The Very Sense of Mentoring

Today I had a 30 minutes session of mind gym with the intention to stretch my brain through the insights of others. Shuffling, I came across an older recording of Protos Siluan speaking about identity and development. 7 minutes into the speech I hear him say:  “As we get to better know who we are, we 

realize 

who we want to be”.

Instantly, my mind went to a question a mentee from a High Potentials Global Mentoring Program brought to me recently: “What subjects do I need to bring in the meetings with my mentor?”

Overall, and treating the question for what it is, I could say there can easily be at least 9 big Chapters to discuss with your mentor at any point in time during your year-long mentoring journey:

1. Career: current role, future role, where the organisation is heading and what new opportunities may arise as the ways of working are shifting dramatically, what are the associated responsibilities and results;
2. Leadership: what are the leadership capabilities that your company is promoting now and what are they looking at nurturing and developing in future leaders, how am I embodying these skills, what is that I do not see or hear, what is dying and what is being born in the field of leadership;
3. Work: what is my preferred working style, in how I work, what helps me and others and what hinders, where am I bringing too much, too less or just enough; where do I push myself and others too much or too less;
4. Productivity: how productive am I, where do my strength lay and where do I need to up my game, what is my lifestyle and how does this impact my results, what is sustainable and what is not, how are my priorities aligned to the priorities of the business unit and the whole organisation; 
5. Politics: what are the inner dynamics here, what happens behind closed doors and I don’t get to see, who holds the actual power in the organisation, to what do I need to pay attention moving forward; 
6. Relationships: how do I reach out to people, to whom should I be connected both within and outside, how do I build successful relationships at work, how do I manage toxic interactions, how to build and rebuild trust;
7. Executive Presence: how do I carry myself in meetings with subordinates, peers, bosses, suppliers and customers, what is my speech structure and how good my story telling techniques are, how do I build and inspire confidence;
8. Specific Situations: being promoted from inside the team and now having to lead someone who was my peer and even my mentor first, is very challenging, promoting someone, negotiating a pay increase, downsizing or managing someone out, performance reviews and giving feedback, contracting, technical questions;
9. Courage, Failing and Boundaries: how do I gather my courage to say what I need to say, what if I fail, how do I bounce back, when and where to say no, is this ethical or not.

But as much as the topics above cover a wide field and make a lot of sense it is a flawed path to take. Being true to my quirky nature, the answer to this question cannot be given in the form of a list and I should rather answer to what the question can become, to what it hides. Why? Mostly because in Mentoring we need to look at 

potential.

With an inquisitive eye, a good Mentor carefully digs to reveal the hidden treasures of the Mentee.

From this frame of reference, my heartfelt advice for a Mentee, is: “Please don’t look on the outside for questions and topics to bring in your conversations with your Mentor, rather start searching on the inside and, if the very process proves to be hard in itself, then ask your Mentor to help you here.”

In order for us to know where we are heading to and therefore define what we want to bring in a mentoring conversation, it’s worth stopping for a minute or 10 or 1000 and reflect on who we are: our likes and dislikes, our dreams, our feelings, our environment, activities and people that lift us up and those that put us down, our values, the place where we are in our life right now, opportunities and constraints, our strengths and weaknesses, the good, the bad and the ugly in us, anything and everything that can give us a round understanding and take us to look in the mirror and truly say: 

“I know myself”.

At the end of the day, Mentors are Guides, if our encounter with them falls under the sign of serendipity, its meaning lays in giving sense and direction. Mentors help us find our way forward, through hearing their imparted wisdom we get to see better where we are and what’s our next destination. 

First, and foremost, “Make your Mentors work hard for you!” on this particular aspect, and don’t keep her or him in general and surface questions but decide to go deeper in the process and don’t shy away from asking and staying in this ? for 2, 5, 10 meetings or more. 

“Don’t take the easy way out!” 

Mentoring is not a podcast or a collection of Q&As but a

journey

of uncovering who we are and discovering, as we go deeper, who we want to be.

So, as you advance in your mentoring program, let your curiosity be about yourself in the first place and only later on, about the world surrounding you.

Knowing Thyself

is central.

Yours truly, Irina

Grateful to be an eclectic and trustworthy sounding board for #SeniorExecutives and to be #CoachingMentors.

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