In reply to Lujie.

Hi Lujie,

Thanks for your comment!

You are absolutely right that chemistry and trust is vital to the success of a mentoring relationship. I also think it's important to understand what the mentee wants to gain from the mentoring program and what the mentor can offer. For example, if an Executive mentee is doing business in China and wants to gain deeper knowledge on Chinese culture and etiquette, it would be good to match him/her with someone either from China or someone who has deep knowledge of the Chinese culture. Another example is say an Executive Mentee works primarily with male employees and customers - it would be good to match him with a female Mentor.

It's also worth understanding if the Mentor and Mentee you are thinking of matching know each other well and have worked together before. If the two employees know each other very well and have worked together for a long period of time, I would recommend not matching them together as I'm not sure you would get the depth of the relationship. I have found that these Mentoring relationships work best when the Mentor and Mentee either don't know each other or do know each other but still have more to learn from one another.

I hope that helps. Feel free to post other ideas you have - I'd love to hear them!

Kind Regards,
Laura