Nice to meet you
June 27th, 2021 - 4 minute read
The fundamental grounding of a good mentoring relationship is one built upon trust and a general liking for one another. Some people may disagree with this and may think that just having the required skill set is enough. I believe that true success can only be achieved if both parties look forward to the sessions and genuinely care about one another as this is when great things can happen.
Therefore, it was really important to me that we spent a reasonable amount of time getting to know each other first; Generation felt the same and this was the focus of the first session.
The meet
Meeting someone for the first time can sometimes be a little daunting for both people, especially when meeting online rather than face to face and there is always the potential that the conversation may be a little forced and awkward at times. I am fortunate that I am generally quite comfortable in these situations and I feel as though I can help others to be a little more comfortable too. The mentor guidance did offer a number of questions and areas to help support this but I didn’t worry too much about it being too prescriptive. In order to add a little insight into our chat, some of the things we covered:
Where we are from / where we live
Our educations
Specifics around his degree
The Generation Programme
Core Values
Why tech?
Hobbies
My career
What roles are you interested in and why?
A good mixture of active listening / asking questions alongside taking the lead and sharing things about myself was key. In order to build the relatedness, it was important to ask questions to show an interest and get to know each other. Not just asking questions for the sake of it, but being truly intrigued. Follow one question with one or two further questions to take the conversation a litte deeper, it's so much fun to see where things can go if you're willing to do this extra digging. Be prepared to open up yourself and share as this will help to build trust and is a great way of making someone else feel comfortable if they are a little nervous or anxious.
“so, why were you interested in mentoring and what do you hope to get out of it?”
Safe to say the answer I got back wasn't overly inspiring
“well, we were just told that we were doing this so not sure...”
I was a little disappointed that Generation wasn't able to spend a little more time talking about the benefits but it didn't put me off. I knew that I could be of great value and just taking some time to talk through the areas we want to cover and the impact this could have seemed to be enough for him to be genuinely excited about the path we were about to take.
I also made it really clear that throughout this whole thing, all the decisions will be his to make and I would be there to offer advice, thoughts and guidance. If he disagreed with anything or had his own ideas, then he should not feel any pressure to move ahead with the things I had suggested and should take ownership of his career and choices.
Responding to change over following a plan
I am sure you will recognise this from the Agile manifesto and it is something that I whole-heartedly believe in. Yes, you need a plan but you have to adapt and respond to the world as it changes.
Although the Chronus plan was fantastic and the content all seemed very valuable, we quickly identified that the order and grouping of the content wasn’t quite right for the goals and timelines we wanted to achieve. We therefore agreed that we would discuss at the end of each of our sessions, the topic that we believed would add the most value at that time. This would allow us to add value quicker and tailor this programme in order to get the most from it.
First session up, reviewing his CV and digital portfolio...