Do your Mentors add value?

Mentors are essential to growth and success in business and life.  My observation and experience are that most mentoring relationships underperform, operating more like coffee discussions rather than time-bound engagements designed to solve a well-defined challenge.   Successful mentoring creates positive change that lasts a lifetime.

Follow these 5 tips to ensure your mentors add significant and enduring value to your work life.

1. Know what problem you are solving.   Be clear and specific on what problem you wish to solve and share that with your mentor.  Your mentor will appreciate your focus on outcomes and be better positioned to help.  The greatest mentoring experience I had was to enable me to be more influential in business meetings. I’ve never forgotten what I was told.

2. Feedback is critical at every step.  You should focus your problem on observed behavior. That could be in a performance review or from conducting your own 1:1 interviews.  Make sure you have a means in place for people to assess if your changes are working.     It’s easy to convince ourselves things are getting better, the proof has to come from others.

3. Time-bound your engagement.  Set a time limit e.g. 2-3 months.  Your mentor will be more willing to invest in you knowing there is a specific endpoint.  And if your mentor isn’t moving the needle after 2-3 months you should fire them anyway.

4. Choose the mentor that is right for you and your problem.  You need to feel safe talking about your work challenges and you need someone that will have valuable insights ad advice.  I have often found the best mentors don’t work closely with you but have enough exposure to have seen the problem you are facing at first hand. 

5. Be engaged.  Prepare for your mentoring sessions like you would an important meeting.  Have your talk points and questions ready.  When your mentor sees your commitment, they will strive to match it.