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Skills, thrills and personal development: five ways to get the most out of your mentor
Skills, thrills and personal development: five ways to get the most out of your mentor
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
Skills, thrills and personal development: five ways to get the most out of your mentor
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
Mentoring can be one of the most powerful tools for developing yourself as a social entrepreneur. We know that starting up and running any kind of venture can be a long and lonely journey. Having a trusted and experienced guide can make a real difference to your wellbeing and chances of success. That’s why we run a mentoring programme at UnLtd. We match our social entrepreneurs with mentors that can really help the growth of them and their venture. ‘ value of having a mentor? Having someone from a different world to respond to and discuss our ideas - to give us some really useful perspectives we never would have thought of. And of course the confidence boost in having an expert in their field believe in what we’re doing,’ said one social entrepreneur in a recent evaluation. ‘I see my mentor as a brilliant and smart business doctor: not always easy or enjoyable to talk to, but a really relevant, critical eye on my business.’ Here are five ways you can get the most out of your mentor.
Effective mentoring is built on two key components: clarity of focus and trust. It can be tempting to skip or minimise the time spent on simply getting to know one another but trust can’t be built without it and without trust mentoring can never work. Sharing your personal journey and why you are doing what you are doing will help your mentor understand your values. If you also take the time to understand their story and values too it will increase your ability to really understand one another and work effectively together. Rapport and trust building happens throughout the relationship but it requires extra TLC at the beginning.
One of the most common challenges we witness between mentors and mentees is a lack of shared understanding of what the role of a mentor is and isn’t. Discussing this at the beginning, sharing hopes and expectations on both sides, will help you to get on the same page. It’ll also help you to avoid surprises and disappointments further down the line. So, what is the role of a mentor? Generally speaking a mentor is never there to do any work for the mentee. They’re not there to solve all of the social entrepreneurs problems or tell them what they should do. Instead a skilled mentor will:
‘Put down your expectations on paper to talk through with your mentor. Be ready to discuss practicalities – when and where you can meet on a regular basis. Think about your working/learning styles and share this with your mentor at the start.’
After the initial excitement of meeting up and tackling some immediate challenges, there can be a risk of the relationship running out of steam.  At times mentoring conversations can also remain too shallow and this may get in the way of achieving meaningful outcomes or progress. The three most common causes for this are the social entrepreneur not having clear, substantial objectives for the mentoring relationship; or them not having sufficient confidence in their mentor to open up about the issues that really concern them. Finally, it might also be that the mentor is not listening to the spoken and unspoken cues carefully enough, so are not offering sufficient challenge in their questioning. If any this sounds familiar, we suggest you revisit your goals for the mentoring. Make sure that they're still fresh and relevant, with a solid grasp of where you wanted to be in six months or a years time. You might also want to schedule review points, dedicating a portion of some meetings to assessing progress, and providing feedback to one another. If your mentoring isn't moving forward, be honest with yourself and your mentor. What is really getting in the way?
Listening is one of the key skills in mentoring and applies also to the mentee, not just the mentor. As a general rule of thumb, a good mentor should spend about 80% of his/her time listening and 20% speaking. On occasions the split might even be 90/10. Creating a space where you can both practice in active listening and really hear what is being said (and not said) is critical for the mentoring relationship to deepen and necessary trust to be built. Suggestions for developing your listening skills include:
What else can you do at your next mentoring meeting to enable for better quality of listening?
Both parties have to be committed to the mentoring process and goals. This means that you need to establish regular dates to meet. If these keep slipping it’s worth reflecting on why. Are both parties committed to the relationship? Is having a mentor a priority for your development right now? Bringing these questions into the open will help you and your mentor decide whether to continue or not. If you want to continue it’s important to schedule regular dates to meet and ensure both parties don’t let other priorities get in the way. It’s also worth considering other ways to keep in touch or have meetings - whether that’s by phone, skype, email or text.
Mentoring is part of the UnLtd core package, if you think you could benefit from a mentor please contact your Award Manager.