The Dual-Edged Sword of Diverse Mentorship: Navigating the Pros and Cons for Startup Success

A. Introduction

In the bustling ecosystem of startups, mentorship emerges as a pivotal lighthouse, guiding nascent ventures towards their envisioned success. The landscape of mentorship, teeming with varied influences, mirrors the diverse nature of the entrepreneurial world. Adopting a multi-mentor approach can be a treasure trove of insights, propelling innovation and expanding horizons. Yet, the abundance of voices might also pose challenges, occasionally muddying the waters of decision-making. Venturing into the intricate realm of diverse mentorship, we unravel both its compelling advantages and inherent challenges, aiming to equip startups with a comprehensive understanding of this vital dynamic.

B. Harnessing the Power of Diversity: The Competitive Edge for Startups

In today's fast-paced and interconnected world, startups are perpetually on the brink of innovation. The recipe for their success, however, is not solely rooted in their unique ideas but significantly amplified by diverse mentorship. A myriad of mentors, each bearing their distinctive backgrounds and experiences, brings forth unparalleled advantages, shaping startups into global powerhouses.

1. Broader Perspective

Steve Jobs, the luminary behind Apple's design ethos, drew unexpected inspiration from calligraphy courses, profoundly influencing Apple's renowned emphasis on typography and design. This tale underscores the essence of a broad perspective: unexpected insights from diverse backgrounds can sculpt transformative innovations.

2. Cultural Competency

The global marketplace is a tapestry of varied cultures. Airbnb, for instance, faced significant backlash over discrimination complaints from users of certain ethnic backgrounds. A stronger initial emphasis on cultural competency might have preempted such issues. The ensuing "Belong Anywhere" campaign was Airbnb's endeavor to rebuild trust and highlight the pivotal role of cultural understanding.

3. Enhanced Creativity and Innovation

Variety is the crucible of creativity. Slack's team, a medley of individuals ranging from writers to chefs, is testament to this, driving the platform to the zenith of innovation and user-friendliness.

4. Avoiding Blind Spots

Diversity is more than a tick-box exercise; it's a wellspring of creativity and concrete results. A 2019 BCG study illuminated that companies boasting diverse management teams reap 19% higher revenues courtesy of innovation.

5. Richer Network

The strength of a startup's network can open doors to myriad opportunities. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's co-founder, champions the might of diverse networks. His treatise, "The Start-up of You," elucidates how eclectic connections can unveil unexpected avenues.

6. Improved Decision Making

The alchemy of inclusion and diversity translates to enhanced decision-making. A Cloverpop study spotlighted that inclusive teams outpace their counterparts, making superior decisions 87% of the time, achieving this feat two times faster with half the meetings.

7. Enhanced Adaptability

Diversity is the lynchpin of adaptability in global markets. Netflix, in its global foray, harnessed its multifaceted team to deftly navigate diverse cultural landscapes, laying the foundation for its worldwide acclaim.

8. Skills and Expertise

Behind every visionary like Elon Musk lies a legion of diverse experts, spanning finance to design, collectively steering ventures like Tesla and SpaceX to their zenith.

9. Support in Crisis

The 2008 financial maelstrom saw Goldman Sachs, bolstered by its diverse executive cadre, charting the tumultuous waters more adeptly than many rivals, thanks to a medley of perspectives on risk and strategy.

10. Promotion of Inclusivity

Inclusivity is the keystone of sustainable business success. McKinsey's insights reveal that enterprises at the forefront of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity consistently outpace their peers in financial returns. This underlines that inclusivity is not merely a moral imperative but a bona fide business stratagem.

Sub-Conclusion

Diverse mentorship is not a mere embellishment; it is the bedrock of startup success. Startups, nestled in the crucible of uncertainty, find their true north with a chorus of varied mentors guiding them. This melange ensures a holistic, rich, and unparalleled mentoring landscape, catapulting startups into the global limelight. Diversity, in essence, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

C. Navigating the Complexities of Multiple Mentors in Startups

In the startup ecosystem, mentors, with their wealth of experience, are undeniably beneficial. Yet, when multiple mentors come into play, especially from diverse backgrounds, the resulting plethora of advice can usher in unforeseen challenges.

1. Analysis Paralysis

An overabundance of options can cripple decision-making processes. Overthinking and overanalyzing might lead to delays or even stagnation. This phenomenon is vividly exemplified by Quirky, founded by Ben Kaufman in 2009. As a community-driven invention platform, Quirky birthed products like the "Pivot Power", a novel flexible power strip that gained considerable traction. However, the community-driven ethos, intended to galvanize invention, often resulted in an overwhelming influx of feedback for other products. The ceaseless stream of ideas and tweaks frequently elongated product development cycles. Instead of streamlining invention as initially intended, the avalanche of ideas sometimes had a counterproductive effect. This continual expansion and intricate decision-making labyrinth played a role in the company's economic woes, culminating in its bankruptcy in 2015. Quirky's tale underscores that even a well-intentioned feedback system can catalyze decision-making quagmires in practical business settings.

2. Conflicting Directions

When mentors offer diverse, and at times contradictory, advice, it plunges recipients into uncertainty. Case in point, a tech startup found itself in a strategic purgatory, torn between the advice of one mentor pushing for swift international expansion and another advocating for intensified penetration within existing domains.

3. Dilution of Vision

The formative stages of a startup are often hallmarked by a singular, core vision. Yet, a deluge of inputs can deviate a startup from its foundational intent. Early Twitter wrestled with this predicament. Amid varied advice regarding its central purpose, it unveiled features that even co-founder Jack Dorsey later conceded were "clunky" and subsequently jettisoned.

4. Increased Stress

Balancing diverse opinions can amplify stress levels. A Harvard Business Review study in 2018 indicated that many CEOs felt isolated, partly from the pressures of accommodating varied advice.

5. Time Consumption

Dwelling on numerous viewpoints can divert crucial time from taking actionable steps. Kodak's decline serves as a lesson here. Amidst numerous voices, they dallied too long on their digital strategy, leading to their eventual downfall.

6. Relationship Strains

Choosing one mentor's advice over another's can inadvertently create rifts. A noted Silicon Valley startup faced such a scenario. After pivoting on the advice of a prominent investor, it created tension with another board member, causing a rift and subsequent departures.

7. Potential for Inconsistency

Switching strategies based on the latest advice can erode customer trust. Microsoft's Windows 8 struggled with this, trying to merge various computing forms after receiving diverse advice, leading to mixed reviews.

8. Reduced Accountability

When many voices are in the mix, it's tempting to blame failures on "bad advice." BlackBerry’s co-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, faced this dilemma. Amid varied advice, they couldn’t adequately address the iPhone challenge, later citing conflicting recommendations for their inertia.

9. Over-reliance on External Input

An over-dependency on external voices can hinder a startup's decision-making prowess. A budding fashion startup, for example, postponed its winter line launch by two months, swayed by conflicting design advice from different industry mentors.

10. Resource Drain

Managing multiple mentors can sometimes be more costly than beneficial. The Startup Genome Report notes that 70% of startups scale prematurely, often because they hasten to implement diverse growth advic

D. Navigating Multiple Mentorships: Tactical Advice

• Prioritize Mentor Expertise: Match specific challenges to the expertise of the pertinent mentor.
• Establish Clear Communication: Eschew ad-hoc meetings in favor of regular, structured feedback sessions.
• Filter Feedback: Dissect feedback into core and peripheral categories.
• Stay True to Your Vision: Gauge all advice against your company's intrinsic mission and principles.
• Foster Open Dialogue Among Mentors: This can harmonize often conflicting advice.
• Feedback Review Mechanism: Systematically document, assess, and then act on feedback, mitigating impulsive reactions to every counsel.

In summation, mentors, with their treasure trove of insights, are indispensable. Yet, it behooves startups to be at the steering wheel, ensuring their trajectory harmonizes with the company's foundational ethos and objectives

Moving Forward:

1. Open Dialogue: Consider setting up a meeting with the new mentor. Discuss each other's mentoring styles, expertise, and what you each hope to bring to the startup. By understanding her framework and perspectives, you can better align your advice and present a unified front to the startup team. This can also alleviate concerns about conflicting advice.
2. Check-In with the Startup: Engage the startup in a conversation about how they feel having two mentors. Ask about any challenges they've faced or any clarifications they might need. This will not only provide them a platform to express any concerns but also show that you're invested in their wellbeing and success.
3. Continuous Feedback: Establish a regular feedback loop with the startup and the other mentor. This can help in recognizing and addressing any potential issues or conflicts in their early stages.
4. Work on Relationships: Strengthen your rapport with the startup team. Attend team-building activities, hold regular check-ins, or simply make the effort to learn more about them on a personal level. This will ensure that even if there are professional differences, the personal relationship remains strong.
5. Self-reflection: Periodically reflect on your own approach and feelings. Are your concerns about the other mentor truly about potential conflicts in advice, or do they stem from other insecurities? Being honest with yourself can help in navigating these feelings and ensuring you're giving the startup your best.

In conclusion, mentoring is as much about understanding and relationships as it is about expertise. Regular communication, feedback, and self-reflection will go a long way in ensuring a positive experience for all parties involved.

E. A Detour: "Seeker beware: The interpersonal costs of ignoring advice"

The article (Blunden et al., 2019) titled presents several key findings and insights into the dynamics of advice-seeking and the interpersonal consequences associated with it. Let's distill these findings and integrate them into the context of your previous inquiries:

Interpersonal Consequences of Ignoring Advice:

1. Advisor Reactions: Advisors, particularly those who consider themselves experts, feel penalized when their advice is disregarded. This can lead to strained interpersonal relationships between the advice seeker and the advisor.
2. Wisdom of Crowds Dilemma: One common advice-seeking strategy is to solicit advice from multiple sources to gather a diverse set of insights (akin to the "wisdom of crowds"). However, this strategy can backfire. Advisors may feel devalued and distanced from seekers who they learn consulted others, primarily because they believe their advice might be overshadowed or disregarded.
3. Mismatch in Advice Exchange Purpose: There exists an asymmetry in perceptions between advisors and seekers about the purpose of advice. Advisors typically believe that their role is to provide direction and narrow down options, while seekers often approach the advice exchange as a means to expand their options and gather more information.

Tactical Insights for Startups and Individuals:

1. Awareness of Interpersonal Risks: While seeking advice, startups should be cognizant of the potential interpersonal backlash. This is especially important when seeking advice from multiple experts. Ensuring that each advisor knows their unique role or the specific expertise they bring to the table can help in managing expectations.
2. Open Communication: Prior to soliciting advice, it can be beneficial to set the context. Clearly communicating the purpose of seeking advice (whether to gather diverse perspectives or to narrow down options) can help in aligning the advisor's expectations.
3. Advisor's Self-awareness: Advisors should also introspect about their reactions to advice seekers. If they genuinely wish to assist, then understanding their own biases and reactions becomes essential. It's crucial to differentiate between the desire to be influential and the intent to be genuinely helpful.
4. Balancing Exploration and Direction: Startups should strike a balance between exploring diverse insights and seeking directional advice. Depending on the stage or the specific challenge at hand, the weightage between exploration and direction can be adjusted.
5. Shared Reality in Conversations: Encouraging open dialogue about the objectives of the advice interaction can foster better understanding. Questions like, "Are we here to explore options or narrow them down?" can be instrumental in creating a shared perspective.
6. Proceed with Caution: As the study concludes, ignoring solicited advice, especially when done without clear communication, can have interpersonal costs. It's essential for startups and individuals alike to approach advice interactions with a well-thought-out strategy and an awareness of these dynamics.

Incorporating these findings and tactical insights can aid in creating a more harmonious and effective advice-seeking environment, ultimately leading to better decision-making and stronger interpersonal relationships.

F. Finally, a summary of advantageous, disadvantageous and the biases as well the remedy to overcome the disadvantageous.

