#nancylamberton

Tuesday morning, as I watched the neighborhood kids getting on the bus for the first day of school, I felt a sense of excitement myself.  This time of year always feels full of promise to me, even though autumn is quickly approaching.  Perhaps it is the anticipation of learning new things, making a fresh start with a new teacher, or the new school supplies.  At any rate, it has propelled me to start fresh with this blog, after taking the summer away from it. 

With renewed energy and enthusiasm, I have my game plan for the topics that I will share over the next few months.  I have also signed on to be a mentor in a very worthwhile program, which I will share with you in future writings.  I would also love to hear from you!  Please let me know if there are any topics that you would like to see addressed in Mentor~Wise (email me at [email protected]). 

 What in your mentoring could use a "fresh start"?

Do something different to re-vitalize a mentoring relationship

Contact someone who you mentored in the past, just to say hello and check in

Volunteer to mentor someone new

Informally mentor someone, who needs some extra support, by just taking them under your wings

Reconnect to what you want to give and gain as a mentor

Commit to taking your mentoring to a new level by listening more deeply and asking thought provoking questions

Breathe deeply and smile on a regular basis, being present to the moment

As soon as I heard "most of the participants don't speak English," my mind began to race. How would I engage everyone when they couldn't understand me?  Would I need to dramatically change the workshop structure?  What would it be like to have interpreters there?  And so on.

I was a bit bewildered as to how I was going to deliver an effective, engaging leadership workshop for a US Department of State sponsored International Visitor Leadership Program with this constraint. 

Then, I had an aha moment -- I may be considered an "expert" when it comes to leadership development, but training a non-English speaking group was totally new to me; thus I was a beginner.  As soon as I took on that beginner's mindset, I relaxed and lots of ideas came to me.  

Whether you are new at mentoring or a seasoned mentor, sometimes shifting from the pressure of being the expert to being a beginner creates all sorts of new openings. 

The following beginner's mindset is just as relevant to mentors as it was to me in preparing for the leadership workshop:

These are talented leaders in their own right, who are here to learn and contribute -- build on their knowledge and passion.

Be okay with being a bit vulnerable and letting people know if something is new to you. Ask for feedback and support.

Better to say that you don't know or haven't had that experience than to be disingenuous. 

Last thought.  Remember how much fun it was to learn to ride a bike, do a magic trick or build a fort, as a kid?  You don't always have to be the expert to be a good mentor.  Have some fun being a beginner again.  You might learn something from your mentee! 

It’s great that there is a month designated to celebrate the act of mentoring and its value to individuals and organizations.  Mentoring, when purposeful and offered in the spirit of reciprocity, is a generous act of sharing and learning.  It’s a beneficial, special kind of conversation.

Why not, during this month of celebrating mentoring, start a new daily practice of mentoring?   REALLY?  Who has time to mentor every day? Well, we all do, if we reframe how we look at mentoring. What if we looked at mentoring as a simple, purposeful (but not always easy) conversation?

Let’s boil the mentoring conversation down to some of its key components:

Intent –sharing one’s experience and knowledge in supporting another person’s goals and aspirations

Skills – listening, asking purposeful questions (open ended), sharing information, connecting with others

Spirit – reciprocity, generosity, caring, trust, wanting to make a difference

Outcome – enabling a new perspective or new possibilities for the future and the courage to take action

Given that perspective of the mentoring conversation, can you now imagine having that type of conversation on a daily basis? 

It might be a conversation with a peer about overcoming an obstacle on a project.  It might be sharing some insights with your boss on a possible solution for a customer’s issue.  It might be helping your child with her difficult homework. 

The mentoring conversation can be 10 minutes or an hour.  It can be scheduled or impromptu.  It can be part of a formal mentoring program or relationship or a one-time conversation.  You might be recognized with the mentor title or never hear the title used.  

If you carry that spirit of mentoring into many of your conversations throughout the day, I will venture to guess that it will change the outcomes of many of those conversations.  That’s something to celebrate!

