one. It needs common ground, obstacles and a learning curve as well as a happy ending.

In our fairytale of implementing mentoring at the AICR Switzerland we had it all.

Let’s see how it began:

Once upon a time in 2020 when the world fell into a long sleeping lockdown there was a little group of enthusiastic, committed and dedicated members – just enough to be the 7 dwarfs.

They saw the need and benefit of mentoring for the community in order to support each other during this difficult time. They evaluated this need with the magic mirror and within the core values of AICR.

Looking at the circle of education that had been implemented in the Association: From the Best Receptionist Competition to the Leadership Certificate to become a full member as a Front Office Manager.

Wasn’t there a gingerbread missing? How could they overcome the gap between juniors and and their first supervisor position? How could they support their Snow White not to pick the poisoned apple and finally choose the right Prince?

Mentoring was the golden goose: being available to answer questions as well as providing networks.

Of course there where some some dragons to battle: setting up the website, finding supporting materials but mostly spreading the word.

For this the friends taped a few videos, not as bed time stories but to understand the idea of mentoring. The first was still a little stiff but finally all their three wishes became true: