When I first started my career, mentoring was something only esteemed executives participated in. Managers were more interested in training teams and throwing them out there to do their job. Rarely did we receive one on one feedback, advice, or were challenged with questions to grow. Luckily, times have changed. More and more companies see the value of coaching or mentoring and ingrain it into their culture. My current employer is the first company that I have worked for that really cares about growing people through mentoring and encourages both professional and personal growth.
One of my favorite aspects of being a manager is mentoring my team. I want to encourage them, identify their gifts, and help them grow – even if it means losing them. When someone moves on to a better opportunity it means that I have been successful as a mentor. Unfortunately, many of us haven’t had a mentor so we don’t really know what to do, how to mentor people from different backgrounds, and we are intimidated. Mentoring is here to stay as more companies see the real value and employees expect professional interaction with their leaders. A few months back I was scouring Amazon for an effective book on mentoring but didn’t find what I needed as a leader.
This month I finally found the book that I have been searching for. The new book Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring – Lean Forward, Learn, and Leverage by Lisa Z. Fain and Lois J. Zachery is a goldmine book for mentoring people. The book is an easy read leading the reader on a journey to learn more about mentoring and how to influence teams.
The book engages with reflections, tactics, stories that share actual mentoring situations, tools, and recaps at the end of each chapter. These help the reader bridge any differences or misconceptions that they had about mentoring before picking up Bridging Differences. I need to reinforce new principles when I read a book and this one did not disappoint.
Bridging Differences offers a multiple-phase mentoring model geared to build connections and bridge differences. Here are the phases:
1. Lean forward into difference
2. Learn from differences
3. Leverage differences
4. Enabling growth
One of the primary challenges that we all face when mentoring others or being mentored is understanding our differences and building relationships to overcome those differences. It is not easy and there are a few points that we need to remember.
1. Mentoring has to be reciprocal and both people need to engage. A mentor who does all the talking is doing a disservice to the concept of mentoring
2. Mentoring involves learning. As a mentee, be open to learning and absorb all the knowledge and advice that you can
3. A strong relationship and trust is critical to success
4. Mentoring really is a partnership on both sides.
Overcoming differences is probably one of the key challenges that we all face in the workplace today. Leaders really need to be committed to taking ownership, create awareness about issues and jointly address them. The hardest part? You need to shift your own perspectives and jump out of your own “world” or comfort zone. Cultural differences can also be an uphill battle. We all have our individual unique backgrounds and experiences that impact our ability to address interpersonal relationships. We may need to apply new rules, determine the role of the group we are working with and what is our role when it comes to emotions? What is the scope of relationships when we mentor individuals or groups? Finally, how do we even measure accomplishments or milestones when we mentor?
The mentor and mentee must be honest and set some ground rules before entering a mentor relationship. We forget how different we are from one another and we all carry certain cultural biases, differences, and the big one – social position. It can be pretty intimidating for a junior employee to be mentored by a mentor several levels up and it takes time to build trust and comfort. Likewise, there should be agreement on the monologue and ease of dialogue, how questions are addressed, follow up, and how collaborative engagement will be achieved. This area is where the stories in Bridging Differences really help. There are a few examples of a mentor doing all the talking and assuming what the mentee wants and needs. The differences in expectations were vast and it didn’t make the engagement worthwhile.
So when does mentoring end? That is a key question. That is why it is so critical to layout expectations and agreements when first mentoring someone. Perhaps it will be six months or until the mentee reaches a new goal or level in their career. Perhaps a challenge was overcome and the mentoring achieved its purpose. At my company, mentoring is a continuous process with each team member so that they continue to learn and grow under their current leader. The point is that both parties need to understand and agree on the mentoring process and relationship initially so that expectations and feedback are achieved.
Mentoring is so critical to every employee, stakeholder, volunteer, student, everyone! Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring is an excellent bible for being a better mentor and mentee. This is a must-read for leaders and every human resources leader who is looking to implement a successful mentoring program. This process even lends itself to how we treat raise our children and have meaningful conversations with them.
