Level Up Session 1 YABB

How to be a good mentor? It is a rhetorical and open question that anyone can answer it differently based on their experience and also expertise.

2 weeks ago, I had an opportunity to join Mentor Fellowship program GoTo Impact Foundation . It was privileged for me to attend a formal mentoring program and learn how to be a good mentor.

In this article, I want to share about CODE Framework that I have learnt in the program.

C.O.D.E is alternate abbreviation for C.A.K.E or Competencies, Personal Attributes, Knowledge, and Experience. It is a term introduced by Development Dimensions International (DDI) as the Success Profile for helping companies finding the right person for the right job. A success Profile gives us information about the qualities someone need to possess when they want to be successful in one role. Just like an edible cake, each role might have different CAKE ingredients and to make the best of your potential at work, you need to identify the ingredients correctly.

1. Competencies - what you can do

This represents areas where you are good at; your ability to perform certain desired behavior in your role, and each role has their unique set of capabilities. For example, being a mentor and a mentee would require different capabilities to be successful in their role. Capabilities are acquired not only through formal education but also through learning from others and the on-the-job learning opportunity. Some capabilities were honed when you were younger, depending on your exposure. Assessing your capabilities at this stage will help you to recognize your assets to succeed.?

2. Operations or personal disposition - what are you

It is something that naturally moves within you. It could be your personality, your motivation (see your motivational style result), or your gift. Gifts are areas where you excel effortlessly. Since they are things that you perhaps take for granted, you need to take time to ponder what are your personal attributes that contribute to success in your role. Through the workshops, we equip you with some questions, Johari Window, and motivational style quiz in this topic to better understand yourself. However, if you want to evaluate yourself thoroughly, you also need other people to hold up a mirror. We’re full of blind spots, so seek more for feedback from others to help you gain a more accurate sense of yourself..

● Take a moment to ponder, what does come easily to you? What tasks take little effort on your part?

● In what areas have you received awards, won contests, or received public praise?

● Ask your friends, what are the things they wish they could do as well as you? Personal disposition also include your interest; what you love doing.

Questions like ‘What do you like about mentoring?’ or ‘Why do you think mentoring is important and enjoyable?’ will help you identify the nature of this role as a mentor that you love the most.

3. Database - what you know

Being knowledgeable in your role can boost confidence and success too. Knowledge can help you navigate ambiguity and make informed decisions. You need to master the fundamentals of the knowledge to be able to develop solutions at scale because deep understanding of the knowledge will create a firm foundation in our solutions. Not only in the area of technical knowledge, but also equipping yourself the with the business knowledge or other soft skills is also valuable to support your role. The first thing is to evaluate how rich your knowledge related to your current role, also how deep and strong your understanding of the knowledge. The next thing is how often you acquire new knowledge to enrich yourself and broaden your perspective.

4. Experience - what you have done

Experience is as important as the other ingredients. Your past experiences are what have built you today and they support the success of your role too. By the time you gain experience, you gain maturity in responding to a situation and also develop your mentoring intuition. Therefore, let’s be aware of what experiences you have been through in the past and what skills you have learned from those experiences. More importantly, which takeaways you found applicable for your situation and which are not applicable. The way to optimize your experience to grow yourself is by selectively applying relevant skills/knowledge you garnered from your past working experiences for the relevant situations.

From the CODE, I finally got the answer about how to be a good mentor. This framework is very applicable in our daily live to know about our strength and weakness.