3. Wisdom in Mentoring - How To Make The Relationship Work

This is the third session in a five part series on mentoring and how to make the relationship work well. This track can be listened to on its own or as part of the series and will be particularly helpful entrepreneurs and their mentors/mentees. It concerns both parties to the relationship and there are tips, methods and suggestions throughout for how to make this most important relationship work well. This session focusses on the way in which wisdom and advice can be imparted effectively and built upon by the mentee.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to session three of making a mentoring relationship.

In our last session we considered the importance of listening as the foundation of trust and in this session we're going to have a look at guidance and the passing on of wisdom and how that can be done in a way that respects the boundaries of both parties.

The essence of the mentoring relationship in the context of entrepreneurship is one where a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person in the world of starting a business with its unique pressures and challenges.

The mentor is a trusted guide who passes on wisdom,

Teaching and support and is able to challenge and encourage the mentee.

The best mentors help to shape their mentees into other leaders with a view to the mentee evolving into a mentor.

In any mentoring relationship advice about what to do next is often sought and given.

Now this seems an obvious point but it's important to remember that the best mentors will be able to give advice in such a way that the mentee can access their own wisdom and insights rather than giving very prescriptive advice about what you ought to be doing next.

Now all of us attempted to start advice laden sentences with the phrase if I were you and in mentoring tempting though it is to cut to what may seem like the obvious chase to the mentor there's a very fine balance between pointing to something the mentee may not have considered and cutting past their own lived experience and supplanting it with one's own.

The thing is there is no if I were you.

Although that phrase is absolutely common parlance in ordinary relationship it's not actually true,

It's not possible to be true and it is actually although not intentionally disrespectful of another person's experience and identity.

Everybody can be somebody else with the unimaginable complexity of another person's life world.

Life is totally subjective even though startups tend to take a fairly similar trajectory and encounter the same or similar issues and crossroads.

Each entrepreneur will react to those stages and issues differently.

So having tuned up our capacity for active listening we also want to take a real interest in each other in order to get to a stage where advice can be given that is appropriate,

Sensitive to the person's life world experience and keeps the mentee focused on finding their own solutions and plotting their own course.

Getting to know each other and actually taking an active interest in each other is vital in terms of the sort of advice that can be passed on in the relationship.

Anyone can give mediocre advice without really knowing somebody but when people know each other well the advice is elevated.

In many ways getting to know each other well is a natural side effect of active listening.

Getting to know the mentee,

Their likes,

Dislikes,

Expectations,

Demands,

Hopes,

Desires and intentions will mean that advice when sought can be given in a relevant,

Tailored and sensitive way.

From the mentee's point of view this requires a degree of transparency and honesty in sharing.

From the mentor's point of view it means developing the skills of asking the right questions,

Reading the mentee's body language,

Tuning to the subtle changes in voice and tone when certain issues come up and crucially not making assumptions about the mentee.

And the very best way to avoid making assumptions about anybody is asking questions and listening to the answers.

I just want to make a side note here about boundaries.

As we've already touched on mentoring isn't coaching,

Counselling or therapy and whilst getting to know each other well is vital in terms of the passing on of good advice and guidance there must also be a sense of boundary too.

Otherwise trust and confidence can be easily eroded or the mentor may find that there are issues that arise that are more properly addressed by a therapist and if that's the case it's important for the mentor to step in and say that the issue at hand is beyond their skill set or expertise and that different support might be useful there.

In the early days of a relationship when the parties are in the process of getting to know each other the boundaries of the relationship can be delineated by the questions asked by the mentor as often the mentee will not know how transparent to be.

So whilst we want to be interested and get a good picture of the mentee's situation we don't want to be intrusive.

The questions from the mentor should be able to draw out the mentee in terms of where they find themselves as an entrepreneur,

In the context of their business,

Their life and their relationships as the life of the entrepreneur has significant impact far beyond just the career and professional aspects.

A broad understanding for example that the entrepreneur's startup venture has put financial pressure on their home life may be sufficient.

There may not be any need to go into the details of how that pressure manifests unless the mentee feels the need to share that.

It's where that's difficult to gauge the question is there anything else you want to tell me about here or are you happy that I've understood the point is a helpful rounding up question.

And just to finish on this side note on boundaries the practical points that we have already covered such as setting a time,

Keeping to time,

Being clear about methods of communication also really help in the setting of boundaries.

So as we've already touched on the life of an entrepreneur has unique stresses and challenges but it is the challenges that are what make you as an entrepreneur,

What shape you,

Give you the resilience that you need.

I don't believe that there is a way to avoid all of them and I also don't believe that you should but in the mentoring relationship those unique stresses,

Their impacts and how they can be managed can be explored as part of the getting to know each other process.

One of the biggest issues in entrepreneurial life is with burnout which is caused not just by the circumstances of startup culture but also by poor self-management.

Self-management is only possible when we know ourselves,

When we know our patterns,

Our shadows,

How we manage security,

Safety,

Survival and esteem,

How we cycle through the drama triangle of victim,

Rescuer,

Persecutor and deserter and we know what irritates us,

What we dislike about ourselves,

What we love about ourselves,

Where our power is drained and what gives us energy and it's within the mentoring relationship through good questions and active listening that many of these things can be understood and when this information is available to the mentee they'll be able to make good informed decisions about what to do,

With whom and with what goal.

So once the parties know each other well,

Have established trust and active listening and are careful not to make assumptions about the other,

Sharing stories about similar experiences can be an incredibly enriching part of the mentoring relationship and it's a great way to pass on wisdom and advice without being prescriptive.

When the mentor is sensitive to the experience,

Vulnerabilities and aspirations of the mentee,

Being open to sharing their own mistakes and failures is one of the greatest gifts a mentor can give.

For young entrepreneurs starting out,

Admitting to their mistakes or failures is very difficult simply because they have usually risked their whole life and identity on this venture.

For the mentor to be open in this way,

It not only provides helpful information and roadmaps for problem solving,

It also helps to build trust and crucially gives the mentee an opportunity to share their own mistakes and shortcomings.

Often in the startup world,

The relationship with a trusted mentor is the only place the entrepreneur mentee will be able to have that degree of honesty and help.

Hearing how someone else faced a challenge or took a wrong turn or didn't take good advice is actually comforting.

And even if the mentee does not solve problems in the same way the mentor would or did,

What has happened in the sharing is that a subtle shift of perspective has arrived and that can open up new possibilities for the mentee.

And finally,

Just to reiterate,

In terms of the passing on of advice and wisdom,

The mentor is not there to solve the mentee's problems.

They're there to help and encourage the mentee to solve their own.

And this is a lifelong gift that flows from a good mentoring relationship.

In the next session,

To follow on from the giving of advice and the passing on of wisdom,

We're going to be looking at the giving and receiving of feedback.