Through out my career I have always had a mentor in one form or another. I didn't know it until deep into my career, and none of them were official in any capacity. But each relationship was born from my desire to talk through tough situations with those I became close to. As time went on I made a decision to become that resource for others. I realized the impact I was having by being a true advocate for others.
After some time I realized the impact I was having and an opportunity arose for me to build a mentorship program from the ground up. Someone initiated a complete disaster of a program and just left it to whither on the vine. I used this failed attempt to pivot and make a program of my own vision. Below are the tenets of this vision.
1. What is a Mentorship?
The simplest definition is that a mentorship is a relationship between two people who have chosen to create a safe space for communication between each other. This communication should be allowed to wander and go where it wants to. By allowing it to wander you provide opportunity for the venting of frustrations, asking of personal questions, defining paths to success, exploring interests, etc. Ultimately all of it boils down to one singular concept; this is a safe space to learn. To Learn the plight of your peers, how to plan, how to explore, how to face confrontation, how to accept life as it ticks by.
There is a common misunderstanding as to the purpose of a mentorship. The majority of people don't quite understand its function, typically saying that the program is to achieve some defined objective. Usually with an ultimate goal of training a mentee in a specific skill, or getting them a promotion. Although this can be an aspect discussed as part of a mentorship, it is too narrow of a focus. If the your goal is to just improve an employees skill, then you should label it appropriately; coaching. A coach is there to make you better in singular functions, and when you've achieved a specified goal you move on. Where as, in a mentorship you have an opportunity to go so far beyond the immediate needs, and effect an entire career trajectory. When done right a mentorship will last a lifetime and can make a more well rounded individual worth far more than any current focus.
Through all of my own experiences as well as those who are part of my program, the most successful relationships that I have seen are ones where both members of the partnership are willing participants who's ultimate goal is to grow. Those who open themselves to the adventure while not pigeon holing themselves to a predefined path.
Another important aspect of being part of a mentorship is that there is little distinction between mentors and mentees. This is by design, because to think that information is a one way path from Mentor to Mentee, you are doing both parties a disservice. Assuming that your Mentee does not have information to teach you is rather ignorant. We all took different paths to get to this very moment in life and to ignore this is a missed opportunity to grow.
2. What does a Mentorship Provide?
Being part of an active mentorship provides you with a safe space to talk through anything. Mostly it is going to revolve around actions at work, but as you grow together the depth of conversation grows as well. The most meaningful mentorships I have been part of are the ones where we branch out to topics that are beyond the boundaries of day to day work. Where we talk about families, saving strategies, auto repair, anything is fair game. When you’re open to expanding your boundaries, you end up exploring topics you'd never be able to imagine when first starting the relationship.
Although all of my data is anecdotal, I firmly believe another benefit is the correlation between being part of a mentorship and career growth. I believe that being part of a mentorship allows people to talk through hard scenarios and learn how to advocate for oneself. When you have the confidence to advocate for yourself, mostly to overcome imposter syndrome, you are more likely to kick your career in to a higher gear. Beyond your self-advocacy, your counterpart becomes an advocate for you as well. Logic dictates that 2 sources are going to provide twice as many opportunities for a voice in your favor to be heard.
As a Mentorship provides a safe space to discuss things and is a really good place to be the rubber ducky. For the uninitiated, there is an engineering fable about discussing your issues out loud to a rubber duck. Where the gist is that by orating things to the duck your mind slows down and self identifies the gaps in your thinking. By utilizing your relationship as a rubber duck you can talk through things and find the errors in your process, giving yourself a fresh perspective. I consistently use my discussions as a way to talk through a tough technical issues where by the end I'll have several possible paths to try and fix the issue at hand.
A mentorship can help you grow in ways that you never would have considered possible. I have seen some truly transformative events happen, from people conquering fears of speaking in large groups, choosing to move on from toxic peers, become more present as a remote worker, or even staying with the company after learning how to advocate for their needs.
