The Mentorship Blueprint
The Mentorship Blueprint
Mentorship
is not a foreign concept to those who succeed in national security career
fields. Most people understand mentorship is important, and they likely have
several types of mentors on whom they can count. To establish this lasting
relationship requires an individualized approach because each relationship is
unique. What is required to create a unique relationship is not foreign, and
this document serves to outline the best method to map out mentorship
approaches and goals. Tried and true methods are gathered here to guide and
develop the mentorship relationship, to help ensure it remains on course and
productive with both quantitative and qualitative results.
Mentor’s Experience
Begin by
sending a brief message introducing yourself. The message should be a short
biography, of not only work experiences, but also what you see as strengths.
This information will help the mentee assess what you, as the potential mentor,
bring to the relationship. While doing this, consider what you want to get out
of the mentoring relationship — this is a two-way street. A mentor
will only take a mentee seriously if he or she is sincere in the search for mentorship.
Do not find a clone of you; diversely mentor. The best mentorship relationships
take a mentee who is strong and makes them stronger. Other great relationships are
when a mentor seeks out someone who is struggling, and knows that he or she has
the strengths that can help the mentee. Offering to help coach someone in that
regard brings value to your own growth.
Starting
the connection is key. Begin by listening and telling stories. These don’t need
to be about work but rather experiences that illustrate your values, your
perspectives and biases. Place yourself in their shoes and understand,
sometimes a mentor can be intimidating, especially if you hold a powerful or
influential position. Starting off can appear rocky because the mentee could be
intimidated by the mentor. Stories about you or your experiences, particularly
those that are about the mentee’s age in stage, in life or career, can put
mentees at ease. This beginning starts with an understanding of whom you both
are now, and where you are at in the process of development. Assuring a mentee
that you are willing to dedicate the time is both meaningful and relevant.
Historically,
exemplar mentor relationships are bountiful. Bill Gates had Dr. Ed Roberts.
General Dwight Eisenhower had Brigadier General Fox Connor. Steve Jobs had
Robert Friedland. Elizabeth Taylor had Aubrey Hepburn. Mentorship relationships
exist across the entire work spectrum. They are important because of their
lasting impression on those who endeavor to serve in this role. Mentorship is
different from sponsorship or championship. Mentorship digs deeper and gets to the heart
of creating individuals from what they are to what they want to be.
Discovery and Development
Following
an introduction, and the established start of a mentorship relationship, a
framework is necessary for future mentorship sessions. This framing helps walk
you through several months of discovery learning. With a growth mindset, as a
mentor, this blueprint assists in easing the facilitation of a great mentorship
relationship.
Discovering Strengths & Weaknesses
In any
relationship, understanding what motivates someone helps to clarify how to work
with him/her. In a mentorship both players can optimize the time together by
understanding each other’s strengths. A mentor typically has a solid
understanding of whom he or she is, and with this knowledge, how best to help
mentees discover their advantages. In the information space there are hundreds
of personality tests or introspective ways to determine a person’s best self.
The recommended, “Strengths Based Leadership” by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, is
one of the better tools to use in a mentorship relationship because it decodes
strengths into usable approaches to discuss. Use the results to shape a plan
forward with your strengths.
An
additional four questions you can start with, when working with a mentor, looks
at how they operate.
- What are my strengths in the workplace?
Here
you can shape and discuss if your mentee is good at planning, problem solving,
thinking about problems and moving towards a solution. This question can
illustrate how they are in terms of tackling work.
- What are my strengths in working with people?
Find
your mentees’ abilities
to see themselves and how they deal with
people. In their interactions are they a consensus builder or do they relate to
people on a one to one basis? If your mentee
is the rare breed that brings people together and demonstrates a visionary approach, show him/her the advantage of that strength.
- What are my strengths in dealing with information?
Mentees
who are analytical in their process of information and detail-oriented versus those who think about the big picture, see the world
differently. There are people who think creatively and work to dig into highly
complex problems. Others like a linear approach with steps, sequence, and
process.
- What are my strengths in influencing others?
There
are those who are simply drawn towards leadership and work to engage that strength. Others are more of an
investigator and could use mentorship to see how this strength is important in
many areas of a work environment. Some mentees have the strength to take a
failing project and turn it into a raging success.
A
practical example of how to conduct this exercise comes from my own experience
where I used my strengths to assist one of my mentees.[2]
With this mentee, our strengths were absolutely opposite of one another. I was
able to appreciate his abilities and encourage him to proceed using the skills
which he possessed rather than use the strengths which I found successful. For
instance, my mentee’s strength allowed him to theoretically make connections
between what is and what can be. This strength of a creative imagination was
exceptionally useful in a very linear and hierarchical organization.
