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Mentoring, Fixed · Humanity Working

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Paul, we've talked about mentoring quite a bit.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Investment in it is way up.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that and is it working?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, investment in it is way up.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that started um round about the time of the pandemic, although it was starting to increase just a little bit before then.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um part of it came from um organizations that had had reasonably successful mentoring programs and it was kind of like the new in flavor of the month.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then um interest in mentoring really, really increased during the pandemic because it's sort of the idea was that it filled a gap.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um organizations were realizing that um the sort of traditional ways of learning from other people and the and the informal mentoring you'd get from the old veteran who'd kind of like physically and metaphorically put their arm around your shoulder and uh you know, and and tell you everything was going to be okay and kind of guide you through and help you grow, that was that was disappearing.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um now the that's sort of the what and the why.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um is it working?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think the answer is sort of a qualified yes.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um what we've seen in terms of the the organizations that we've worked with um is that almost always mentoring programs and mentoring as individual experiences tend to start off with yeah, kind of a big bang, and then they tend to they tend to fiddle, fizz out.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they fizz out for a um for a bunch of reasons, um, which I guess we'll we can get into.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like where where do they where do they fizzle on both sides?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh how do you design around the urgent crowding out the important in that aspect?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as a yeah, you know, I mean, as a mentor and a mentee, I I get it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've you've hit on that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um I even think about this um just recently myself, actually in my own life.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's a um, so I mentor a few different people, including some some startup founders, and um the the mentoring relationship will start potentially really strong, and then but maybe the mentee gets really busy, and then they can't make the meetings that they're supposed to make, or uh and it's all kind of last-minute cancellations and stuff, and then that kind of creates a permission slip on the side of the mentor to be like, okay, well, you know, I gotta skip this one.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know, before you know where you are, you had a relationship that was building, and the relationship is fizzling.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um gosh, though, Matt, there are so many reasons.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we we recently did a part on on networking, and we talked about depth of relationship and breadths of relationship and things like that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: There has to be a good relationship between the men uh between the mentor and the mentee.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you have to it it will not work if there is no underlying desire, no matter how smart the mentor is, if there is no underlying desire on the part of the mentor to spend time with the mentee and the mentee to spend time with the mentor, so it has to be there on both sides, um, it's gonna fade over time.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: How many of us actually put the effort in to do things consistently that we don't like doing?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And particularly, how many of us put the effort in to schedule time on a calendar to meet with people that we don't like meeting?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so the you can certainly have and should have mentors that challenge mentees, but it sort of has to be done from a position of whereby both parties are getting something out of it.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so that what is main what's mainly missing here is that we think about the mechanics of it almost too much, and we think about the relationship part of it too little.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, as a like I'm trying to think of like the there's a lot of marketplace for people for people to find mentors, but I don't always think about it the other direction.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like people who are like, I need to find some people to tell what to do and how to do things.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: That would make me feel really good.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, there's a pool of mentees, I suppose, but it it it yeah it doesn't always go that that direction, although it is very rewarding when you find one that's good and and really works.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think almost anybody that's been in mentoring for any period of time, they if if they're in any way self-aware, they'll know that they that it brings them an enormous amount of benefit.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that could be benefit stemming from understanding the perspective, you know, getting a different perspective.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Potentially, if the mentor is older than the mentee, you're getting a different perspective from the you know, people that they that they mentee, different ways of thinking, different ways of approaching problems.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you never know, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: At some point you might be a mentor, and then you know, five years later you've helped this mentee grow, and all of a sudden you're getting a job from them.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's again that that Matt Watkinson lux surface area thing, you know.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So as a mentee, how do you make it valuable fast?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like find the right match, maybe one thing, using relationships, keeping momentum, like it's uh it's if it's on the if it's on the mentee, what what's a good way to do that?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the first thing is that you um whether software is being used or other things are being used to um to partner you with various mentors, I think it's important to have the courage to um to meet with several and then meet uh and then figure out you know which are the ones that are uh which are the ones that are working.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then ask yourself that question.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like like I think we we put a lot of effort and rightly so to um to surround ourselves with people that um that can give us honest and and uh you know honest and hard feedback.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're a good, particularly younger person going into the workplace, that's sort of like yes, you must be able to receive feedback, you must be able to act on feedback, you must be able to respond to feedback appropriately.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes people take that so literally that when they look for mentors, they almost always they they almost look for mentors that that that they don't like, right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And because it's sort of like a badge of honor to be like, okay, well, this is different and this is hard, and because it's different and it's hard, it must be good for me.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but do think about that, like, yes, if this if this person were to tell me something harsh, would I want to go back the next week and speak to that person again?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's about the relationship, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's about um there are certain people in our lives that we can hear hard messages from and still come back to see them because there's something deeper, that's uh there's something underneath that.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: So really understanding is there chemistry, and it is chemistry, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a form of chemistry between the mentor and the mentee?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, where um, and if that feels right for the mentee, that's important.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the other thing that isn't really, really important as a mentee is that um your job as a mentee in many ways, in many cases, is to make the job of the mentor a little a little easier.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say, for example, a mentor is gonna introduce is gonna introduce you to a friend of theirs or something like that.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Putting the bit of work in to say, I'm gonna send you a message that you can send to this person to make the connection, and then following through on that is a massively important part of it.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the number one thing, the number one thing that mentees need to think about with regard to the relationship with mentors is making the life of the mentor easier.