Here are explanations for each behavioral bias mentioned in the matrix:

1. Information Bias: The tendency for people to seek and use more information than necessary to make decisions. In the context of mentoring, this could lead to startups gathering a plethora of opinions without discerning which are truly beneficial.
2. Diversification Bias: The inclination to seek diversity in choices even when it's not necessarily advantageous. For instance, a startup might want mentors from various backgrounds even if not all those backgrounds are relevant to their domain.
3. Wisdom of Crowds: The collective opinion of a group of individuals is often more accurate than that of a single expert. Startups might seek multiple mentors believing that a collective advice might be more comprehensive.
4. Naive Diversification: This refers to the tendency of individuals to diversify resources equally across all available options without much thought. A startup might evenly distribute its attention among multiple mentors, regardless of each mentor's relevance or expertise.
5. Network Effect: The idea that the value of a service increases as more people use it. In mentoring, a startup might perceive a mentor as more valuable if they have a larger network or more affiliations.
6. Feedback Loop: The continuous cycle of feedback leading to improvements. Startups might believe that by having multiple mentors, they get more feedback, leading to better refinement of ideas.
7. Scenario Planning: The process of envisioning multiple future scenarios to aid in planning. A startup might believe that diverse mentors can help them prepare for diverse business scenarios.
8. Cultural Capital: The inherent value and advantages a person gets from acquiring cultural knowledge. Startups might seek mentors from diverse backgrounds to gain insights into various cultures.
9. Best Practice Bias: The belief that the methods of high performers in one context are universally applicable. A startup might want to implement practices from diverse industries believing they are universally effective.
10. Halo Effect: When a positive impression in one area leads to a positive evaluation in other areas. A startup might perceive a mentor positively in all aspects due to one specific strength.
11. Confirmation Bias: The tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. Startups might favor advice that aligns with their existing beliefs, leading to potential blind spots.
12. Overconfidence Bias: Overestimating one's own abilities or the applicability of one's own expertise. Mentors might provide advice based on their own experiences without considering the startup's unique context.
13. Analysis Paralysis: The inability to make a decision due to over-analysis of data or options. Startups with too many mentors might find it difficult to make decisions due to conflicting advice.
14. Stereotyping: Making broad generalizations based on group characteristics. There's a risk of cultural misunderstandings if mentors generalize based on their own cultural experiences.
15. Cognitive Load: The mental effort required to process information. Managing relationships and advice from multiple mentors can be mentally taxing for startups.
16. Choice Overload: The phenomenon where having too many choices can lead to stress and possibly making poor decisions. Startups might feel overwhelmed if they receive a vast amount of diverse feedback.
17. Status Quo Bias: A preference for the current state of affairs. Startups might resist changes suggested by mentors due to a comfort with their current strategies.
18. Groupthink: A situation where individual thinking or creativity is lost or subverted to stay in line with the thinking of the group. A startup might conform to a popular viewpoint without critically analyzing it.
19. Not Invented Here Syndrome: A reluctance to use or buy already existing products, research, standards, or knowledge because of its external origins. Startups might resist implementing practices if they originate from outside their core team or domain.
20. Attribute Substitution: When an individual makes a complex judgment by substituting it with a simpler, more easily accessible judgment. A startup might focus on the diversity of mentors as a marker of value instead of assessing the actual expertise each brings

Further Readings:

Blunden, H., Logg, J. M., Brooks, A. W., John, L. K., & Gino, F. (2019). How Asking Multiple People for Advice Can Backfire.?Harvard Business Review.?https://hbr.org/2019/05/how-asking-multiple-people-for-advice-can-backfire

Blunden, H., Logg, J. M., Brooks, A. W., John, L. K., & Gino, F. (2019a). Seeker beware: The interpersonal costs of ignoring advice.?Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,?150, 83–100.?https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.12.002

Yee, H (2023)., Kickoff MIT Singapore Club Competition. Presentation. Unpublished Material. Singapore

APPENDIX 1

Application of Ecclesiastes 12:12 in a modern context specifically tailored for startup founders:

Ecclesiastes 12:12 - in the context of a startup founder:

Startup founders often find themselves in an overwhelming sea of advice, information, and potential strategies. This is the age of information, and the availability of so much data, coupled with countless opinions, can sometimes lead to "analysis paralysis." The essence of Ecclesiastes 12:12 can be applied to this modern challenge.