Encouraging this strength allowed him to break from convention and utilize his
creative ideas to solve a very big operational problem within the organization.
Understanding
weaknesses is absolutely as important as understanding strengths. With mentors,
you’ve got to dig to ensure they understand the entirety of whom they are and
sometimes the unvarnished truth of where they’ve got a hole in their swing. To
understand a weakness is to look at the flip side of a strength. For instance,
one exceptionally motivated mentee had the strength of competitiveness and the
aggressive nature to win. For my mentee her win at all costs attitude developed
a vengeance- like drive where seeing others as passive or as a loser came up
frequently in our discussions. The interplay to understand this weakness
assisted this mentee in ratcheting down the negative comments about others and
using her strength to achieve great things in her career. In essence, the steps
my mentee took in this exercise prevented the potential development of a toxic
leader.
Building Authentic Leadership
Once a
mentor understands the strengths of a mentee, he or she determines the best way
toward moving to the next step, sketching out the framework to help the mentee
to take the next step towards his or her end goal. The use of discussion traits
and the mentor’s guidance provides mentees with a visualization of what courage, character, commitment, respect,
and integrity looks like and aids in
their understanding of personal leadership development and vision. As you are mentoring, helping individuals
discover building blocks to leadership strengthens their foundation. During
development, mentees can discover examples of these traits succeeding or
failing in the workplace. This aids also in the development of their own vision
of how they exemplify and explain leadership to themselves.
Beginning
with courage, a wonderful definition
by General Ann Dunwoody, states simply that courage is, “having the guts to do
the right thing for the right reasons.”[3]
Courage is important in many areas. In the classroom and in the boardroom,
courageous acts exist. An example of mentoring someone to understand acting
courageously in the workplace occurred amongst leaders in the national security
field. Courageously, an intelligence analyst articulated and clearly presented
information to a policy maker that his decision was flawed. The pressure to
stay in line was intense, but in this example, teaching a mentee how critical
this input was demonstrated to his that courage occurs on and off the
battlefield. Courage to do the right thing, under pressure, is an area best
discussed before a mentee encounters that situation.
The next
leadership trait is character. The
discussion of this trait should begin with the mentor using past examples.
History is chalk- full of illustrations of when a leader with the strength of
character made a difference in the outcome of someone’s life. Discussing the
exemplary work of Thurgood Marshall, Malala Yousafzai, and even Benjamin
Franklin, can pull forward decisions your mentee might consider in life. Work
to teach mentees to listen to people around them. One great exercise to use for
mentors is to have them enquire about leaders around the workplace, to people
who they deem in leadership positions, and why they are successful. When your
mentee reports that people reference their time in position or title, you can
walk them through why referencing rank or longevity is an example of poor
leadership and weak character. If a mentee has people reference their
credentials, certificates, or education they may be around moderately
successful people but not the best ones to follow. Your mentee is surrounded by
great leaders of character when they enquire why these leaders are successful
and their leadership talks about bringing value to others and opening the door
for those they lead.
Another
leadership discussion to hold with a mentee concerns the trait of commitment. David Brooks, in “The Road
to Character,” discusses continually asking oneself what’s most important and
mapping it out like a business plan.[4]
The trait of commitment to achieving something greater than yourself falls in
line with this strategy. Providing mentees guideposts works to help them see
how they serve and lead their lives with purpose and meaning. It is not
impossible to start exploring this question with younger mentees because it
will uncover what they value. As a mentor, by listening, value is added through
the explanation of your strategy and context from your own authentic
development of committed leadership.
The trait
of respect immediately brings to
mind Aretha Franklin and her ability to turn one word into an epic song. It
rings true today about the importance of respecting yourself and finding out
what it means to your mentee. In the framework of leadership components,
respect is critical to growing oneself and then applying to others. For
instance, I’ve helped mentees understand respect by outlining, with them, what
they hold as sacred in their life. For instance, when I’ve mentored people who
are new parents, we often discuss the respect of this new massive change in
their life. If they don’t set
boundaries and demonstrate to others what is sacred in their lives and ask
others to respect that, then no one will. The demonstrable area of treating
oneself and one’s own time with respect provides a practical application of
what’s most important. Extrapolating this more broadly and respecting others is
merely a reflection of this same effort. How you treat yourself directly plays
into how you treat others. Therefore, if you’re noticing behaviors in a
mentee’s life, both internal and external, where her or she needs to shift,
it’s incumbent upon you as a mentor to speak up and walk your mentees forward
to where that negative behavior, comment, or attitude might land them in the
future.
