Professional Mentoring Unpicked #5

Here is the next blog in my short series exploring the key aspects of mentoring others as a professional mentor.

Today I’m unpicking Key Aspect #5: Trust, Open Communication, and Mutual Respect.

“These are the foundational elements of a successful mentoring relationship. Without them, the relationship is unlikely to be effective.”

My take: Neither trust nor respect are given randomly. They are both earned.

Mentor and mentee must establish a working relationship which allows them both to be seen and to be
heard, non-judgementally and with the focus on the mentee’s development.

In an organisation’s internal mentoring programme, some of those conditions are already in place and established in the business structure. Some prior knowledge of each other may well already exist, trusted or otherwise, and an understanding of the business, the culture and the language pre-exists.

The challenge – and the opportunity - for the external mentor is to demonstrate to the mentee that they have the empathy and the experience required to support them from an external perspective, untrammelled by being embedded in the employer organisation, and informed by different professional experiences and perspectives.

The mentee should be reassured that any conversations are being held in a safe space. And that the mentor should be able to ask the difficult questions, be able to invite the mentee to open up in ways that they may not have felt able to do with an internal mentor or indeed, at all.

Agreeing to enter that relationship requires a preparedness to commit to the process, i.e. contracting, a mutual understanding about why and what the mentee is seeking support with and a mutual willingness to communicate openly and honestly, face to face or online, throughout.

Then the work can start.

Exclusion Zone

I kept away from social media yesterday. I felt that my SoMe (social media) communities were engaged in a collective discussion around a topic for which, although I had some sympathy, I was not 'qualified' nor engaged with enough to want to participate in or discuss, nor to raise any other topic which could be construed as 'off message'. The topic, of course, was the death of David Bowie.

This got me thinking about why so many people have a view that social media is 'not for them'; how they feel excluded from 'the club'; that they 'don't have anything to say' in those spaces. I get that. I have found a community - and a voice - in social media, principally in my professional field of Learning & Development, but also in other areas of personal interest. And those communities  have been enormously important and supportive to me and my family in this last year, for which I am eternally grateful.

But sometimes, it feels like I'm the only person in the world who hasn't been touched by - or indeed, cares enough about - some events. And that triggers my 'not belonging' injunction, big time. I feel myself drawing back into my shell, wanting to keep my head down, whilst trying to resist an underlying anger and almost contempt for others' genuine and sincere sharing of their individual feelings. This makes me feel even more unworthy and shallow, as though I am lacking in empathy or cultural awareness, whilst all around me are remembering, emoting, respecting and sharing their grief and their loss. 

This is difficult stuff, by the way, and I share my thoughts here advisedly. I made the mistake several years ago (2011 in fact) of expressing a contrary view to the death of another cultural icon in a fairly dismissive tweet, and was rightly called out on it. I blogged then about how that changed my perspective and thinking about intent versus impact in social media "What Else I Learned on my Holidays"

Nowadays, I try to exercise consideration (and thereby constraint) in my SoMe activities. I am very conscious of the appropriateness of topic or comment in the face of others' national, community, collective or indeed, individual experience, which is immediate and heartfelt. Whilst I recognise the importance and significance of David Bowie's leadership in our art, music and culture over the last 50 years, and I totally get how important he was to so many people - particularly, it appears, in my SoMe and PLN (Personal Learning Network) communities - and whilst sad for his family, friends and admirers for their loss, I remain pretty untouched by his death.

So I stepped back yesterday and let everyone get on with it. No offence intended.  As my Jewish In-Laws say at times like this, I wish you a long life.