Professional Mentoring Unpicked #6

This blog, the next in my short series exploring the key aspects of professional mentoring, unpicks and challenges the suggested definition of the mentee status.

Key Aspect #6: Typically (but not always) Less Experienced

“While traditionally focused on junior individuals, mentorship can also benefit those transitioning careers or taking on new leadership roles. The key is a difference in relevant experience.”

The implied caveat and parenthesis are well placed here.

In the first few weeks of launching my mentoring service, I received enquiries from, and had exploratory conversations with, LnD and other professionals at different stages of their career journey.

As a result, I am now working with several mentees and we’re exploring the following themes:

• professional mobility,

• recognition of and reward for specialism/skills,

• anxiety about future of L&D and roles & skills therein,

• direction, focus, and development of additional/alternative skills

• understanding of current themes and activity in UK L&D and abroad

• networking, connection, community

…and they are NOT segmented by age or experience.

Indeed, I have been struck by how these topics and concerns resonate and repeat across the supposed experiential generations.

What they all have in common is a desire to develop, to learn and to progress in their careers.

It’s my privilege to have been invited to work with each of them and to continue supporting them achieve clarity and direction.

If you think you could benefit from a non-judgemental, objective and external professional partnership, as described above, wherever you may be on your career trajectory, or recognise yourself in any of the themes above, do contact me for a no-obligation exploratory chat.

My contact details here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niallgavin/

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.

Professional Mentoring Unpicked #2

Photo by Masjid MABA on Unsplash

I wrote a couple of posts at the end of August into September, on the practice of #ProfessionalMentoring and the key elements that underpin it. This is the next post of the short series wherein I'm reflecting on and unpicking each of those aspects and how they inform my role as such a Mentor.

Key Aspect 2 - Guidance, Support, and Encouragement:

“The role of a professional mentor goes beyond simply giving advice. It involves active support and positive reinforcement.”

I see my role here being to help the mentee recognise the potential they have still to unlock, to build their confidence, help them celebrate wins along the way, and to stand with them when things get tough.

Some of my clients need support in raising their voice, internally and externally. We’re working on them showing up in the workplace, emphasising their own effectiveness and impact, sometimes being confident enough to say ‘no’.

In some instances, we’re working on them developing an external voice and presence, finding their tribe and engaging in discussion and debate whilst building relationships with fellow practitioners and other, more experienced practitioners, thinkers and commentators – online and face to face.

I’m listening and watching, amplifying and commenting publicly and also providing individual feedback and encouragement privately.
 
Some of my clients are people I consider to be my peers, in respect of career history, experience, seniority and – dare I say it - longevity, whilst others are at an earlier stage of their professional career.

I meet each of them where they are and we work out from there accordingly.

If any of the above sounds of interest and you think you could benefit from some professional mentor support, feel free to contact me for a no-obligation exploratory conversation, at niallgavinuk@outlook.com or via LinkedIn https://lnkd.in/eKGzSBz8

 
#Mentorship #Leadership #ProfessionalDevelopment #CareerGrowth

Professional Mentoring Explored (first posted on LinkedIn 25/08/25)

A view along a railway platform through
the open slam door window of a train

hashtag

Before I started my #ProfessionalMentoring service in August, I challenged AI to give me 'the current and most accurate definition of a professional mentor'.

The resulting description that seemed to align most closely with my thinking was this...

"A professional mentor is an experienced and trusted individual who provides guidance, support, and encouragement to a less experienced person (the mentee) to help them develop their skills, knowledge, career, and personal growth within a professional context. This relationship is typically characterized by trust, open communication, mutual respect, and a focus on the mentee's goals and development."

I take exception to the description of the mentee as "a less experienced person" as I see the mentoring relationship encompassing all levels of professional experience. Indeed, I am already mentoring a couple of experienced peers.

That said, it's a pretty accurate summary of what I do.

There then followed a list of 'key aspects' which expand on the above.

* Experienced and Trusted

* Guidance, Support, and Encouragement

* Focus on the Mentee's Development

* Skills, Knowledge, Career, and Personal Growth

* Trust, Open Communication, and Mutual Respect

I'm going to do a short series of follow-up posts, taking each of those elements in turn, examining, expanding on and sense-checking them here and on LinkedIn.

Look out for these over the next few weeks.

And of course, I'll be grateful for any comments, experiences, challenges, feedback or enquiries.

hashtag#ProfessionalMentoring hashtag#LnD hashtag#Mentor 

Overwhelmed

I said a couple of weeks ago that I would be writing something about late career flexible working. This isn’t that post. 

Although it is related.

Instead, I’ve brought forward a piece to catch up with UK Mental Health Week, and an inspiring talk, “Being Intentional About Wellbeing”, by Rob Stephenson, mental health campaigner and keynote speaker, (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robstephenson/) at the CIPD in Sussex Branch Annual Meeting in Crawley on 14th May.

One of Rob’s invitations in particular grabbed my attention. He encouraged us to reflect on a time when we experienced ‘Wellbeing Vulnerability’ and what lessons we may or may not have learned as a result. This blog is my reflection about a particular challenge I experienced last year.

Basically, I had painted myself into a corner. I had too many programmes in development for too many internal and external stakeholders, with too many deliverables and deadlines looming. I was starting to feel overwhelmed.

But I didn’t communicate that fact, and I didn’t ask for help. I tried to keep going, all the while giving myself a hard time for not admitting to this. It was my job, my responsibility to deliver. 

All this, of course, was amplified by the fact that I was not physically surrounded by colleagues. I was effectively ‘flying solo’ at home, with my interactions dictated by Teams calls and emails. Through the lens of the laptop screen, everyone else seemed to be coping - so it must just  be me. 

Although digitally ‘present and correct’, I was actually struggling and hiding. 

Eventually, I admitted how I was feeling to my wife, whose characteristic and pragmatic two-word advice was "Go sick!". I called in sick.

The release - and relief - was instant. Suddenly, the self-imposed distress of the previous weeks disappeared. Of course, this was immediately replaced by the guilt at having walked away and left work undone, colleagues more than likely having to step in and client programme delivery deadlines put at risk. And I was ashamed. After a week off, I contacted my GP and was signed off with stress. 

For the next few weeks, I only communicated with my Line Manager and the Head of HR, both of whom were 100% reassuring and who mobilised both the colleague support, to keep things on track in my absence, and the welfare support, communication and compassion I needed to enable me to return to work. 

When I felt better I went back to work in a staged return, and faced into a more supportive situation where work was more equally distributed, and where processes had been tweaked and roles/responsibilities (including mine) had been altered accordingly.

The wheels hadn’t come off; nobody died and all the programme deadlines were met!

That model effectively became our new way of working and continued successfully up until I left the CIPD amicably a few weeks ago. I am grateful to all my colleagues for supporting me through that challenging time and, indeed, for all their commitment and compassion throughout.

So what did I learn here? Self-care is difficult. Admitting to self-doubt is difficult. Asking for help is difficult. Not doing so leads to guilt, panic, shame, inauthentic behaviour and a spiralling sense of looming catastrophe (I’m being rubber-banded back to that time as I write this!).

So my ask of you is this: if you find yourself in a similar situation at work, if you feel yourself overwhelmed, spiralling into depression, unable to cope, fearful of being ‘found out' - own up to it. Ask for help. Talk to a friend, your partner, your manager, to your HR Team, to your employee assistance programme provider. 

Yes, it takes courage to show vulnerability, but in doing so, you will open the door to a world of help and support. And things will change and get better for you.

It worked for me.

The Garden of Ignorance

This is our garden. When we moved here 6½ years ago, it was just a grassy rectangle with a small square patio.

Once we had settled in, we got some quotes from gardeners to design an easy-to-maintain layout and planting. This is what we ended up with, and it has proved to be sufficiently low-maintenance for me to engage with trying to keep it tidy, planted and pleasant to look out onto and relax in. 