The last
and most critical lessons you can provide for your mentee revolves around the
subject of integrity. Honesty and
truth are critical when working with a mentee. If there is one area in which to
dedicate a significant amount of time to, this is the area. One of the most
desired qualities people are looking for in a boss is honesty. Having a strong
ethical background can help you lead your mentee away from going down dark
paths that would compromise integrity. When I began at the United States
Military Academy at West Point, one of the bedrock principles drilled into us
was that a “cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal nor tolerate those who do.”
This simply and clearly let us know that our actions would be held to this
standard. It was a rather high bar to which to hold oneself and when the
culture met this expectation, it became the norm. When starting to discuss
integrity, honor, and trust with your mentee harken to Albert Einstein’s quote
that, “whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted
with the important matters.”[5]
Lessons from a mentor where teams without trust were dysfunctional and fell
apart are critical examples for mentees. This opportunity to stress integrity
in the development of your mentee must receive focus and emphasis because trust
matters.
Despite
all that is said, perfection in leadership is not attainable. Discussing with
your mentee examples of where leaders have failed or where there are cracks in
the system helps. One example I use is about integrity and openness. Complete
honesty is not always feasible. There are areas in our work where you serve as
a mentor to someone but cannot be fully transparent due to the very nature of
the work. For instance, within many business cultures, the subject of
compensation has yet to receive full openness and transparency. As a mentor, you
may decide to be open, honest, and truthful about the amount of pay you are
receiving. Or you could decide to keep this information private. That being
said, you can demonstrate transparency by explaining to your mentee your
rationale for not being fully transparent. The explanation for your actions
helps build a stronger, trusting relationship.
Exploring Challenges
Exploring
challenges with a mentee begins the path of teaching self-reflection. Start
with the question, “Where do you see yourself ten years from now?” and see
where it goes. Ten years into the future is a long enough focus area where it’s
unclear what exactly will take place along the path and visionary enough to
allow for some desire into the future. Simply put, it’s time enough to put a valuation
of your effort onto either a number of where you want your bank account to be,
a particular lifestyle in which you will be living, or reaching towards a dream
of something to attain. Getting a mentee to take that visionary step forward
occurs multiple ways. The use of design theory works well here. Begin with
where your mentee is right now and what he or she is going through. Then begin
to project forward and identify possible lifestyles. This explores the hope and
possibility for change, if needed, or the path to move forward along the
trajectory your mentee is on.
If
starting with a question about what future appeals to you, look for jobs,
people, cultures that are inviting to a mentee. This is similar to provide a
menu of options and brainstorming possibilities. With one mentee I explored
four separate paths forward. We looked at jobs as a consultant, a coach, a
public relations position, and a military officer. They all fit within her
wheelhouse and each appealed to her in a different way. Next, we explored what
kind of people she wanted to be around. Looking at different examples, we
discussed personalities, cultures, and the attitudes of individuals in each of
the projected areas which she might enjoy in the next decade. This easily cut
out some of the options of a life path because she did not enjoy spending time
with certain segments and cultures of one of the options. Again, knowing what
mentees do not want to do is just as
important in challenging them as what they do want to accomplish.
Exploring
challenges also considers mentees’ current work environments. Start by listing
out areas where, if they were given three wishes, they would improve the
workplace and what change they’d like to implement. Then break down the three
lofty wishes into goals, using realistic management objectives. With this a
tried and true method, results keep a mentee focused on taking on the
challenges of change and making it happen. By placing specific, measurable,
achievable, realistic, and timely (SMART) objectives towards the goal for
change, you’ve challenged mentees to achieve an accomplishment that they’d held
as only a wish before. This provides a time- bound and an accountable activity
for you to explore with them as you serve as their mentor.
When
looking at broad questions with a mentee and exploring well into the future, a
clear path sometimes forms. The most important part of challenging mentees is
that you’re providing them optional blueprints for building a bridge into the
future. You may give them the hammer, the nails, and even supply the wood.
What’s important here is that the mentees build the bridge. They’ll have to do
the hard work of constructing this forward path ahead of themselves. Do not do
it for them because it fails to provide them the learning experience they
richly need to achieve success.
