things I'm reading: tech mentorship advice

My company is launching a mentorship program which I think is pretty cool. I'm participating as a mentee, but they shared some links about mentorship which I think may be useful to look back on when I have more opportunities to mentor others.

Assorted tips sourced from above:

Keep in mind "being" different roles: available (a cache), a new friend (friendly), an assuring parent, a dungeon master, a manager (context-sharing)
To mentor goals, ask questions
To mentor situations, tell stories

Be honest if you haven't experienced a situation personally; let them share ideas and help them wargame an approach
Acknowledge differences in privilege when sharing stories

To mentor skills, observe them in action and provide actionable feedback

Be specific about observations of their work
Provide direction about what they could've done differently or what to learn/practice to improve

Start with listening. Don't offer unsolicited advice. Figure out what they're asking about (goals/situation/skills)
Establish trust before jumping into advising & solving problems
Ask directly about the preferences of mentees to communication & mentoring approach
Think about what kind of mentor you are trying to be (tactical, 3-5 years ahead or a grizzled veteran who can offer meandering conversations): think about what bucket of advice you can provide and structure conversations accordingly.
Listen to subtext -- listen for actual root of mentee's challenge, confirm if hearing is true, then unpack ways to a productive solution via open-ended questions
Make sure your mentee is focused on the right problems (90% is not finding the optimal solution, but ensuring they're focused on the right problem in the first place) "Why does your mentee feel that this issue is an important challenge to prioritize? What’s the personal impact of this challenge? Asking questions like these in my sessions with my mentee helped us come to the realization that the challenge we were discussing didn’t actually need to be prioritized that highly after all"
Teaching to fish: "Wilkinson asks her mentees to come to her with a problem, but also with a proposed solution"
Viewing situations from different perspectives:

"I ask a lot of questions, especially around how it made my mentee feel and how it made others feel in the office. I want to make sure my mentees have done their homework and gained a comprehensive view of the entire team"
"I sometimes create scenarios for my mentee to practice difficult verbal communications, in which I play the role of the mentee, while they take on the role of one of their team members or peers. Exercises like these can help your mentee develop and practice the habit of seeing things through others' perspectives"

Empathy: “Being able to understand where someone else is coming from is always helpful. To do that, I start by asking mentees what they thought or how they felt about the pending issue or problem they brought me. Questions such as ‘How does it make you feel?’ and ‘What do you think is holding you back from saying what you want to?’ have been specifically helpful.”
Digging deeper: “I discourage folks from saying ‘I want to be an X,’ because it is often false signaling, based on an inaccurate understanding of what X actually does all day,” he says. “I also try to move beyond more blanket statements like ‘I want more autonomy.’ Autonomy looks and feels really different to different people, and so you have to drill down as a mentor to find what it means for your mentee specifically.”

---

Possible kick-off topics:

Background. It's nice to share backgrounds to break the ice and get to know the other person a bit better.
What's in it for me? What are you hoping to gain from this relationship? Where would you like to grow? Ask the other person the same thing. The best mentorships are two-way streets, where both people get something out of it.
Roles. What would you hope to get from the mentor? What would the mentor expect from the mentee?
Topics to cover. What areas are you interested in? Where would you like to grow? Is there something more pressing to discuss?
Cadence. How often should we follow up and when? I've seen most developers catch up once every two weeks for half an hour or and hour, at a time that works for both of them, e.g., sometimes over lunch.
Communication between catch-ups. Would the mentor be open to random pings? What is their schedule like?
Short-term wins. What is an area you'd like to grow in the next month? Let's start with focusing on that.
Evaluating progress. What criteria would help to assess how efficient this mentorship is?
Challenges. It's nice to lay out things that might make this relationship hard. For example, it's okay to share with your to-be-mentor that you have no clue how mentorship works. Or your mentor might share how they have a crazy next month, and they will be swamped.

---

Possible sync framework:

Key things that happened since last time. I like to fill in mentor briefly on key things that happened since last time. I keep this short.
Reflecting on action items / guidance / discussions from last time. If I did something we talked about last time like tried out an approach, read a book, I share the results. This is useful for both of us, and my mentor gets to learn something interesting.
A challenge I'm having, talking through it and brainstorming on an approach to solve it.
A recent success I've had. I describe a situation I thought I handled well and why I thought it went well, asking my mentor to share what she thought of it. Nine out of ten times, I get feedback from a different angle, that make me re-evaluate how I'll handle the situation the next time.

1 Kudos

Comments

Displaying 0 of 0 comments ( View all | Add Comment )