Book Review
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The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring: A Complete Guide to Effective Mentoring by Dr Ruth Gotian and Andy Lopata
Overview
This book aims to be a comprehensive, accessible handbook for anyone involved in mentoring—whether as a mentor, mentee, or programme-administrator. According to the publisher’s synopsis, it offers “the tools you need to understand what mentoring is and its benefits, learn how to mentor effectively, and be mentored.”
It is structured in three main parts: being an effective mentor; organisational approaches to mentoring; and being an effective mentee.
The authors draw on research and their own practice to make a case for mentoring as a key driver of career development, organisational performance and inclusion.
What works well
1. Practical, action‐oriented structure
The book is organised in a way that is useful for people in different roles: mentors, mentees, and those managing mentoring programmes. The table of contents reveals clearly defined chapters on topics like “The Mentoring Meeting”, “How to deliver the best value”, “How do you know if the relationship is not working?"
Reviewers highlight the inclusion of templates, checklists, worksheets and other tools that make the content immediately usable. For example: “The inclusion of well-structured tools and templates is another highlight that makes this book particularly practical.
2. Strong grounding in both organisational and individual perspective
The authors don’t just treat mentoring as a “nice to have” but show how it plays out in organisations—matching mentors and mentees, measuring success, creating a mentoring culture. They also attend to what each individual (mentor or mentee) needs to bring to the table. This dual focus is helpful.
For example, chapter sections explore how mentoring programmes fail (“Where mentoring relationships go wrong”) and how to fix them.
3. Clarity of definitions—especially the difference between mentoring and coaching
The authors take time to clarify what mentoring is and what it isn’t, which is helpful given the frequent confusion of mentoring, coaching, sponsoring, advising. E.g., the book delineates that mentoring involves both psychosocial support and career guidance.
One review noted: “Another strength of the book lies in its clear distinction between mentoring and coaching, two concepts often conflated but fundamentally different in approach.
4. Inclusive and contemporary issues addressed
The authors include attention to topics such as neurodiversity, imposter syndrome, and the need for inclusive mentoring, which adds relevance in today’s workplace. For instance, the “Mentoring Meeting” chapter explores how to handle different mentee needs, adapt to generational differences, etc.
Limitations / Things to consider
1. Depth vs breadth trade-off
Because the book covers many roles (mentor, mentee, organisation) and many aspects (relationship, matching, measurement), some readers may find that individual topics are covered at a relatively broad level rather than deeply. If you’re looking for deep theoretical frameworks or very intensive empirical research, this may not satisfy that need.
This is not a fault so much as a choice of audience—practitioners needing tools rather than purely academics.
2. Organisational context bias
As with many professional-development books, much of the framing is oriented to organisations (corporates, professional services, large-scale mentoring programmes). If you are in a very different context (say small non-profit, informal community mentoring, or peer mentoring outside of a structured org), some of the examples may feel less directly applicable. Still, the underlying principles remain useful.
3. Some duplication / pace of tools
In a review one reader noted that there is “some duplication to enable readers to tackle sections independently of the entire book. This is by design to allow different entry points, but may feel repetitive for someone reading straight through.
Overall evaluation
This is a strong recommendation for:
- Mentors (especially newer ones) who want a roadmap of what an effective mentoring relationship looks like.
- Mentees who want to take ownership of their mentoring, understand how to work with a mentor and optimise the relationship.
- HR/L&D professionals or leaders who are responsible for mentoring programmes and want a practical guide for how to design, run, and measure them.
If you are looking purely for high-end theory, or niche contexts (e.g., peer mentoring in community settings, micro-mentoring in startups, inter-cultural mentoring outside formal organisations) you may want to supplement this book with more specialised material.
I would give it around 4 out of 5 for practicality, clarity and relevance. If I were to be more granular: 4.5/5 for usefulness for practitioners; maybe 3.5/5 for depth of academic exploration.