Introduction to Mentoring Relationships

What is ‘mentoring’?

A mentor is someone who shares their lived experience with you so you can learn from it. A mentee is the person who learns from the person with that experience.

Here are some examples of a mentor and mentee relationship.

• A mentor is in a leadership role and you learn lessons from them on how to give team members feedback.

• A mentor has the job you want one day and you learn industry specific insights from them.

• A mentor works in a different industry to the one you’re in and you’re hoping to learn from them.

How does it work?

You can either have a formal or informal relationship.

In a formal relationship, you’ll approach a mentor (or someone in the organisation you’re a part of will do this for you) to learn a specific skill. This might include meeting 1:1 to discuss a specific skill or topic, over six or twelve months.

In an informal relationship, you’ll approach someone who has experience you value and ask for their feedback or advice. This might be over a coffee, over the phone or via an email conversation.

Both are very valuable to learn from someone else's experience.

In most instances, the mentor volunteers their time (no money is exchanged).

In some instances, in more formalised situations, a mentor in high demand might charge for their time.

What’s in it for the mentor?

For the mentor, it’s an opportunity to distil their experience and share it with someone else.

It feels good to share what you’ve learned with others.

Mentoring principles.

In a mentoring relationship, it’s incumbent on the mentee (the person wanting to learn) to drive the agenda.

Download worksheet.

How do I find a mentor?

If you’re part of a formalised mentoring programme, your organisation will do that for you.

If you’re seeking a mentor independently, outline first what you want to learn (in the below video on structuring your relationship), and then identify who could potentially help you do that. Then outline whether that person is already in your network or not.

For example:

• I’ve identified that I want to learn presentation skills, so I need someone who’s confident in public speaking. In my network is someone in my workplace who seems really confident in that, so I could ask them to help me out.

• I’ve identified that I want to become a General Manager. It’s not a pathway available at my work, so I’ll ask my friends whether anyone they know is a GM I can chat to about what the role involves.

• None of my friends want to get into STEM, and I don’t know anyone in the industry. I’ll have a look online to see what organisations currently do that well and then find the person in the company who might be the recruiter and or someone who hires new people to learn what they look for.

Structuring your relationship.

Before you reach out to a mentor, clarify what you most want to learn.

Download worksheet.

The 5 mentoring principles.

1. If you’re the mentee it’s your job to project manage.

   In a mentoring relationship, it’s incumbent on the mentee (the person wanting to learn) to drive the agenda. That means it’s your role, if you’re the one learning, to ‘project manage’ the relationship including arranging to meet up and what you’ll talk about.

2. Mentors can come from anywhere.

   They don’t need to be older or ‘more experienced’, they just need to have expertise you value. They could be a teacher, friend, boss, family members, someone you follow online, a friend of a friend.

3. It can be formal or informal.

   In many instances, a mentor can be someone you phone once a year to have a chat. In others, it’s simply having someone on speed dial you trust. In more formalised situations you might sit with them more often (e.g. each month or quarter) to ask them a series of questions.

4. It’s a normal conversation that you structure around your questions.

   In the actual conversation with your mentor, you have questions to ask them and like a typical conversation, it can be very casual, no need to be overly formal in your conversations.

5. Mentors are more likely to say yes when you know what you want.

   Before you approach a potential mentor, get really clear on what specifically you want to learn from them and how it would benefit your career.