Transformative Steps
With goals in hand, support mentees threw this new
approach. This is especially important if they are starting a new job or
entering a new field or profession. My recommended reading for any mentees
transitioning is Dr. Michael D. Watkins’ books on “The First 90 Days.”
Additionally, I’ve often recommended “The First 90 Days in Government” to those
starting any job within a sector that coordinates with national security.[6] The
nine steps below are each explored with advice to use when mentoring someone
through the nine steps during the first 90 days:
1. Job expectations – Help mentees
understand their new position and the expectations that come with it. Mentoring
someone into a new position with two direct reports and his or her first
manager opportunity requires a different approach than mentoring someone who is
taking on the responsibility of leading a 500-person organization. Shaping an
understanding of objectives and the differing level of importance required for
each is pertinent for a mentee to understand.
2. Strategy to Situation – Have your mentee
explain initial impressions. Remember this is within the first 90 days of a
job. Does the organization need to turn around or realign? There are
drastically different processes and procedures to conduct either type of
change.
3. Learn – Explore with your mentee the
perceived or real challenges. Explore the areas of resources, barriers to
growth or commitment, and most importantly, if there are issues with trust in
the workforce.
4. Early Wins – Map out and define
one-year goals with a mentee. Often this occurs through changing the culture. A
mentee requires a focused approach toward cultural change. To create early wins
in this department, ensure that quarterly and attainable steps are outlined and
also accounted for during your mentorship.
5. Build the team – You’re mentoring
someone to serve as a future leader. In this aspect, you are paying it forward.
By helping your mentee see the best path towards building his or her own team,
you’re adding to the environment of collaboration. Work to explore the strengths
of your mentee and how to build a lasting team.
6. Create alliances – Encourage your
mentee to work with people you know and trust. You’re opening doors for them in
different ways and creating a greater network. Building new alliances in the
workplace allows for a much smoother transition in 90 days. Additionally,
working to have them maintain an optimistic spirit and understand the silver
lining to any situation remains important.
7. Achieve alignments – When alliances are
solidifying, a look at the alignments of systems and policies should also
occur. For instance, using systems thinking and work internal and external to
the organization can help a mentor look at those who will help them achieve
change. If mentees are simply networking for transactional connections, work to
dissuade this behavior.[7]
Instead, look at the goodness that they can use with others to achieve change
in a transformational manner.
8. Avoid predictive surprises – In any new
organization a mentor serves best by helping the mentee avoid the landmines.
Having already attended the course at the school of hard knocks, a mentor
understands the advice of ensuring deadlines are met and time is of the essence
in the first 90 days. Help your mentee know the end of the month report is due
at the end of the month. Rather simplistic but absolutely critical. Be their
truth teller when needed. Your trusted shove forward is better than a kick in
the rear at work.
9. Manage Yourself – New and even seasoned
managers can often neglect self-care. Especially when charging forward into a
new position, it is critical to ensure your mentees not only take care of the
people they lead but also take care of themselves. The sooner people recognize
this the better. Ensure, even after the first 90 days, they know that they are
always the best manager of their career and of their own success.
Consequential Changes
As in any
organization, change is hard, and incredibly worthwhile. Consequentiality and
lasting change depends upon how you help frame change to your mentee. Benjamin
Franklin stated it clearly when he said, “there are no gains without pains.”[8] A
mentee working towards changing managerial style, the organization he or she is
leading, or simply working on self-development, requires focused attention on
change. In mentorship, changes are critical. A great resource to share with
your mentor is Angela Duckworth’s seminal work, “Grit.” Dr. Duckworth discusses
both the passion and perseverance surrounding those dedicated to a task. She
also states that “the development of grit is not just about the quantity of
time devoted to interests, but also the quality of time. Not just more time on task but better time on task.”[9]
Mentors are best served when they work with mentees to understand what that
deliberate practice looks like and how to make change work.
The
consequentiality of that change exists when mentees understand how critical it
is to themselves or an organization. Providing them with feedback is necessary
because once the level of the challenge meets the level of skill of mentees
demonstrates they’re at the sweet point of expansion. Working to encourage
their continued growth occurs when you encourage both reflection and then
refinement of their developed processes that work. You’re offering life skills
to this mentee that will be used well into the future. If they are falling
short in their challenge, be candid and honest about where they are and where
they want to go. It could simply be that they do not possess the skills
required for the job. Your mentee may be a person who thinks grandiosely and is
not realistic in the steps necessary for such a large challenge. More times than not, mentees are thinking too
small and could challenge themselves with even greater efforts. Be the light to
lead them toward that change.