Finally, a mentorship provides an opportunity to teach. I believe that you don't truly understand a subject until you have broken the idea down to small understandable chunks and explained it to someone else. By teaching you solidify your own understanding of the subject, while also providing new contexts to someone else. As for context being provided, I also believe that it is much easier to persevere through an issue if you know there is an answer somewhere out there. Simply by being taught that a solution exists you can get past any mental block where you would typically ask "Is this possible?"
3. What Should I Do?
If any of this is at all intriguing to you, I would seek a mentorship. Some companies have programs in place, but most do not. Seek a person who you think you could learn things from. You can look internal to the company, but don't be afraid to look else where. Also don't limit your scope to those who have similar career paths to you. The more divergent you are from the person you are interacting with the more room there is for you to grow. I have always been fascinated by the idea of an engineer mentoring an accountant. The two have similar foundations in logic, but the two could learn so much from each other. From programming skills to understanding how the world is paid for.
Once you have found your partner in this endeavor, you need to set up a regularly scheduled meeting. It is imperative to schedule these meetings and set the time aside to participate. Trying to be part of a mentorship on a whim never works, because invariably you’ll lower its priority to the point of never meeting. By having it scheduled it’ll be blocked on your calendar and unless a very important meeting pops up, the time will be protected. Also by having it scheduled you know the meeting is coming and can hold questions, instead of feeling like you’re bothering your counterpart. Finally, by having this meeting scheduled, you can easily skip the mundane pleasantries and let yourself easily get to the real stuff.
4. Some Hard Truths
Participation in a mentorship is subject to the same fickle winds as any other project where people are as asked to work together. There is no crystal ball for a relationship working out, and It really comes down to a few things. The primary being how open are you to exploring the unknown. Another being how willing are you to put in the time up front to push past awkward moments to get to beneficial conversations? The last being, are the both people actually compatible with one another.
In the cases where two people are not compatible, it is important to shift to new partners quickly so that this experience does not poison the whole effort. Unfortunately, this is not always possible, for one of two reasons; first, you don't have a willing recipients available to absorb a new relationship after the forced separation, second, and most common reason, is that it isn't possible to change things because the issue is never identified as an incompatible relationship. People in this case fear they’ve failed, so they don’t talk about it and just let the relationship die off without telling anyone. In the case of the former, you need to dissolve the relationship and put the individuals in a holding pattern until you find acceptable candidates. Sometimes it takes multiple candidates to find the right person, and that’s okay. Something’s need more love and attention before they can grow, it isn’t any less valid our valuable. In the case of the latter, you just feel sadness for the loss and move on.
Another hard truth is that not everyone is an acceptable candidate. Some reasons are innocuous, like they are a too busy, and need all of their time to do their day-to-day job. Then there are more toxic traits that make them ineligible. Such as people who default to ridicule when a "stupid" question is asked, people who can't be bothered to actively listen to their counter part, or even people who are forced in the program without giving them a choice to join of their own volition (I'm looking at you PiP's).
On that last point, it is imperative that each member actively chooses to join a mentorship as opposed to being forced into it as part of some career goal. Going back to a previous point, mentorships is not the same as coaching. If the goal is for decimation of knowledge as part of a promotion/position obligation, then it should be labeled appropriately. There is nothing wrong with calling it coaching, it just sets different desired expectations, timelines, and outcomes.
Finally, If you are part of my program, and I find out you belittle, or are dismissive of your counterpart, I will have no qualms kicking your ass out. I have zero patience for bullying. This is a safe space, and you are completely undermining everything if your peer can't feel safe to share things.
5. Conclusions
I really believe in what a mentorship can do for you, your life, and your career. No one will agree with all of this, and that is fair. Your perspective and opinion's are what make you you. I will never agree with 100% of what you bring to the table, but that doesn't make your views any less valid. The purpose of a mentorship is to learn, so why not find that person who pushes your boundaries wide open.