We are proud to share that Dr. György Beck our Faculty Member received the 1st prize of the 2021 Mentor Oscar Award in individual category.

In this occasion, we talked with György about his decades long experiences in mentoring (both in being a mentor and a mentee himself) and we also highlight some interesting insights regarding the benefits of mentoring.


For more info about the Mentor Oscar, the list of the individual and organizational category winners and the related presentation by György, see the last part of the article.

SEED: Gyuri, since 2014 you have been mentor (as we call the Faculty Members here) at SEED, actually from the very beginning of our story. In your opinion, what are the main benefits of the mentoring? 

As people work in more diversified industries and face increasing challenges, I think the benefits of the mentoring are three-fold:

• they could get some guidance as a person and as a professional;
• they could get some insights how to recognize and avoid different situations, traps in their increasingly complex management challenges;
• and they could also get some kind of career advice, which is a frequent and important topic in the new generation, especially compared to the earlier one.

So the mentor’s contribution to the development of a mentee is absolutely versatile.

It’s a process-based discussion, but not chit-chat. While both parties are learning from each other.

In addition to that, in certain cases the mentor is outside of the company’s internal network and policy, so this external viewpoint could help a lot. The mentor provides his/her network too, which could be also beneficial for the mentees.

SEED: In your career, how have you known the mentoring? Have you come across any useful methods or guidelines that helped you to develop your own mentoring approach?

I was very lucky, because I always had very great and inspiring leaders in the beginning of my career, from whom I could learn a lot. Later at multinational companies, I also took part in several useful leadership trainings.

I used to lead mentoring discussions in different companies for long years, but as an in-depth concept and profession I met mentoring at SEED.

Actually, the SEED approach with the learnings and commitments in a 4-month and 6-month long personal journeys provide a great framework and model for my mentoring.

We can reflect on these in our discussions, but the participants also bring their own personal cases and topics, which fuel our conversations.

One of the main reason why I am doing this, because I wanted to make easier for younger managers and leaders to gain the essential skills and knowledge, so mentoring is a great tool to support them.

SEED: Is there any typical process or goal in mentoring? What do you think important during the mentoring sessions?

Mentoring requires trust in each other, I think it is the most important.

You have to achieve the open communication and the trust as quickly as possible.

Then you can discuss all kinds of emerging topics with each other.

Mentoring needs also a well-defined process, in which at the first step we meet together and introduce our backgrounds, stories and experiences. At this point the mentee sees, in which topics could be the mentoring useful for him/her and we discuss the focus and the frequency of the mentoring.

I have mentored over 200 professionals during the years and I believe a clear process, a specific professional framework like at SEED could help a lot in facilitating the discussions and supporting the personal development.

Recently, I have mentored not only experienced business managers or leaders, but also talented professionals from other areas like film directors, psychologist with different start-up initiatives or also university students.

There is a lot to benefit, not just for the mentees but also for the mentor from these professional discussions. While the real success for a mentor is that the mentees – even after a year or more – will contact you, because they trust you and are ready to talk again even about their newest opportunities or challenges.

Thank you for the discussion, Gyuri!

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Research about the benefit of mentoring:

As studies say, mentoring is one of the most effective talent and knowledge management tools. It clearly sees, that investing in the management and leadership skills pays off in performance and productivity.

1. 71% of Fortune 500 companies offer long-standing mentoring programs.
   
   Study + Link: a research by Centre for Workplace Leadership in 2016, appeared at HuffPost online
   
   
   
2. 84% said mentors had helped them avoid costly mistakes, 84% become proficient in their roles faster, 69% were making better decisions.
   
   Study + Link: CEOs Need Mentors Too – Harvard Business Review, 2015
   
   
   
3. Mentoring has a positive impact on both mentors and mentees: it clearly increases the business value of both groups.
   
   Study + Link: highly in-depth joint study by Gartner and Capital Analytics, tracked more than 1.000 employees and 68 workplace variables over five year
   
   
   
4. 97% of those with a mentor say they find them to be valuable.
   76% of people think mentors are important, but only 37% have one.
   
   Article + Link: an article about the benefit of mentoring at Forbes.com

   Study + Link: the research by Olivet Nazarene University with 3.000 people about professional mentor-mentee relationships in 2019

More info about the Mentor Oscar:

In 2021, the Mentor Oscar was awarded in different categories:

• organizational category: Hungarian Business Leaders Forum (1st prize) and Takarékbank (special prize – New Mentoring Program award),
• individual category: Dr. György Beck (1st prize), Dr. Tímea Ferencsák (2nd prize), Tímea Csontos (3rd prize) and Zoltán Uher (special prize).

Click here to read the presentation by Dr. György Beck on the Mentor Oscar Award ceremony.

Click here to read the detailed news about the Mentor Oscar Award (in Hungarian) by Magyar Coachszemle online.