Starting Strong: A Mentoring Fable: Strategies for Success in the First 90 Days

In Starting Strong, mentoring experts Lois J. Zachary and Lory A. Fischler weave a compelling tale that exemplifies the concepts, highlights the dynamics, and outlines the issues involved in mentoring relationships. The authors use the form of a fable to tell the story of a budding mentoring relationship filled with possibilities, problems, and triumphs. The story of Cynthia, a seasoned professional, and her new mentee Rafa, brings to life Zachary and Fischler's wealth of mentoring suggestions and best practices and each episode of the fable is accompanied by reflection questions, key learnings, and strategies that readers can apply to their own mentoring relationships. The authors include a conversation playbook that guides mentors and mentees through six essential conversations that will help them establish a strong mentoring connection, and keep it moving forward.

As organizations face the transition of departing Boomers and arriving Millennials, Starting Strong offers a hands-on and readable guide to create effective mentoring relationships that will ensure the success of that transition. The book:

• Covers the key components of a successful mentoring relationship including building trust, establishing a comfort zone (and then having the courage to leave it), holding productive meetings, dealing with power dynamics, setting goals, and keeping momentum going
• Shows how to avoid common pitfalls and overcome mentoring obstacles
• Applies to any organizational or institutional setting

Starting Strong is more than an engaging story of mentorship, it's a vital resource for understanding how to implement and sustain a meaningful mentoring relationship.

About the Authors

Lois J. Zachary is an internationally recognized expert on mentoring. She has been cited as “one of the top one hundred minds in leadership” today. Her book The Mentor’s Guide, first published in 2000 and revised in 2012, is the primary resource for organizations interested in promoting mentoring for leadership and learning and for mentors seeking to deepen their mentoring practice. With her bestselling books Creating a Mentoring Culture (2005), The Mentee’s Guide: Making Mentoring Work for You (Jossey-Bass, 2009, with coauthor Lory Fischler), and The Mentor’s Guide, five Mentoring Excellence Pocket Toolkits, and over one hundred published articles, Dr. Zachary has created a comprehensive set of resources for facilitating the practice of individual and organizational mentoring excellence. Her most recently published book, My Mother Has the Finest Eyes, is a collection of poetry and reflection.

Dr. Zachary is president of Leadership Development Services, LLC, a Phoenix-based consulting firm that specializes in leadership and mentoring, and director of its Center for Mentoring Excellence. Her innovative mentoring approaches and expertise in coaching leaders and their organizations in designing, implementing, and evaluating learner-centered mentoring programs have been used globally by a wide array of clients, including Fortune 100 companies, government organizations, and educational and other institutions, both profit and nonprofit.

Lory Fischler is a senior associate with Leadership Development Services, LLC, and associate director of its Center for Mentoring Excellence. She is a dynamic, insightful, and seasoned professional with over twenty-five years’ experience in consulting, training, and coaching clients from a diverse array of organizations, including Fortune 500, health care, manufacturing, government, and nonprofit.

Fischler is the coauthor, with Lois J. Zachary, of The Mentee’s Guide and the Mentoring Excellence Pocket Toolkits, and has published a number of articles. She is the creator of Leadership Development Services’ Workstyle Inventory, a tool widely used by clients to promote self-understanding and team interaction, and the designer and facilitator of Negotiating: Win-Win Results, a three-day experiential workshop that has been delivered worldwide.