The Story - Mike, Can you be my mentor?

This post is the beginning of a number of posts on mentoring, this will start with mentoring basics and evolve to cover all topics mentoring related.

I never really set out to become a mentor, growing up amongst my brothers and cousins I naturally became the “spokesperson” as I was known, although I was the youngest and the smallest in physique. I vividly remember situations when we fault our “elders” and have to succumb to consequences. I will hear the words ”where is Michael, what has he got to say for you all today”, and bursting with eagerness I will always emerge from the back of the siblings and unleash my reasons or excuses, and of course consequential punishment followed which were habitual of African parenting in my day.

This was a trait I’d cultivated without any awareness at the time, I was seen as the leader of the pack ( well so I was told by my parents when they offered advise ) and this has transcended in my lifetime to date. As I became older, I became more self aware and began to understand the power of this trait and how best to harness this innate and inherent gift from God.

Rather than become the “spokesperson”, I learnt to cultivate the habit of “seeking to understand before being understood”, a habit I picked up after reading one of my favourite books “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” ( book review to follow soon ).

Nowadays, I’m the listener and the trusted one who has seen himself evolve into the go-to-person for friends and family, to share their challenges and seek advise. I must say, although I do enjoy helping others and as tough as this commitment is, the satisfaction from helping others, far outweighs any pain from the sacrifice.

I was a few years into my tenure at one of the best places I’ve ever worked, through consistent over achievements, I received subsequent promotions into a Field Sales role from starting out as an internal sales rep ( the only one to have climbed the promotion ladder from a junior role to the field role within the company and not hired externally).

It was the start of the FY and the start of building my business in this new role. A junior colleague, and certainly someone whom I regarded highly, and knew had all the traits to be successful, asked for us to do lunch.

Over lunch we discussed a number of things and shared my journey in the company thus far, before lunch finished he proceeded to utter the words “ I would like you to become my mentor Mike” . The look on my face was inexplicable yet welcoming, and exhibited a sense of appreciation, inwardly, I hadn’t a clue what my responsibilities were as a mentor and certainly didn’t have a plan.

That said, we shook hands on the relationship and agreed time to catch up, I very quickly went onto google and started to research, as sad as this may sound the subject of mentoring isn’t overly prevalent in many organisations, well thats my experience in the last 16 years of working for some very reputable organisations. There aren’t that many tools and resources to support mentors/mentees ( compared to tools for marketing, generating new business etc ), and if there is it’s either outdated or doesn’t reflect the underlying principles of mentoring.

Everyone that knows me would tell you I’ve become a bookworm lately, and some have even gone as far as to the point they utter the words “Mike you’ve changed” ( and i know they mean in a good way  ). As a nice segue way, I read a book by Rabbi Daniel Lapin and I instantly had a lightbulb moment.

Daniel went on to narrate, children do not manage their own lives, they are dependent on their parents or guardians for direction, which I call mentorship. As children we learn/learnt from our parents and likewise, our parents through wise counsel ( mentorship ) enhance themselves too. However, when we move into adulthood, for some reason this ceases either through;

1. The parents busy schedules.
2. The parents succumbing to the good old ” they are 18 and therefore are grown adults” so they can live their own lives.
3. Stubbornness and rebellion from the children ( now so called adults ) although the parents maintain the same level of discipline.
4. Any other reasons

Well, I can confidently say this happens to most of us and continues to happen, as children become adults, these are the crucial periods in our lives that we need a steer from our parents and mentors, and yes I mean both. I wasn’t exposed to mentorship until a very late stage in my career, that said I very quickly asked for mentorship after I defined my WHY, and I emphasise the word “I asked” to be mentored. I now have a mentor for my career, spiritual mentor, marital mentor and this has significantly enhanced my life and continues to.

I conducted some research on this topic, below are few things worth noting about mentoring;

What is Mentoring?

There are a number of definitions, put simply, mentoring is a personal enhancement strategy whereby the mentor helps in the development of a mentee/mentees through sharing his/her wisdom, values, skills, resources and experience. This is a two way gain, the mentor benefits by enhancing their skills while developing others and the mentee grows in proficiency and expertise while achieving their development goals.

As a sales rep myself, the concept of mentoring ( mentor/mentee ) became a pressing subject in the last 10 years, but I believe every rep should have a mentor and every experienced manager, director or Ceo should mentor individuals, after all, thats what leadership is all about.  

My summary of the benefits of mentoring:

Business Impacts of Mentoring

1. Mentoring strengthens a larger career development strategy within any business in the area of retaining, attracting and developing the capacity of the reps involved
2. Faster development of key skills and behaviours, this translates into a stronger pipeline of leaders ready to take on challenges and covert them into opportunities for the organisation
3. Streamlined transition of new leaders into their roles, this results in sustained performance and ultimately longevity on their role
4. Faster on-boarding, confidence in the challenge at stake due to continual advise from mentors
5. Strong role models created all round leading to better leaders within the organisation
6. Enhanced collaboration, this is achieved through creating a loop of mentor/mentee programs across all business units.

Mentoring Relationships

Different mentoring relationships exists and serves various roles, below are a few examples:

• Developmental Mentoring – This type of relationship exist when the mentor is more experienced in topics relevant to the mentee, and the mentor therefore helps his/her mentee solve challenges on their own.
• Career Mentoring – This type of relationship helps the mentee better understand alternative career path’s, the mentor is supportive and instrumental in assisting their mentee in mapping out their career.
• Career Transition Support – This is absolutely critical, the mentor offers huge support during the mentee’s transition, typically from a sales role to a managerial role or from a managerial to a Director level role.
• Onboarding Mentoring- We’ve all been here before, the mentor in this instance guides the mentee through their onboarding process and ensures the mentee settles in well within the organisation.
• Networking Mentoring – This is where the mentor helps their mentee in getting well acquainted with the relevant contacts within the organisation, this helps the mentee in building and expanding their network and connections.

Typically, mentoring is conducted face to face however due to limitations with the location of the mentee/mentor, and now with the advancement of technologies for video and audio meetings, you can set up remote sessions depending of the objectives set.

If you found this to be invaluable, feel free to comment, your contribution is greatly appreciated. Remember, this is a learning blog and our WHY is to use these blogs as a platform to support others.

P.S- do contact me at [email protected] should if you’d like to discuss how you can seek for mentoring.

To Our Growth

Mike