Yes, we all know that in less than two weeks, the New Year will arrive - ready or not.  Which means that many of us will be making those New Year resolutions.   But before you go down that path, I encourage you to stop and reflect a bit on this past year.  

Too often, we have the tendency to want to leave the old year behind and start fresh with the new.  By stopping and looking back, we can reflect on what worked well during the past year and what has not worked for us.  Taking the time to reflect, before establishing our new goals and plans, enables us to learn from the past and thus, increase the likelihood of being more successful in the New Year.  

As a mentor, this is a good time of year to encourage your mentee to invest some time in reflection.  And of course, it couldn’t hurt for you to do the same. 

Whether you are doing some reflection on your own accomplishments, challenges and set backs in 2013, or mentoring someone through a conversation on this topic, following are some questions that are useful to ask: 

What have I experienced this year?

What did I achieve in 2013 that is worth celebrating?

What regrets do I have?  Tell yourself the truth as to why.

What is true for me now? 

What do I want to take with me into the New Year?

What changes do I want to make?

How will 2014 be different?

Recently I was on a panel at a university addressing mentoring, sharing best practices and ways for the students to utilize a mentor to support their career vision and development.  What these business students and many others want to know is “How do I find a mentor?” And then, “How do I ask someone to mentor me?” 

There are many people out there who would love to be mentored by you.  To have a mentor who asks them powerful questions and helps them see things from a new perspective.  A mentor, who is interested in supporting the mentee’s development versus just doling out advice.  It might be a colleague, a student, a neighbor, or even your boss. 

With today being GivingTuesday, a day when we are encouraged to make donations to our favorite charities, I want to encourage mentors to be proactive and offer your mentoring support without always first being asked.  Why is this an important request?  Because many individuals are afraid to ask for your help and for your time.  

When you sense that someone would appreciate a listening ear or an objective perspective, offer to have a conversation.  Just a conversation! Not a lifetime commitment as their mentor.  Mentoring is just a type of conversation – it doesn’t need a fancy label in order for it to happen. The important distinction about an effective mentoring conversation is that it is purposeful and is about helping the other person learn new approaches, perspectives and insights to reaching their goals. 

The idea came to Kathy Korman Frey back in 2009 when, as a business professor and mother, many young women asked her the same question about “how did she do it all.” Instead of telling her story over and over again, she created the Hot Mammas Project, where she told her story in a case study format and made it available to all.  Then she began collecting stories from other remarkable women throughout the world -- women, who are striving to build successful careers and have rich, full lives outside of work. 

The idea being that if young women could read stories about successful women, they would start believing that they could also have such a life and it would enhance their confidence to follow their own dreams. And according to Frey’s research, it seems to be working!

Mentors can learn a thing or two about the power of storytelling from these Hot Mammas.  Stories help people relate to one and other.  The lessons shared are often quite memorable, because the emotion behind the story makes it more compelling. Emotion wins over logic most of the time.  And as the Hot Mammas demonstrate, a relatable story can change someone’s mindset and help them see new possibilities for themselves. 

As a mentor, consider how you tell your stories when you are asked for advice or when you want to share a different perspective with your mentee.  Some of us are natural storytellers.  But if you don’t feel confident in your storytelling capability, here are some tips about making your stories more compelling, and thus effective: 

Start with the end in mind.  What is the takeaway message?

Keep it short.  A lot can be shared in a story that is one to three minutes long.  Going longer can lose the listener or take you off point.

Use real emotion to touch people hearts and minds. 

What is the compelling part of this story?  Often its how you or others dealt with conflict, obstacles or fear.  Paint a vivid picture of what was overcome and how.

And the moral of this story is.....oh, never mind.  If it’s a good story, the listener or reader will get the takeaway message. 

    Resource notes:  Read more about the Hot Mammas Project at their website http://www.hotmommasproject.org/competition.aspx and in Brigid Schulte’s article, “Mission: Seeing, believing” in the Washington Post on 11/3/13.