Being a great mentor is a journey in itself. No sooner do you think that you are getting there with supporting others the right way through mentoring, then you discover there is more that you want to improve!
The three mentoring tips we are exploring today though are always relevant whether it is career mentoring, personal mentoring or enterprise mentoring that you are supporting:

Leave 
To achieve good things, we often need to let go of unhelpful thinking rather than actually do something. The blocks are not actual things standing in our way but our own habits, personality and mindsets that stop us being a great mentor.
Before mentoring, it is helpful to think through where you personally are on this. Some potentially useful questions to check in with yourself are:

What do I want to try and leave behind for my mentoring practice?
How am I choosing to get ready to mentor?
How calm, relaxed and open am I feeling?
How can I stay focussed on my mentee’s needs?
Do I have any unhelpful mindsets, approaches or drivers that may be best left at the door for my mentoring practice?
 
These decisions are vital to mentoring success. 

One of the most important starting points for this in your mentoring practice is to leave your ego at the door. Your experience and knowledge are only valuable as tools to ask the right questions and to help your mentee explore their own thoughts, behaviours and actions. As soon as you feel you ‘must’ share something, ask yourself ‘why?’ Check that it is truly adding independent value to help your mentee think and manage themselves well, as opposed to telling the mentee what they should do or sharing your views on how things should be done.

Watchpoints on your thoughts and your language during the mentoring session that mean you haven’t left your ego at the door include:

Direct ego-based agendas which might sound like:
This is the way to do it.
I have done it and I got it right because of my experience.
If you do it this way it will work.
 
Subtle ego-based agendas which might sound like:
I think you should do this.
I recommend you do this.
As it worked for me, you should consider doing this.
What you are telling me means you must do this.
 
It is important to check your motives when you start mentoring. Are you wanting to share your experience or to help others make sense of their own experiences? If it is the former, then your role helping others will be better positioned as an experienced colleague to check work with, an advisor, a specialist trainer or a guest speaker rather than a mentor. These roles add immense value but in a different way to mentoring.

Listen
The most valuable investment as a mentor is listening to your mentee: truly practising active listening to check understanding and reflect back the mentee’s issues and opportunities.

The trouble is as human beings, we are not very good at active listening (as opposed to hearing words). To make it harder we also tend to think we are way more skilled at listening than we really are! If we have any hidden agendas, bias or stress – like most humans 😊 - then active listening takes even more effort and concentration. This mentoring skill takes ongoing practice and effort. Using reflective practice techniques and undertaking mentor training is really valuable in this regard.

Lightbulb 
The lightbulb moment - when insight is gained, or great ideas are sparked - belongs to your mentee. As a mentor, your role is to support and challenge so that they reach that point. This is very different to trying to do their thinking for them.

This can be quite tough, especially for experienced managers who are used to getting results. It is about being focussed on the mentee’s timeframes and their space, so what might seem like an obvious solution to you may need time to filter through and develop for your mentee. It is about you supporting your mentee in a time and way that works for them to self-realise and manage themselves. This mentoring timeframe is quite likely to be different to your natural time preferences.

When we work with organisations to support the set up or running of their mentoring programmes, the clarity of the mentor role area is often one we spend the most time on. This mentor role clarity and related mentoring protocols for mentoring programmes are critical. It means mentoring risks are mitigated and that the mentoring scheme works well long-term for both the individuals involved and the organisation.

Having the right mentor who has willingly volunteered for the role for the right reasons and has been given the right training and support makes all the difference. With mentoring, we are developing the mentee’s capacity to solve their own problems. It is not for the mentor to take over that capacity, as it will inhibit progress and create dependency which is the opposite of a successful mentoring relationship.

The Code of Mentoring Practice can be a very helpful tool to discuss together at the start of your mentoring relationship to lay the right foundations. This mentoring code can be used throughout the mentoring or at key mentoring review points to check and potentially discuss how you continue to support your mentee. It can be especially helpful if you feel the mentoring is going or about to go into a different area e.g. advice or training, so that you can highlight this and agree where those other sources of help might be appropriate.

