Article: Be A Mentor Part Two

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Be A Mentor Part Two

Adopt a Learning Focus

In our orientation sessions for corporate mentoring programs we ask protégés to write a 75-word "Help wanted" ad for a mentor. The ad begins, "Wanted: A mentor who..." Because ProGroup's workplace mentoring programs are most often focused on mentoring across differences, the ad descriptions we see are interesting and sometimes surprising. You might think that a newly hired black female or a young Latino male would want someone from a similar background or culture as a mentor. But that's not what they are saying. Across the board, protégés are most interested in a learning partnership with someone who is a good listener and will problem-solve with them, as well as someone who is willing to share their career successes, failures, near misses, and lucky breaks, and to talk about the lessons learned. They want someone who is ready to have meaningful conversations, and, most importantly, someone who will recognize that they may be struggling because they just don't know the organization's unwritten rules for success—and then they want mentors to be willing to share those rules. Protégés want someone who will help them navigate their career through the corporate culture.

While protégés are writing their want ads, mentors are creating a mentor business card. It looks like this:

When the mentoring pairs come together and share their work, the conversation gets deep very quickly. Protégés find themselves explaining the reasoning behind the qualities they want in their desired mentor and mentors talk about what they bring to the relationship. From the beginning, mentors understand that they play a key role. At this point, they are ready for a two-way learning partnership.

I mention this activity because today, we find many structured, diversity-related mentoring programs established in organizations as a means of retaining talent from diverse backgrounds. Some work; however, many do not. Truly great mentors are hard to uncover. Some may be reluctant to sign up because they don't know what they have to offer; others may wonder what they will get out of the time they put into the program. In many organizations, the same people are repeatedly tapped to be mentors. If they don't see anything that benefits them, they become tired of giving, and the program fizzles out, often with frustrated participants on both sides.

Read part three of Be a Mentor and get valuable tips to build a mentoring partnership that works for all involved.

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