[Reading Record -149] The Art of Mentoring

I read The Art of Mentoring by Katsutsugu Honda.
This book was published in 2005. It is a book that explains how to practice mentoring.

However, what caught my attention was not the mentoring techniques themselves...

The competition of industrial society began to change

Looking back in time, various "theories for developing people" were created in the United States in the 1980s.

HRM (Human Resource Management) was a concept that emerged, and OJT and coaching became popular. It is safe to say that "mentoring," which is at the heart of this book, is one of them.

Since the Industrial Revolution, companies in developed countries competed to make better products, cheaper and faster. Therefore, companies at the time competed to build factories, introduce equipment, and increase production efficiency. In other words, the competition among companies at that time was about how to efficiently produce "things", and for that reason, investing in mechanization was the global norm.

However, in the 1980s, that norm began to waver.
This was because Japanese companies swept the global market, centered on automobiles and home appliances.

To compete against Japanese companies, American companies analyzed the strengths of Japanese firms. However, Japanese companies did not have state-of-the-art equipment, nor did they have particularly low labor costs. The source of Japanese companies' competitiveness lay elsewhere.

The Toyota Production System, QC circles, TQC, Kaizen...
It was a culture where people working on the front lines thought for themselves and accumulated small improvements. American companies learned that even when using the same equipment as they did, the results changed depending on the way people thought and acted.

― I am not a scholar, so I cannot present academic evidence, but I believe that was likely the case ―

"Developing people" became management

Against this backdrop, research on human resource development progressed one after another in the United States in the 1980s.

During this era, Kathy Kram systematized mentoring, and Stephen Covey published "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." Later, Peter Senge's "The Fifth Discipline" also appeared.

At first glance, they may seem like theories from different fields, but what they have in common is that they focus on designing an environment where people can grow, rather than managing people.

In an industrial society, managing equipment was important.
However, in a knowledge society, unleashing human potential itself becomes a competitive advantage.

In other words, the target of investment began to shift from "things" to "people". And that philosophy of human resource development blossomed in the United States and was re-imported to Japan across the ocean.

Rooting mentoring in an organization

Mentoring is not about teaching answers.

Mentoring is believing in the other person's potential and supporting them so they can think and grow on their own, and not letting it end as a skill only for a few excellent bosses.

While Masanobu Fukushima's "Mentoring Management," which I read previously, focused on "how managers should be," I felt that this book places more emphasis on "how to implement that 'should-be' as an organization."

In this book, the author explains that "implementation of the should-be," delving into systems and operational methods. Therefore, I think this book is not a book to learn mentoring techniques, but rather a blueprint for rooting a "culture where people develop people" in an organization.

The times have finally caught up

At the time, the term "human capital management" was not yet common, and human resource development was often treated as a "cost." However, today, the idea that investing in people influences corporate value has become widespread, and there is even a demand for the disclosure of human capital information.

Thinking about it that way, this book is not merely a how-to guide on mentoring.
In an era transitioning from an industrial society to a knowledge society, it was likely a book that described how to implement 'investment in people' within an organization.

That is precisely why it does not feel outdated even after reading it more than 20 years later.
Rather, perhaps the times have finally caught up with this book.

Reference Links

・Katsutsugu Honda, "The Art of Mentoring"

・Kathy Kram, "Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organizational Life"

・Stephen R. Covey, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"

・Peter Senge, "The Fifth Discipline"

・Toyota Production System (Toyota Official)