by Center for Mentoring Excellence | Apr 14, 2016 | Growth and Development, Making Mentoring Work For You, Mentoring Communication, Mentoring Questions, Mentoring Relationships
Chemistry. Compatibility. While these traits are crucial to a successful mentoring relationship, there’s so much more involved, most importantly — you. What do you want to learn? Who do you want to learn it from? Recruiting a mentor can seem like a daunting task, but being thorough and prepared when making the ask leads to success.
How to Prepare
Have a conversation with yourself:
- Identify what it is you need to learn.
- Think about what you need from a mentor.
- Consider how much time you can contribute to a mentoring relationship. Look yourself in the mirror and honestly consider if you have the time, willingness and commitment to mentoring.
- Think about your prior mentoring experiences and how you can actively contribute to the success of your relationship.
Ask yourself some important questions:
- Am I sincerely interested in learning?
- Am I willing to commit time to developing and maintaining a mentoring relationship?
- Am I willing to be open and honest with myself and another person?
- Can I participate without aversely affecting my other responsibilities?
Making the Ask
You can do all the preparation in the world, but if you aren’t able to communicate your needs and ask a potential mentor for their time and energy in an inviting and honest way, you may lose out on a great mentoring opportunity.
Make sure to clearly communicate:
- What you want to learn.
- Why you want to learn it.
- Why you think this person is a good match for you.
- What you need from the relationship.
- What you are willing to contribute.
Make sure to present yourself as:
- Competent
- Committed
- Compatible
- Conscientious
- Ready to Learn
- Accountable
With the right preparation, the right communication and the right presentation, you’ll be able to set yourself up for success when asking a potential mentor for their help.
How have you sought out mentors? What worked and didn’t work for you?
by Center for Mentoring Excellence | Jun 28, 2013 | Mentoring Questions
Q: How important is it to reward mentors?
A: It depends on the culture in your organization. Some organizations reward everything. Some do not. Appreciation and recognition go a long way and are often sufficient.
Some institutions of higher education for example offer their mentors release time for mentoring or count mentoring time as committee service time. In professional service firms, a special code is sometimes developed for mentoring so that it is not docked from hours.
Q: What are the right incentives for the mentors to spend more time with mentees?
A: Each organization needs to create its own compelling business case for mentoring that speaks to those engaged in mentoring in significant and meaningful ways. We call it the WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Your WIFFM should speak to the organization benefits, individual benefits in a language that is meaningful to them.
Q: How long should a mentoring relationship last (e.g., 1 year, 6 month, etc.)?
It depends on the goals of the program and/or the nature of the learning goal. There is no “should” standard but most last from 9 months to 18 months. Some last two years and encourage mentoring closure conversations at the end of each year.
Q: Is there a risk in never closing a mentoring relationship, if it is okay with both parties?
A: Without a closure conversation, you lose out on a powerful opportunity to reflect and leverage your learning, and plan your next development step with someone who really knows and gets you.
Q: What is the recommended regular meeting /contact frequency?
A: The rule of thumb is to meet regularly and consistently, whether it is weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Having a pre-established meeting date on the calendar helps ensure mutual accountability for making sure that meetings take place or are rescheduled.
Q: If your mentor appears always busy and harassed, how do you handle this as a mentee?
A: You might be making assumptions, so check them out! What you see is not always what you get. Engaging in a frank and honest conversation is a start, i.e., “I’m concerned….” “Is this working for you?” Checking in and checking things out once you have established a relationship will help you stay on track.
Q: How do you evaluate the impact of mentoring programs?
A: Carefully! Set goals for each of your mentoring programs and identify success factors. You will want to use qualitative, quantitative and baseline data to measure your success. See Creating a Mentoring Culture in which Lois Zachary discusses the issue of evaluation and measurement in depth.
by Center for Mentoring Excellence | Feb 22, 2011 | Mentoring Questions
Think for a moment about your experience in facilitating someone else’s learning. Did it go well? Were there some things you could have done better? Chances are if you are like most mentors, you could become even more adept at facilitation. Help is on the way: (more…)
by Center for Mentoring Excellence | Feb 17, 2011 | Mentoring Questions
Knowing the right type of questions to ask and how to ask it, is an important mentoring skill. It facilitates deeper learning and engages the mentee as an active learner. (more…)
