Dial M for Mentor

This book is an invaluable aid for all those involved in coaching, educating and training.  It uses stories of learning relationships taken from film, TV and literature as a tool for reflecting on, understanding and evolving current mentoring and coaching practice.

Storytelling and metaphor are increasingly important in research into leadership and learning. Here they are used as a powerful aid to learning and change by challenging ideas about mentoring in an innovative and entertaining way. The practical, moral and behavioural complexities of the mentoring relationship are explored through stories from Western popular culture, provoking difficult questions, promoting critical reflection and providing new insights through this fresh and enjoyable approach.

Preface: Mentoring in popular culture

1. Turkey, tomatoes and poppadoms: storytelling and its role in making meaning and learning

2. Monks, mobsters and the Matrix: knowledge, learning, action and change

3. Vampire, hustlers and tough love: the use and abuse of power and trust

4. From the Bada-Bing to the Belly of the Whale (by way of Belgium): the mentor as moral compass and conscience

5. Ratso, Rita and the android: personal change and self-fulfilment

6. The Enemy Within or just a critical friend? the subversive mentor or transformation through subversion, humour and tough love

7. Attorneys, aliens and fools: mentoring for diversity and speaking truth to power

8. 'Get busy living or get busy dying': purpose, autonomy and the power of positive thinking

Summary and Index

Jonathan Gravells is a management consultant who advises organisations on mentoring and coaching, providing corporate training in the UK and around the world. He has published widely on mentoring, leadership and personal change. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, and on the NHS register of approved executive coaches.

Sue Wallace is the Professor of Continuing Education at Nottingham Trent University. Her particular interest is in mentoring and the ways in which a successful mentoring relationship can support personal and professional development. She has researched and published extensively on education, training and management of behaviour, and is a popular keynote speaker at conferences.