But I'm no gardener.

I do what I do from an ongoing position of horticultural ignorance.

Like many people, I suspect, I want to have a nice garden (be able to play the piano / be a Digital Learning Expert) without necessarily doing all the heavy lifting (practising / theoretical & experiential study) required.

But I’m happy to get stuck in.

I Google / read up / ask others / observe / try out stuff / persevere / try again – with the incentive that others have an expectation of me so doing but are also willing to work with me and support me to achieve the desired outcomes.

Does that make me ‘lazy’ / a ‘chancer’ / a yet-to-be-outed imposter? 

Or a learner?

Judge me by my results.

And keep challenging me to be better.

I might just surprise you.

And myself.

Heartfelt

Just over a month ago I had a triple coronary bypass operation and am currently signed off work for several more weeks as I recover. This all happened very quickly, as a result of experiencing some chest pain in April and attending the doctor to discuss.
 

An initial diagnosis of angina, followed by an ECG and blood tests, quickly led to a consultation with a cardiologist, an exploratory angiograph (x-ray of my heart) and revelation of the fact that not only had I had a heart attack late last year (whilst Mandy and I were in the throes of a very stressful house move) resulting in a completely blocked coronary artery, but also that two other arteries were in the process of closing up due to coronary heart disease and my heart was now struggling to function adequately, hence the chest pain. 
 

Needless to say, and on the advice of my cardiologist that I was otherwise sufficiently healthy and 'an ideal candidate', two days later I was under the knife in Southampton, blocked arteries bypassed with re-directed chest arteries and veins 'harvested' from my legs and, within the week, was despatched home for a three month recovery period.

This was a huge shock, not only to me, but to Mandy, recently started a new job, and to my children, both of whom were in the final stages of their University year work - Tash completing her Finals and Sam completing his Year 1 work. With very little time for reflection or for debate, my life was turned upside down and inside out. All my attention was now focussed on 'getting better', a slow process initially whilst my body was effectively in post-traumatic shock from very invasive surgery and it's only in the time that I have been given at home, as my body heals, that I have slowly started to reflect on the emotional and psychological impacts.

I'm fortunate that I experienced angina symptoms sufficiently noticeable to discuss with Mandy and, on her insistence, seek immediate medical advice. I'm equally fortunate that things moved swiftly thereafter (within two weeks, I had the procedure) and that - apparently - everything has gone well. I'm healing physically. My chest scar and my leg scars are healing and easing and my mobility and stamina is increasing.

But my sense of self has been fundamentally challenged. What I thought was normal, may not have been normal. I have been living and operating in my family, social, work and virtual lives with a ticking bomb in my chest. That may have been having far more profound psychological, emotional and physical impacts - and for longer - than I, my family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues may have realised.  It's only now, a month later, that I am starting to 'allow' myself to consider these things and to reflect on what they mean for us now and in the future.  Much reflection and possibly some talking therapy to come. What's important? What's not so important? What does the 25 years that I've been given by this operation look like? How shall I/we spend that time? What does work and retirement look like now? 

We have much to be joyful about. I'm still here! Tash achieved a 2:1 BA in Interior Architecture & Design and graduates in late July, before starting her new job in August. Sam got straight B's throughout his Foundation Year and is guaranteed a place on the BA Film Production course at UCA in Farnham. Mandy is enjoying her new job in Brighton. Both Mandy and I turn 60 this year and it is also our 30th Wedding Anniversary in August. 

Previous readers may remember I blogged nearly four years ago about turning 56 and outliving my Father who died just after his 56th Birthday ("Age - Appropriate"). I said then that I had been gifted the time he never got and that I was going to make the most of it. Now, three years and one coronary bypass later, I have been given another gift. I do not intend to squander it.

PS: I could not have got through the last 5 weeks, nor will I get through the months to come, without the love, support, friendship and good wishes of many, many people, not least my darling wife Mandy and my two fantastic children, Natasha and Samuel. I love them and owe them everything, but my heartfelt thanks go out to you all.