MENTORS

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Mentorship is one of the tools organizations use to build company strength from within. Experienced and committed leaders use their talents to help less experienced team members develop the critical thinking and analytical skills they’ll need as they assume more responsibility. A good mentorship program has dedicated mentors and creates opportunities to instill trust and build confidence in inexperienced employees. It works because it nurtures personal development through a one-on-one relationship.

In my Management Matters podcast, I discussed the role of the workplace mentor and the benefits to the mentee, the mentor, and the organization itself. Mentoring programs give the mentee a safe space to test ideas and develop skills that can be the difference between thriving and burning out. The show piqued my interest in how, and when good mentors develop skills to guide others. Many organizations have formal mentor training programs but without the ability to empathize and recognize the vulnerability of the mentee, no amount of training in the world will succeed.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that workplace mentoring is a natural extension of the guidance and support we provide for others throughout our lives. I thought about the saying “It takes a village” and how it often describes the role people assume whenever someone needs support. Everyone pulls together regardless of the “official” relationship. Doesn’t that make the workplace another village? When everyone assumes responsibility for the organization’s success, we make it incumbent upon ourselves to ensure everyone has the skills to be successful. I think of mentorship as one generation passing knowledge and skills down to the next one. 

HOW MENTORING STARTS

We start mentoring as soon as someone has a baby. Everyone gets involved in helping the child become a functioning member of society. The parents set the expectations for establishing the baby’s care, initial beliefs, and values. The villagers all help to reinforce those norms from day one. They guide the child’s perception of what is acceptable and what isn’t. Eventually, the child gets exposed to other mentors because their village has gotten bigger. They in turn start to mentor others as we continue to mentor them. For me, it means that mentoring is a continuous circle that encourages learning, thought, analysis, and action. So doesn’t it make sense to think that we have to have a company-sanctioned program to do it at work?

MENTORSHIP AT WORK

So why do we get so serious when we talk about workplace mentorship? I mean uber-serious. We create policy and slide decks showing how we can get the most bang for our buck. We interview “appropriate” candidates to mentor and find mentees who are worth the resources (read time and money) we spend to teach people how to do what they’ve been doing their entire lives. I’m not saying companies shouldn’t do this, it’s good business. But it doesn’t have to be the only way to embrace mentoring in the workplace. Unless we’ve been living in a cave, we’ve been mentors all our lives. At work, we can use those innate skills to mentor people who may not be selected for the official program.  Why can’t we use the mentoring program’s vision and purpose everywhere we see the desire to learn? If we do, we foster organizational growth in the same way we nurture our children from infancy, through adolescence and on to adulthood.

THE MENTEE

What about those unofficial mentees? Do they understand the goals? Can they see they’re learning to think for themselves and make better decisions? Probably not at first, but your job is to guide them, not tell them what to do. That’s the difference between mentoring and coaching. You help them reach that “aha” moment when the light bulb comes on and they start to figure things out for themselves. You can do this for anyone you meet (as long as they’re willing to participate). Mentors guide, and coaches teach. You can,and should be both but not at the same time. You are someone your mentee trusts and respects which means that you have to plan your role every time you meet. I talked about the difference in a previous post. “Coach or Mentor” 

THE CHALLENGE

As a mentor, I challenge you to redefine your role. Flex your mentorship muscles and look for others in the workplace who can benefit from your expertise. Just because they’re not part of the official program doesn’t mean you can’t use the guidelines to help them. You don’t limit your impact to one kid at a time in your village away from work, so why not find someone who could use the benefit of your wisdom and experience, and become part of the larger workplace village?

Creating community through meals

Creating Community at Camp

I was invited to be a camp counselor a couple of weeks ago. You know, the kind where you go when you were a kid. Cabins full of bunk beds with 2-inch mattresses and campfires and s’mores while coyotes howl in the night. The whole shebang. No adjustable bed, and no after-dinner cocktails while binge-watching Netflix in the recliner. None of that adult stuff.. Just below-freezing nights followed by below-freezing mornings and barely above-freezing afternoons. It was a great weekend.

Camp Coming Out Happy

The weekend was sponsored by the Coming Out Happy Social Wellness Club led by somatic healing coach Keely Antonio and her partner life coach Dani Max. At the Yavapai Apache Campground in Prescott, AZ, we focused on creating a safe place for people to build community.  A place to find a sense of community and belonging through play. Play comes naturally to us as children, but we have to think about it and plan it when we grow up and that’s a shame. Playing allows us to bond and create a community without thinking about it. It is vital to growth and healing and as adults, we often forget how to do it. Our play turns into a competition with the expectation of rewards in the form of prizes or money.  We tend to forget that oftentimes, the reward is simply playing for the sake of playing.

We spent the first day playing like 9-year-olds. The teams were called peanut butter and jelly and only served as a way to make the groups more manageable. No competition, no worrying about what the other team was doing. It was simply the joy of being outside and playing. The resulting movement and laughter helped create a cond in people who barely knew each other’s names on the bus. When the day was over, we sat by a roaring campfire and told silly stories weaving in the day’s activities with things we had learned about our playmates and the things we observed during the day. The result was a tale about traveling through portals to the moon with pantless coyotes howling in the night. It made perfect sense to us even though it made no sense at all.