I hope you have fun with your mentoring. We would love to hear from you if you would like support or training for your mentoring programme or your mentoring.

The end of Spring is a great time for relaxation and enjoyment. It is also a good time to check in with yourself over your priorities and what is really valuable to you. Though that’s only possible when you create space to stop being in ‘busy mode’ and actually take time to listen to yourself. Time out like this is actually time in!

As leaders we are often busy listening to others or listening to our inner voice which constantly says, ‘what’s next?’ Time invested in listening to yourself will add immense value to everything you care about.

So how good are you at really listening to yourself fully?
We have been covering this area recently with clients in our Leading Yourself & Others Training and our Career Crossroads service, so this lovely fox photo really made me think.
 
We have identified the top 3 ways that our clients have found make it only too easy for them to forget to tune in, check in and listen to themselves.
 
Deadlines
This can work two ways: you can be energised to finish something that you find pleasure in or it can be a deadline that you are dreading. However, both can have an impact you do not want. This can be shown in the following examples with some of our clients:
 
A leader in a fitness-based company took on an additional sport challenge. He wanted to champion it to help his team’s understanding and awareness of one of their new fitness products. He was enjoying it, wanted to do well and ended up overtraining. This resulted in him not being able to undertake all his normal work, including travelling to all his team locations, as he injured his shoulder. His inner drive to get a result meant that he did not listen to his body’s needs.
 
A lead architect had an urgent job to complete. The tight timeframes that he had agreed with his client and the complexities of the site made the work more difficult. He wanted the design details to be just right, especially as it was an important building to the town. However, if he could not speed up his work, his client would not be able to move premises in time which would cause significant business issues for them. He was grumpy, tired and was starting to make minor mistakes. It was only on his leadership training with us that he realised the situation he was in and came up with ideas on how to resolve it.

When we push through on deadlines, we often stop listening to ourselves. The watchpoints here are ‘I have to’ or ‘I must’. In business there are usually compromises to be found as urgency is often created when it is not fully needed. A sense of urgency with a deadline rather than a paced efficient approach results in a stress response. A stress response means less capability as your problem solving, creativity and communication skills will all be significantly depleted.
 
Key questions to ask yourself:

• Are you looking at all perspectives?
• Are there any other solutions that do not impact negatively on you?
• How can you renegotiate the deadline with yourself and with others?
• What have you learnt about your own approach to deadlines?

 
People Pressure
If someone else expects you to behave and think in a certain way, then often over time you can lose track of what you are really thinking and feeling as opposed to what they want. This can lead to considerable ill health and stress.
 
One of our clients had joined the family business and was trying to work hard. His father was very proud that he had joined as he had developed a successful business from a tiny start up. However, our client was struggling to learn and progress his skills and knowledge. He was bright but his passion lay elsewhere and the professional service area he was working in did not suit him. He attended our mentor training programme which we ran for the business and realised through that what he was really feeling and why. The value of seeing things through different perspectives really made a difference to him.
 
When our values and needs are being compromised over time in order to meet others’ values and needs, we stop listening to ourselves. What happens is that we simply disengage on a subconscious level. This leads to strained relationships and poor business results alongside health issues.
 
Key questions to ask yourself:

• What do you really want from your business/career?
• Is your current role fully meeting your needs?
• Are these your goals or someone else’s?
• Have you explored all options that are important to you?

 
Culture
This is where you stop listening to yourself because ‘that’s the way we do it around here’ culture exists. There is a strong need to fit in and it can be only too easy to not even realise any negative affect it is having on you. For example, a long working hours culture can easily become the norm, however, all the latest research shows that working longer hours and not taking breaks is simply unproductive. Equally worrying is the research over multitasking which is showing the longer-term damage it does to our brains.
 
