Top ten tips for your best ChatGPT mentor (yes, I really did just write that!)

You might think that I wouldn’t be a fan of ChatGPT replacing a human-to-human (mentoring) conversation. How could it possibly replace, surpass or even challenge how we as a community stick together and support each other? Surely it’s not even worth considering it?

But there’s no getting away from the fact there’s one of me (and you, and you too…) and there is only so much time in the day to have those valuable conversations. And whilst we work to support those around us we also need to manage our physical and mental energy. We do things to achieve a desired result. For many, mentoring is to optimise and sustain our positive impact on other people.

I now believe that ChatGPT, used well, can complement the Q&A of a typical mentoring conversation. It encourages the mentee and the mentor to formulate effective and insight generating questions. And for EDI it helps with implementing deaf awareness, as all information is in text form. Things can be shared, translated to different languages and presented in different formats too. It helps inclusivity across the board.

But is a ChatGPT approach really needed on top of everything else, all of that advice and mentoring experience out there??

It’s now seven years since I first started thinking and talking about mentoring as part of a broader programme. Like any good engineer, I have been developing and trialling approaches, implementing feedback, all part of a journey of continuous improvement. There has been progress, and I’m continuing to enjoy peer to peer Squad mentoring, reverse mentoring and more.

But one common theme that I have seen again and again, in myself and others, is that the gap between the desired and actual rate of new insight gained and pace of change achieved remains stubbornly large. We can ask a good question and receive a good answer, but do we then implement the good advice and sustain the progress?

I think using ChatGPT as a mentor Q&A can help in a number of ways. First, you can ask and get answered simple questions, and not just one but many, all in a short space of time. Asking questions is free. This helps you as a mentee, as you move you from passive thinking and reflecting to active questioning and doing and delivering. And of course, you can save the best and most complex questions for your in person interactions.?

If you want to try it out, here are my first beta-test top ten tips on using ChatGPT for a mentoring conversation?

1. It’s all about the questions. English is the most important programming language right now. Take an agile MVP sprint approach to this. “Should I stay in engineering or become a consultant?” Is fine as a starting point. Ask and refine a question, ask contrary or contradictory ones to help challenge your unconscious assumptions. Develop your “prompt engineering” skills.
2. Mentors, advisors, coaches, value them. They are all short of time and will appreciate well-organised sessions that are tailored to their experience and interests. To work out how to get the best value from your ChatGPT session, set yourself the stretch target of only asking your human mentor questions that only they could ask.
3. Do things in short sharp sprints. 15 minutes is a long time when you are asking and reading the answers pretty much instantaneously. And you don’t need to schedule a meeting with someone, there is little stopping you starting today. Wherever you are sitting or standing, if a question pops onto your head, just ask it there and then.
4. Use ChatGPT in hybrid mode with reverse mentoring, peer-to-peer group discussions, SMART goals. Cut and paste your ChatGPT text into your local Google Doc and read and reflect over time and see how you feel about your initial conclusions before you plan to implement any changes. Share the material with others too.
5. Take a questioning curiosity mindset to what comes out.? Mentors are not infallible, neither are large language models (LLMs). Even though the answer gets given quickly it doesn’t mean that you need to react there and then.
6. Reduce the time duration of meetings with your human mentors, try 30 min instead of an hour. It encourages you to focus on the most important questions and decisions you. Also ask your mentor - or anyone around you - what questions you should be thinking about, and then take them to ChatGPT.
7. Increase the gap between your mentor meetings to allow the ChatGPT insights to sink in. Why not once every two months or quarterly instead of monthly? A ChatGPT session can feel as rich in insights as a one hour session but it will take time to bed in.
8. Build yourself a cohort of mini-mentors, a team of advisors who you can come to. Most people will give 30 minutes as a one off session, particularly if you put forward a well structured question and don't imply an ongoing mentor relationship expectation.
9. Caveat. Don’t forget it’s the internet. Whatever you enter will be recorded somewhere so it’s best not to put things like “I really hate working for company X because boss Y is a bully. What should I do” or to share proprietary or personal information.? Those types of topics are best considered in confidential informal sessions.
10. Last but not least, we’re all on this journey together. Everything I have written here is just my personal opinion. Please do, as always, what you think is right for you and your personal situation and be kind to those around you.

So, what’s next for this, my latest mentoring innovation iteration? Right now, my diary remains as jammed as ever so I am encouraging all my mentors and mentees to try this out approach. We’ll check in with each other and see what works and what doesn’t over the next few months.

I will also incorporate this approach in my Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professorship in Digital Safety and Security, teaching at Cranfield University, leading the integration of safety and security.

Across the board I’m encouraging all life-long learners out there to develop their own CPD plans in these important areas of safety and cyber security

Last but not least, today is International Women in Engineering Day (#INWED23) with the theme #MakeSafetySeen. So if you are supporting people around you, of all backgrounds and career paths, please do feel free to try this approach out.

In a nutshell, I'm working to move things forward. Watch this space for updates in the next few months!

Dr Emma Taylor is a Chartered Engineer and a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Digital Safety and Security at Cranfield University along with other industry and advisory roles. A mentor for the Worshipful Company of Engineer's Engineer Trust, she has been recognised for her contribution to engineering through a number of awards including Financial Times Inclusive Boards Top 100 Most Influential Women in Engineering?#WIE100, Daily Telegraph WES Top 50 Women Engineer?#WE50 and would like to thank her mentors and mentees for their support over the years. This article is written in a personal capacity and is for guidance only.

#INWED23 #MakeSafetySeen #InternationalWomenInEngineeringDay #WomenInSecurity #WomenInCyber #WomenInTech #WE50 #WomeninSTEM #WomenInEngineering #Safety #Security #Cyber #Mentoring