The Walk

I was chosen to lead a nature walk on day two, and I wanted to point out that when we become leaders, we become nurturers and caretakers in a similar way the land around us gives and takes sustenance from other parts of nature. We all start as seedlings, needing our relationship with our surroundings to grow and support each other. As we grow, we give that back to others around us and the community becomes stronger, able to withstand the storms and fires that come along with being part of the landscape. The walk ended in an honest discussion about what we needed to do to help our communities grow and thrive when we got back to the adult world.

The Connection

I believe in servant leadership. I see myself as a caretaker, giving my team what it needs to be successful. In the end, it’s not about me. I started preparing for my introduction to the walk, and noted that good leaders are successful because we create community, and what better place to demonstrate that than at camp?

When the weekend was over, there were hugs and tears and we had learned to care for the strangers we had met only two days before. We became each other’s caretakers, and I took away a valuable lesson that leadership is about not only creating community. It’s about taking care of that community so that it thrives and goes on to impact others in small ways that allow it to continue to grow. I came home with a simple question. Do we become leaders because we are caretakers or are we caretakers because we choose to lead? If we do it right, I suspect it’s a bit of both.

Tools and Tips to Manage Your Time

photo by anncapictures

Time Management is Critical to Success

The lack of time management and prioritization can bite anyone in the butt, no matter how experienced you are. I know, because this month’s blog almost got away from me for that very reason. It’s been a rough month; my computer went to that great recycling bin in the sky, and I’ve been working with (wait for it…) pen and paper. How antiquated can you get?  While that’s not an excuse, it is a fact that I was not very motivated to write a blog in longhand, so I fell way behind in my schedule. The funny thing is that I’ve been working with a client on improving his time management skills.  DUH!

Once it dawned on me that I should probably be using the tools I introduced to him, things got a lot easier. It’s not rocket science, it’s forming habits. So today, I’ll share them with you.  You probably already know them so consider this month’s blog a gentle reminder – mainly to me because I can go back and read it the next time it feels like my hair is on fire.

Tool #1 – Use your calendar to keep track of when you need to complete tasks

Use your calendar as a planning tool

• Add events with start and end times [Meet w/ Client 1:00-2:00 on Tuesdays]
• Add tasks that can be crossed off when completed [review training plan next Wednesday]
• Create meetings that you can join directly from the calendar [log on to virtual meeting]
• Chunk your work sessions to give you control over your day
  • Block out when you’re busy so you won’t be disturbed
    • Schedule work in increments (need 3 hours to work on a proposal? Schedule 3 1-hour long sessions during the week to get it done)
    • Lunch
  • Use notifications to remind you that things are about to begin
    • A 30-minute notification gives you time to close what you’re doing and prepare for what’s next
    • A 24-hour notification is a reminder of the next day’s work.

Take the time to learn the functions your calendar provides. It can be a great timesaver and stress reliever.

 Tool #2 – Prioritization: Use the Eisenhower Matrix to keep track of what to do first

I learned this a long time ago and on occasion, I pull it out when things get overwhelming.  It’s a simple 4 block matrix that helps put things in perspective.

The idea is to identify tasks in terms of urgency and importance.  One way to think about it is to remember that urgency means there is a time factor involved.  It must meet a deadline.  Importance, on the other hand, means there are consequences if it doesn’t get done. It doesn’t matter when it gets done but not doing it causes problems.  The Eisenhower Matrix gives you a way to combine the two factors to help you see the most beneficial way to use your time.  Take a look:

The Eisenhower Matrix

Davidjcmorris, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Identifying priorities

What’s the difference between urgent and important? It depends. Here are some things that might fit into the categories

• Priority 1 Urgent and Important: Drop everything and get it done.
• Priority2 Important but Not Urgent: Take the time to schedule what needs to be done and by whom
• Priority 3 Urgent but not important: Delegate the task to someone who has the skills to get it done. This is a great opportunity for team development and training.
• Priority 4 Not Important and Not Urgent: Don’t worry about it. It’s ok if it doesn’t get done

Putting it all together

The key to being better at time management is planning what you need to do and then prioritizing what’s most important. Using the calendar functions presents the big picture and you can look at it in terms of days, weeks, months, or years.  Color coding the various items (i.e., meetings in green, healthcare in blue, etc.) lets you see things at a glance. You can also create separate calendars to isolate repetitive events (i.e., sports events, date nights, etc.). An added bonus is that you can share your calendar with other people. The point is you can customize it any way you want. It gives you the information you need to plan your work and work your plan.  Once you set it up, the calendar becomes a valued tool.

After you set up your calendar(s) It’s time to use the Eisenhower Matrix. The goal is to identify the things that you: (1) Have to do immediately, (2) Can plan for, and (3) Ignore or do when you have taken care of the other priorities.

Summary

Taking the time to prioritize what you need to do and then scheduling when to get it done is a tremendous benefit.  Not only will you be more organized and efficient, but you will also be less stressed and more focused.  It’s a win for everyone.

Resources:

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/eisenhowers-urgent-vs-important-principle