I’ve mentored - and been mentored by - a handful of people. I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject. In fact, I’m not sure “mentorship experts” exist outside of the mental health profession. That said, I’ve walked a little way down this path so I thought I might share a few ideas.
Side note: I think that traditional 1-on-1 mentorship has value, but I’m increasingly drawn to something a little more distributed - something more like a support network - a personal “Board of Advisors” if you will. My approach doesn’t quite have Ms. Majors’ level of rigor wrt establishing a formal “skill share” but a lot of the concepts that she talks about resonate pretty strongly with my own experience. If you don’t have a set of “human guard rails” in your life then I’d highly recommend that you go find some, and I’d be happy to chat about how to go about doing that. Irrespective of which specific mechanics fit your steez I’d like to give a few pointers that are (hopefully) helpful.
First and foremost: whatever the relationship looks like, it must be mutually-beneficial. If you take nothing else away from this post it should be this. Everything else I’m going to say follows from this, so I’m going to repeat it (in bold, italicized, underlined): The relationship must be mutually-beneficial.
Let’s step through it.
This is not a lecture/sermon. If you are a mentor it is not your job to give a coursework series on “How to Get Promoted: 101”. Similarly, if you are being mentored it’s not your job to passively soak up “promotion vibes”. That’s not how any of this works.
Personal blind spots. It is commonly easier to give advice than it is to follow that same advice. In fact, sometimes you may not even realize an opportunity for self-improvement until you see a similar opportunity for someone else. tl;dr: Giving advice to others can be a mechanism for personal introspection/improvement. (Quoth the Beastie Boys: Your pop caught you smokin’, man he says “No way!” …that hypocrite smokes two packs a day.)
You can learn from anyone. My youngest daughter is five years old. Recently she explained a book that she read in school. “We read a book about a boy who was trying to teach his dog a new trick!” She followed that up with “…but really, it was a story about setting reasonable expectations.” Obviously my child is a genius. …but also, to shamelessly mangle an old trope: “Either you think you can learn something from someone ‘more junior’ than you or you don’t. Either way, you’re right.” …which leads me to…
Diversity over seniority. Seek out people who think differently than you do, whether they’re more senior than you or not. Find people who operate on different frequencies. Don’t try to force a relationship with someone who rubs you the wrong way - People are People and not everyone is going to be a good fit - but if your intention is to learn something then you probably don’t want someone who agrees with everything you have to say.
It will end. This one is hard, and I haven’t found a good way to handle it. One approach is to set an end date up front - “We’re going to do this for 6 months and then be done.” I hate this (What if we have more to talk about after 6 months?) Another approach is to say “Let’s see where this goes.” I hate this (How awkward is it when you run out of shit to talk about?) I suppose the best guidance here is to fall back on the fundamental tenet above - try and end it when it ceases to be mutually beneficial.
Anyhow…this is a non-exhaustive list, but I’ve probably said enough for now. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the chili cook-off…Happy inDay! :-)