Our client was very excited to start her new role leading a bigger team across three areas in the bidding profession. She had a prior track record of high performance and great team engagement. However, she had not realised that the overseas merger that was mentioned at interview was changing organisational culture. Originally the company had been promised a stand-alone set-up, but one month later that was no longer the case. All her prior research into company ethos, culture and values was therefore not relevant.
 
The culture became extremely top down and metric driven with a lack of engagement. Our client became increasingly concerned over staff morale and turnover, however, she felt that she ‘should’ fit in. Direct guidance from her Line Manager over managing a ‘lazy’ team and refusing emergency leave for staff cut across her own values and beliefs. Instead of listening to herself she was becoming increasingly stressed trying to manage her team as they wanted her to.
 
Through our Career Crossroads service, she was able to identify why the new role was not working for her instead of trying harder and harder to fit in and feeling like she was failing. She was then able to gain what she wanted from the role whilst creating a platform to exit at the right time for the right role.
 
Key questions to ask yourself:

• How can you create a better culture for yourself and your team?
• How can you best respect yourself as well as others?
• How can you best look after your body and mind?
• What is the most effective way for you to work?
• Have you got your balance right?

It is often hard to listen to yourself when you have not done it for a while. Investing time to do this means you are on the right track for you, and you are protecting your time, your energy, your relationships and your professional career.
 
Mentoring and leadership training solutions work brilliantly here to create a helpful and supportive space so you can decide your priorities and solutions for yourself.

So, here’s wishing you a lovely summer ahead and lovely time out to check in with yourself. 😊

What is Career Mentoring?
Career mentoring is where the focus of the mentoring is purely on career development. This usually means a strong focus on career stepping stones and on team members who are new or team members who have high potential.
 
I see career mentoring best used when the wider aspects of all career needs are included. This may, for example, include career enrichment, career secondments, career changes, returners to work, new leaders or senior team members wanting to achieve more impact in the same role.
 
We miss opportunities to help people when a mentoring programme isn’t inclusive of all our team’s needs. When we design mentoring programmes, we help the exploration of behaviours and thinking patterns. These wider issues can be missed if the focus is on stepping stones and this exploration acts as a practical enabler. This is why mentoring is such a brilliantly practical way to help people at any stage of their career journey. 
 
How does Career Mentoring Work?
Some organisations create a full in-house internal mentoring programme where more experienced employees support other lesser experienced team members to ‘show them the way’ This is often more of a training role rather than a mentoring one. This type of career mentoring programme needs extra care in planning and development to support people in the right way and to protect against conflicts of interest. In these cases, we help to plan and design programmes to include training the mentoring programme leader and the mentors and we give tailored guidance to mentoring programme ambassadors to ensure the programme is sustainable and successful.
 
Other organisations have totally and partially outsourced their career mentoring programmes to organisations like ours. We can provide guidance on every aspect of design and delivery. This includes tailored training and career mentoring to nominated individuals and individuals can, of course, seek external support such as our Career Crossroads Service.

The decisions over these flexible career mentoring programmes are about choosing which elements are to be outsourced. These elements can cover the full range of areas from pre-launch activities through to launch and then ongoing matching, communication and management responsibilities.
 
Benefits of Career Mentoring Programmes
By creating a mentoring programme you can increase the following for both mentors and mentees:

When a mentoring programme is created with the appropriate frameworks and protocols to protect all parties, it is practical and impactful investment in the growth and development of all involved.
 
Mentoring versus Training versus Support
One key area of strategy here is deciding exactly what team members want and need.
If we take the example of the mentoring programmes set up for employee next level professional accreditation purposes, then the mentee often wants:

Mentoring cannot cover all these areas and indeed some of these areas are outside the Code of Mentoring Conduct. As an example, you cannot fulfil an independent mentor role with no conflict of interest if you are also responsible for your mentee’s assessment for their next career role.
 
There are lots of protocols to consider here too. For example, acting in the mentee’s best interests and confidentiality could come into conflict with your role and responsibilities, if your mentee shares that they are considering leaving/taking time out/not completing the next stage of their career. An example we see frequently is that a mentee has sought mentoring because of a perceived lack of support from their Line Manager or, on occasion, difficulties with their Line Manager. That means extra care with designing protocols is very often needed for in-house programmes.

