Get Potential Mentees More Involved
by Dr. Linda Phillips-Jones (in memoriam) slightly edited by Dr. G. Brian Jones
Historically, mentors have taken a more active role than their mentees have performed in their partnerships. While this was probably appropriate in the early days of intentional mentoring, times have changed.
Mentors are busier now. What’s more, they’re being asked more frequently to serve in this role. As the popularity of mentoring continues to expand, the available mentor pool isn’t keeping up. Those who commit to mentoring relationships often don’t know what their mentees need and want and how best to bring out the best in their partners.
Coordinators of informal and formal mentoring initiatives are also extremely stretched. They can’t afford to make mistakes in matching mentors and mentees. They need help thinking up and then organizing ongoing activities for participants.
Who are the most likely people to help mentors mentor and coordinators coordinate? We at CCC/The Mentoring Group believe it should be the mentees who benefit from the mentoring endeavors. Our experience is that mentees are more than willing to jump in If they are asked and if they know what’s appropriate to seek and receive. Here are two ideas for involving mentees.
1. Ask mentees to be more active in the selection/matching process.
Increasingly, mentoring coordinators are involving mentees in the mentor-mentee matching process. For example, Microsoft and KPMG offer their own mentees an online matching tool that allows potential mentees to “shop” for mentors by reading the profiles in the mentor pool and making tentative choices. Would-be mentees then approach their target mentor candidates by phone, email, or texting and try to negotiate relationships with them. Mentors are able to consider all requests and agree to no, one, or sometimes more than one partnership. Our colleagues at MediaPro market an online mentoring tool, OptiMatch, which we recommend as cost-efficient and highly streamlined.
Even in smaller programs, coordinators are providing mentees with a list of potential mentors, asking the mentees to state their preferences, and then checking with the desired mentors to see if they’ll accept. In all successful mentoring cultures, mentors and mentees have a “no fault” clause in which they can agree to dissolve their partnerships after a serious test period. Subsequently, they can and move on to other possible partners.
These are very positive steps, because they allow mentees a say in who their mentors will be. In planned or formal mentoring (often between strangers) this somewhat makes up for the natural selection process that occurs in wonderfully-successful informal mentoring. Both mentors and mentees have more buy-in when they are involved in decisions that influence their professional and personal lives!
If up to this point you’ve been assigning mentors or only giving the choice of partners to the mentors, consider a redesign that allows the prospective mentees to have choices.
2. Ask mentees to create their stories, set goals, and identify their potential
development activities.
You’ll help speed the process along and enable richer, more focused relationships if you help mentees prepare for their mentoring partnerships in advance. Each mentee should be able to tell his or her “story.” This is an abbreviated summary of the highlights of his/her life and career to date and possible next steps, a story that can be told in six minutes or less. Some people call this the “elevator speech.” Mentees must learn to be brief yet provide important details that can help others (including their possible mentors) support them. Coach them on these speeches so that they don’t sound too glib and rehearsed.
In addition, mentees ought to spend time identifying up to three goals they’d like to work on with the help of one or more mentors. These goals can be tentative and general, and yet they must be important to each mentee. Mentees can propose these goals as they’re negotiating mentoring connections. Once the relationships begin, they can hone these goals further or perhaps add one or more additional goals that better fit each partnership.
Finally, instead of waiting for the mentor to suggest learning and development activities, the mentees should create a possible list of experiences they would like to pursue in order to reach their proposed goals. Many mentees make the mistake of thinking their only option for learning is conversations with their mentors. Such conversations are vital, yet they’re only the beginning. Help mentees brainstorm numerous other self-directed learning activities (such as online webinars, interviews of people, journaling) as well as college courses, reading material, DVD’s, and other options.
3. Help coordinate ongoing mentoring-related events.
We like to think of a new group of mentees in a mentoring initiative as a “cohort.” This is a group of people going through the same experiences at the same point in time. The mentees in your initiative could be a more official “cohort.” Suggest that they organize themselves and use this rare opportunity to build connections with each other and to create dynamic learning for everyone.
We’ve seen mentees organize noontime lectures with guest speakers, picnics and parties involving the mentors, graduation celebrations, purely social events, and other motivating events. These leadership experiences combined with solid mentoring partnerships help mentees develop incomparable skills for handling their careers and personal lives.
If you’re a mentoring coordinator, your role includes being a “master mentor,” modeling strong leadership skills, empowering people to find their own mentors and to become mentors themselves, and eventually working yourself out of the job of coordinating everything. We hope these suggestions sparked some ideas for you to maximize the involvement of the mentees you’re trying to help.
For more ideas on mentoring, check our Products and Archive. If you haven’t yet, we invite you to order a copy of our idea-packed volume, The Mentoring Coordinator’s Guide.
CCC/THE MENTORING GROUP
13560 Mesa Drive, Grass Valley, CA 95949, USA
Phone: 530.268.1146 Fax: 530.268.3636 e-mail: info@mentoringgroup.com
All materials copyright © 2011 CCC/THE MENTORING GROUP