1. Endless Pursuit of Information:

"Of making many books there is no end..."

Today, replace 'books' with 'articles', 'webinars', 'podcasts', 'courses', and 'workshops'. There’s an endless amount of content and advice available on every conceivable topic related to startups. While it’s great to have access to so much information, there’s a risk of getting trapped in a cycle of constantly seeking more advice without ever taking decisive action.

2. Mental Fatigue:

"...much study is a weariness of the flesh."

Continuously absorbing information without filtering or implementing can lead to mental exhaustion. For startup founders, who already juggle multiple roles and face immense pressure, this constant intake can lead to decision fatigue and burnout.

3. The Danger of Conflicting Advice:

In the startup world, for every piece of advice suggesting one strategy, there's often another suggesting the opposite. If a founder tries to heed all advice, they can end up pulled in many directions, leading to confusion and lack of clarity in vision.

4. Taking Timely Action:

The essence of a startup is to move swiftly, test, iterate, and pivot when necessary. While seeking counsel and gathering information is vital, it's equally important to take action. Delaying decisions in search of that one last piece of advice can mean missed opportunities.

5. Valuing Inner Wisdom:

Sometimes, amidst the noise of external advice, founders forget to trust their own instincts and insights. They know their business best. While it's beneficial to consider external perspectives, founders should also value their intuition and the knowledge they've gained from their own experiences.

Conclusion:

For startup founders, Ecclesiastes 12:12 serves as a reminder of the balance between seeking knowledge and taking action. It underscores the importance of discernment in filtering relevant advice, the need for decisive action, and the value of inner wisdom. Instead of getting bogged down by the sheer volume of advice, founders should focus on actionable insights and trust in their journey.

Appendix 2

How to Mentor Compassionately!

The list below is a reality check, a feedback moment for me to be a better human for others. I will use this in my next bootcamp for the mentors (and mentees) in my class.?

???It doesn't matter if I have mentored close to 250 group of students, in the past 5 years (not to mention hundred others in the previous 26 years). Never be complacent and act "know it all" as a sense maker. I have learned to download my past patterns every time I plan to sit and to learn.?

A. The Don't List:

??Don't impose ideas on students

?Don't give answers directly

?Don't make decision or do the work for students

?Don't lecture / talk down to students

?Don't criticize or judge them

B. Continue Doing, please:

??Hold students accountable - encourage decision making

?Guide students to find out the solutions themselves

?Offer additional perspective or connections

?Let students try or even make mistakes

?Prepare for mentoring sessions

?Be committed

?Listen actively

C. Gentle reminders for both mentors and mentees:

??Communicate on role division (especially if there are multiple mentors)

??Approach (provide email address and mobile number)

??Set expectations on how & when to meet (using WhatsApp a quick update)

??Preferred communication channels (I like to use?LinkedIn ?Message Groups)

??Preferred mentorship session schedules (I like to use?Calendly )

??Respond to all communications in a timely manager

??Provide open and honest feedback (with caution)

??Check progress on actions, goals and milestones

??Be prepared for the mentoring session??

D. Specifically for Mentees:

o Demonstrate positive attitude in being mentored.

o Mentor guides and supports your project.

o Approach the mentoring session with an open mind, professionalism and respect.

o Prepare for mentoring sessions.

o Be committed.

o Listen actively.

o Discuss with Mentor the type of guidance and advice you are looking for.?They are not the subject matter experts.

o Set goals and clarify expectations regarding the results of the meetings.

o Keep a brief record of the issues discussed at meetings

o Do not expect your mentor to take responsibility for your work / problems.

E. If you forget all the above, remember these:?

???It's the student's project & learning!?

??No model answers!?

??It's up to the students how far they want to go - the more they input, the more they can learn!?

??Empower students and build their confidence (or balance it!)