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So don't cancel on them at the last minute.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Don't uh um say that you're gonna send them something and then not send it, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um think about that relationship as a relationship that you're you're prepared to put the effort in to maintain that relationship because that's sending a message to the mentor that you care about that relationship.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's a really important part of it and we'll keep things going.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then so as a mentor, what's the craft, the challenge without overfunctioning and when do you open your network?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those kind of decisions.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, yeah.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's there are so many challenges associated on the um on the mentoring side that are the difference between doing it, uh doing it and doing it well.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um the uh at least the first part of it um is to make sure that if you're taking on mentees um that you feel you feel like you're not taking on so many that if you if they needed you, you wouldn't be there for them.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: So um because this is the really interesting thing of it, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: What where you really, really earn your crust as a mentor is not when you show up at the regularly designated time every third Wednesday.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's when you get the text from the mentee saying, I'm struggling to think this thing through.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Can you help?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you are there and you're available for them to help.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got to think about like if you if you think you've got enough room for to mentor two people, think could I mentor one better?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think there's that part of it.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then another aspect of it as well is that remember, mentoring is a part of a broader connection, uh a broader set of capabilities that any individual needs in order to be able to thrive.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the mentoring piece of that is where people struggle with this, is where they try to be those other things as well as mentors, right?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're trying to be a teacher, for example, right?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that is the um that's the part where you can wind up doing a whole bunch of of stuff that you wouldn't uh that you wouldn't be doing otherwise.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you asked about um opening opening the network.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think the short answer to that is when you're when when you feel comfortable with it, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're if you're mentoring somebody and you feel uncomfortable about introducing the person that you're mentoring to someone else in your network, ask yourself why.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and that that very thing can be the thing that you can be mentoring the person.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes back to our networking conversation, which is you're not just passing along your network.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, here's these 20 people I kind of know.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like if you're gonna pass it on, you know it's gonna mean something if you've done it right.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so there's there's that too.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've had a con I've had more than one conversation actually with a mentee in the past.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is gonna sound kind of like like potentially not great, but where a mentee has said, Hey, can you introduce me to such and such?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I've had to have the hard conversation where I've said to them in time, yes, but I don't think you're ready for that introduction yet.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about how we get you ready for that introduction.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's difficult.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a tough one to have.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um so where does mentoring fit in scamp and and what else must be present so early career folks don't get kind of left behind?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for those that haven't listened to the podcast before, um, you might not remember this term scamp.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll briefly define it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um we we started thinking about when we were working um with people in this field of networking specifically, um, we started thinking about the collection of resources that people need in order to be able to uh to thrive in the workplace.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so we came up with this acronym Scamp.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the M of Scamp is mentoring.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the other ones are skills development, coaching, advice, mentoring, and peer support.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so these are all subtly different things.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it comes back to your last question about over uh about overfunctioning, right?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: As a mentor, mentor, right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Do the uh do the mentoring, uh, the mentoring piece of it.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: To give you a very quick example as to how those things might uh might be a little different.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um so think of coaching as almost being like an athletic coach.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: You've got the person in front of you that has a certain set of uh capabilities.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's probably some kind of coaching plan associated uh associated with it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And what you're doing is you're guiding them on the activities that they themselves are taking in order to be able to uh to become better at what it is that they're doing.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Skills development, I'll leave out because that should be fairly obvious, right?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Advice is sort of like here's what I do in that in that situation, right?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Mentoring, close to uh close to advice, but it's um but it's like taking the human that is in a uh that is in a particular spot and not here's what I would do, but potentially here's what I did when I was in uh when I was in that similar situation.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're using your experience and you're using potentially your network in order to be able to um to guide people in in that way.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course, peer support is something that often mentors try to do, but they're um but they can never do successfully, really.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because peer support is really about the this sucks, yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm living going through something similar myself, I know that it sucks, or you have my back three months ago, now I've got your back.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that only really comes from people that are where the relationship feels equal.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: In the absence of any of those, you are likely medium term to not be as successful as in a world where you have all of them.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the reasons to come back to your very first question.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of the reasons why mentoring investments are only kind of working.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: There are two fundamental reasons that we've seen.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: One is that most of the investment in mentoring is around process versus around all the relationship stuff we're talking about.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, they're about like, okay, how do I set up a how do I set this up and administer this and everything takes care of itself?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second part is because organizations are just enabling the M of Scamp and just assuming that everything else will take care of itself or you know, buying a skills catalog or something like that to take care of the yes.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: So invest across all of these things and it's gonna be wonderful.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And invest in mentoring as part of that big bigger picture.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Good, good idea.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a complex topic, but uh, I think we got another great episode.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Paul, as usual.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thanks a lot.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Mium.
• 15:57
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• 16:01
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• 16:03
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