In programmes like this, mentoring often works best as part of a blended holistic programme including training and access to an experienced training colleague for knowledge and technical help to support overall. Mentoring can additionally be a really helpful intervention after training to help the mentee put the training into practice over a longer time frame.
 
Career Mentoring versus Overall Mentoring
The reason I am often concerned about positioning career mentoring programmes is that I honestly believe mentoring works best for everyone when it is a holistic development.

The focus on the career step result can make for very narrow mentoring interventions which may lead to less value being added. Whereas if you take extra care to position that mentoring is for overall career success (whatever that means to the individual staff member), then this will work better.

The positive boundary of the programme will need to make clear that this is holistic career support which is different to personal mentoring or indeed counselling. The full understanding of the differences of all support roles and, therefore, what the mentoring can and cannot help with by everyone involved are very important.

Top 3 Things to Consider in Introducing Mentoring Programmes
Inclusivity
If the programme has been created for a specific sector such as new entrants, then how do other employees feel? Only providing support to certain employees can result in resentment building over time, as team members feel that they have not been invested in whilst others have.
 
A recent Investors in People survey found 60% of UK employees were not happy in their jobs, with a lack of job satisfaction being cited by 48% of these and feeling undervalued by 30%. So, creating a positive mentoring programme for a few and not considering inclusion could create even more disengagement.
 
Mentoring can and does help at all career stages. Senior staff, for example, can gain enormous amounts of value from being mentored, as they can then potentially see the impact of long-standing mindsets or approaches through different perspectives. Those in senior positions then have wider opportunities to add value to their teams and the business.
 
Training and Support for Mentors
Clearly, I’m biased 😊, however, after supporting the training of hundreds of mentors I have yet to find someone who regretted taking the time out for the training.
 
However, just because someone is experienced and skilled in their role, it doesn’t mean they will naturally make a great mentor. Even where mentors have had previous leadership and senior experience, the mentoring means that they now need to use those skills in a unique way. In fact, some of the skills that are needed to be highly focussed and successful in some roles are the ones that are unhelpful in mentoring roles.
 
If you take a sports example here, then the best coaches are not necessarily the best sports achievers in their field. This means it is very important to consider the application process to become a mentor to ensure only the right people who can give the right support get involved.
 
Once the mentor training is completed then that’s only the start of their journey. It is critical to build in ongoing training, support and peer learning to develop your mentor’s confidence, engagement and skills. This ongoing support protects everyone involved and ensures the programme is a sustainable one. It means any issues or mentoring practice concerns get supported quickly and appropriately which increases impact and retention of your mentors.

The investment in mentor training here will help your organisation in so many ways. Mentor training means high levels of employee engagement which is, of course, crucial to boosting business profits. However, training also contributes in another way. It is only logical that by improving your team members’ skills, they are going to be better at their jobs.

The special thing about mentor training though is that it boosts confidence, communication and emotional intelligence skills which leads to a much better working environment for all.
  
Mentee Guidance
This stage often gets ignored and it can cause real issues. It makes a real difference that well before the mentoring starts the mentee fully understands what to expect. The Mentoring Code of Conduct comes in useful here as you can use it as a discussion point. I’ve found that reassurance over confidentiality and being very clear on boundaries has been especially useful here.
 
The mentees also need a central point of reference for any issues and of course sharing success! This is also a great opportunity to bring together communities within your organisation with ongoing mentoring events or mentoring cohorts who then stay in touch as cross-organisational support.
 
Mentoring Next Steps
I do hope this blog has helped you to think through your own options. Mentoring really does make an amazing difference to individuals, teams and organisations, so it is definitely worth doing!
 
If you want our help at any time, then we would love to hear from you. We have a flexible support for Mentoring Programmes and various training and qualification options for mentors.
 
Happy mentoring! 😊