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to release and realise more of their potential
Dennis Martin Consultants
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What Does a Mentor Do?
BRIEF VERSION
The shortest answer to the question, What Does a Mentor Do? BRIEF', is that a Mentor does the right things to help a mentee/s learn how to help himself or herself release and realise more of their potential.
When I've asked the best mentors I have worked with, what are the vital things to get right that are 'secrets of success' in mentoring?
Rather than trying to write down an endless, all encompassing list (mission impossible), they would say:
* build sustainable ownership and self-management by the mentor and mentee/s of the mentoring process
* ensure honest mutual giving and receiving of feedback and communications
* create blame-free, failure-free, self-sabotaging-free, relaxed, fun and inspiring internal environments in the minds of the mentor and mentee
* use whole brain thinking and get skilled at handling complex adaptive systems
* trust the process, the people and yourself.
As you can see, their view is that like the captain of a ship, or the pilot of an airplane, the mentor must get the bigger picture right.
What Are the RIGHT things a Mentor Does?
Here are 9 'right things' effective mentors will do (in no order of priority):
*1* mentors build rapport and a synergistic relationship of trust with mentees.
Mentors work with mentees as partners creating ownership of mentoring and a self-managing team with the common purpose of achieving the release and realisation of more of the mentee/s potential.
*2* mentors prepare.
As the old saying goes: failure to prepare is to prepare to fail.
If a new mentor is setting up for his or her first session with a new mentee, some organisation and preparation will be necessary, of course.
A couple of things I'd say though from my experience:
1. don't over do it. With complex adaptive systems such as mentoring it's easy to over prepare which can then become an inhibitor acting like railway lines you can't get off
2. don't do it all yourself. Involve the mentee/s and leader/s too to build rapport, inclusivity etc. very early on. It is never too early to encourage self-management.
Remember the 80/20 rule: that is, the mentee/s do 80% of all the work that needs to be done and you, the Mentor, do at most 20%.
*3* mentors use the tools we train.
For example, the 4 D.s model below which can be used for the 'big picture' and / or for the localised mentee/s issues:
- Diagnosis – e.g. joint assessment of needs and priorities; on both content and process; including scope - is it a mentoring programme you need or, for example, an organisational development project (e.g. culture change)?
- Design – e.g. based on the diagnosis outcomes, clarification of success criteria and planning an approach and programme that will satisfy specific needs
- Delivery of the designed plan – e.g. use of a wide range of creative approaches that will match and stretch people’s thinking and learning preferences and comfort zones; provision of real close-up help, guidance and mentoring for success.
This stage includes the Herrmann thinking preferences profile for participants.
To see an example of Dennis' thinking preferences profile, click whole brain thinking.
- Development – e.g. evaluation of results; trouble shooting, where necessary; assessment of return on investment; learnings and recommendations for next actions
*4* mentors network - with other mentors and leaders and mentees. Encourage your mentee/s to network too by having, for example, other mentors, meeting up with other mentees and leaders
*5* mentors organise some things in advance and record some things during mentoring and afterwards at times.
Nothing 'secret' or 'suspicious' about these notes, share them with every one in your mentoring team, ask them to add their views too.
If something needs to be 'confidential' for valid reasons, keep it so but explain why.
Confidentiality is a key trust builder within the mentoring team and must always be respected, with the exception of deliberate damage causing situations by the mentee/s or others.
*6* mentors facilitate mentee/s and leader/s setting their own goals that will achieve high performance standards and give mentees high satisfaction and growth.
This means not always setting goals that are judged to be attainable (another 'secret of success').
How does setting goals that are 'attainable' help to release and realise the mentee/s potential?
(if it's already attainable, is it really a 'goal' that will 'stretch' the mentee/s? and, if it's attainable, why isn't it being attained right now?)
In terms of developing potential, setting 'impossible' goals at times is an example of great mentoring when appraising what does a mentor do? BRIEF.
Does it risk 'failure' to set goals that may be 'unattainable'?
NO, because if the unattainable is then attained.....bingo! Great shared mentoring has occurred with benefits to the mentee/s and the business.
NO, because if the unattainable remains so, that creates a great learning opportunity for both mentor and mentee/s when exploring what happened or didn't happen etc. to create that result.
*7* mentors get very good at spotting patterns of behaviour (e.g. some good habits and some not so good). They also become very good at sharing these perceptions as part of giving and receiving feedback for learning purposes
*8* mentors may volunteer to 'go first' at something, especially if it is new 'out of comfort zone' stuff for mentees and leaders
*9* mentors become like a 'barometer' of the business culture, morale, receptivity, opportunities etc.; as respected major influencers and a role model for others to follow
The mentor, mentee/s and leader/s would also NOT behave or accept others' behaviour that leads to:
* dependency (e.g. of the mentee/s on the mentor)
* deceit or factually incorrect reporting (i.e. dishonesty)
* 'victim' mindset and / or behaviour (e.g. poor me; why me?)
* taking unfair advantage of others (i.e. betrayal of trust)
* taking the easy convenient route of low standards (i.e. cop-out or laziness or can't be bothered)
* staying stuck in individual or collective 'comfort zones' (e.g. resisting opportunities to improve their potential)
* blaming others (buck-passing)
* illegal actions or deliberately damaging actions to self or others (e.g. cheating, self-sabotage, vindictive intended abuse, excessive selfishness).
[this is one time, if not the only time, that the CONFIDENTIALITY aspect of mentoring may need to be bypassed if there is a safety or wellbeing risk to mentee/s or others and / or a commercial risk to the company].
This MUST be made clear to all involved at the start of the mentoring opportunity.
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I am Dennis Martin, born and bred in Yorkshire in the U.K., and in the last 30 years I have worked with clients in the U.K., Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, France, and with projects in U.S.A., Israel and Turkey.
I am proud of the fact that with many of our clients we have worked with them for a long time...
One employee commented: “I am sure in my mind that the training and new skills that we learned from Dennis made the transition in changing the organization to the way we work in multi-tasked, self-managed teams possible in a relatively short time.”
Taken from The Lubrizol Story independent report
Thank you Dennis for your help, positivity, support and mentoring during the very successful turnaround of our Lubrizol business. Our situation was dire and after a 40% downsizing so was morale.
Tony Strong, CEO,
Adare SEC,
Leicester, England
Another said: “For the first time ever, the entire workforce was assembled in one room and given the opportunity to understand the business, where it was heading and how each person could make a valued contribution to its ongoing success.”
Taken from The Lubrizol Story independent report