Talents Recognized
The last
step following the successful journey of your mentorship is to focus on the
areas a mentee is best prepared to enter. Through discovery and focused time
developing, a growth mindset now is the time to celebrate the strengths of your
mentee. Looking at where he or she has come from and what he or she has learned
will help you have them focus on the next steps. Talent recognition is key to
discovering future paths. When people recognize their talents, they can profit
from them. That’s why Upwork, Etsy and Fiverr keep thriving. Look at those
websites and see the diversity of talent there. Talk to your mentee and see
where he or she can also profit from their talents.
Application
of strengths and talents in different areas is the final and lasting step of a
mentorship relationship. When a mentor positively monitors a mentee’s
performance and confirms the areas where he or she best performs, that mentee
can look for ways in which to improve his or her strengths. With this, he or
she will develop faster than when focusing on weaknesses. Because in the end,
even more people than you expect are helped by a mentee’s new talents. Others’
lives may be changed because you helped your mentee grow. Mentoring is
reciprocated in the future and the talent you’ve helped someone develop will
further enhance some other person in the future. That’s the key to great
mentoring. As Jon Bunyan stated, “you have not lived today until you have done
something for someone who can never repay you.”
Concluding the Mentoring Relationship
All good things eventually come to an end.
Mentoring relationships can continue throughout a lifetime, but most mentoring
programs last a year and move forward when either the mentor or mentee move in
a different direction. Recognizing this begins when you ask yourself the
following questions:
●
Did your mentee reach his or her
goals and feel confident in closing out this relationship?
●
Did the mentee need to adjust the
goals given the feedback you received?
● Can this mentee focus on new or revised goals?
● Is the mentee willing to keep receiving mentorship at this point? Do you want him or her to?
Come to an
agreement on the status of your relationship and move forward from there. When
ending a mentoring relationship, you want to be as polite and amicable as
possible, which means no ghosting. Work towards a conclusion and stay in touch.
Periodic touch points, if conducted bi-annually, work well to keep the
relationship active and connected. Adam Grant graciously stated about people
who give, as mentors do, “get to the top without cutting others down, finding
ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them.”[10]
A
mentoring relationship develops talents, uncovers gifts, or discovers strengths,
which are worth more than diamonds. To discover them, a mentee needs to dig for
them. No one can dig to find what makes another really tick. Once found, remove
the dust, and help your mentee polish them. The more we take care of mentees,
the more we can recognize the other diamonds in others’ lives. Talents and
gifts, similar to diamonds, will shine brightly and increase with value over
time. Because you took the time to help another search for their talents, gifts
and strengths, the return of your investment may be more than what you could ever have imagined.
About the Author: Colonel Candice Frost is an active duty Army officer and a leadership consultant. Her work in intelligence on the Army Staff provides her unique insights on the highest levels of leadership in DoD. She is a public speaker who focuses on mentorship and leader development. If you like what you're reading please consider sharing your email with this blog. Candice lives in Washington, DC and can be reached at candicefrost1776@gmail.com. For more information see www.colonelcandid.com
[1] THE CAREER ADVISORY BOARD Job
Preparedness Indicator Study, DeVry University, 2013. https://www.careeradvisoryboard.org/content/dam/dvu/www_careeradvisoryboard_org/cab-2013-jpi-es.pdf (accessed May 4, 2020).
[2] Executing / Achiever, Connectedness,
Relationship/Positivity, Strategic Input and Strategic Learner. The mentee was
Arranger, Restorative, Responsible, Ideation, and Developer.
[3] GEN Ann Dunwoody, A Higher Standard, (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2015), 97.
[4] David Brooks, The Road to Character, (New York: Random House, 2015), 21.
[5] No author, Leadership Through the Ages, (New York: Miramax Books, 2003), 3.
[6] Peter H. Daly and Michael Watkins, The First 90 Days in Government,
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press), 2006).
[7] Luck is created through relationships and
network. Who you are, passion points, see abilities and capabilities. You won’t
get there on your own. Develop networks, multiple cups of coffee. Gets closer
and closer. Think about you when you have opportunities.
[8] Benjamin Franklin's Famous Quotes, The
Franklin Institute, https://www.fi.edu/benjamin-franklin/famous-quotes (accessed on May 9, 2020).
[9] Angela Duckworth, Grit, (New York: Scribner), 118.
[10] Adam Grant, Give
and Take, (New York: Penguin), 358.
Comments
Post a Comment