A recent mentor had been sharing valuable information through email when she used the term protege. In the past I have had lively discussions with other trainers regarding the subtlties in the definition of mentor, protege, protegee and mentee. In the context of her use and applications of the term I believe her definition was correct. She trains and mentors professionals directly related to her field of expertise. In my response to her I address some of my own ambiguity and thoughts about the difference in meaning between protege and mentee.
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Thank you for your email – I found your use of Protégé or Protégée interesting, so I went and looked it up in Wikipedia.
(From Wikipedia↓)
Mentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.
The person in receipt of mentorship may be referred to as a protégé (male), a protégée (female), an apprentice or, in recent years, a mentee.
“Mentoring” is a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. One definition of the many that have been proposed, is
Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)”.[1]
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I use Mentee; however I find both terms fall short, in adequately articulating what I have discovered in training over the last few years. Most often mentees have more experience and education than the mentors do in their field of expertise. We were very fortunate to have a group with so much combined experience this time around.
In our scenario both mentor and protégée (I’ll use the term) learn the skills together. What the mentors have is the ability to offer a cultural mirror on how Canadians view and approach the workplace and the community. What the mentors learn is just how smart the mentees are; dispelling the myth that internationally educated professionals do not have the competency or skills to work in Canada now.
What I liked about the information offered by Wikipedia is; ‘Mentoring is communication and relationship based’. I assume, in comparison to formal teaching or providing information.
I once listed the steps to effective and strategic mentorship to a class and one of the candidates adroitly pointed out me that I had missed a very important step. Step one, have a cup of tea. Strategy works better if you establish trust. Some cultures start with social dialogue before moving on to business.
Watching mentors and mentees enjoy and appreciate the discoveries made with each other over the last six weeks has been certainly one of the highlights of the program for myself and I think for all in attendance.
In the context of the 
mentor program I observed that most of the mentors learned as much from the mentees as the mentees learned in return. I certianly did..
Thanks again for your valuable contributions, now and thourghout the program, and thank you for re-stimulating the protégée/mentee conundrum for me.
Mentoring is an equal learning partnerhip that builds skills, insights and inclusive communites.
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