Six Secrets of Successful Mentoring

Karin Hurt and David Dye are keynote speakers and the award-winning authors of Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul. 

Mentoring at its best is a magical elixir which shaves years off your learning curve through mistakes unmade. Thank God, we’ve experienced the transformational spirit of amazing mentors. It’s that spirit we hope to pass on in my own mentoring of others.

Ask anyone who’s ever had an effective mentor where that experience ranks in their growth as a leader, and we’d bet serious money they’d put their mentor ahead of any keynote, consulting program, book, and quite possibly their 80K MBA. We say that as speakers, consultants, authors, MBA professor (Karin) former elected official (David) and people who’ve had the fortunate experience of having a gaggle of amazing mentors over the last two decades.

Effective mentorship is unscripted, raw, trusting, challenging and kind. Great mentorship is a two-way journey. It’s so human it bleeds into other areas of your life.

I (Karin) attended a funeral of a great mentor and felt like I’d lost my right arm. A dozen years later I still wonder what he would say when faced with difficult challenges. I wasn’t the only one in the room who felt that way because great mentors have ever-widening circles of influence.

Sadly, few folks I know have experienced that mentor-induced pull toward becoming the leader they are meant to become. When we ask my audiences how many of them have had a truly great mentor, it’s surprisingly sad how few raise their hands. In Karin’s MBA courses, the number is even fewer. Sometimes no hand is raised. This is our future.

As a culture, we’re not mentoring well. We think we know this, which is why requests for mentoring as a keynote topic is high on the list. “How do we do this better?”  “Who must we involve?” “Why isn’t this working?” “What about the ‘millennial situation?’”

As a culture, we’re not mentoring well. We think we know this, which is why requests for mentoring as a keynote topic is high on the list.

KARIN HURT & DAVID DYE

Here’s what we think matters.

The Important Stuff

Establish Measurable Goals: As Covey would say, begin with the end in mind. How will you know you’re successful? Determine how you will measure success. We promise you, it’s not just “that folks feel better.” 

Select the Right People: If you’re going to get into the business of match-making, do it well. Consider the value of Nemesis mentors. What often works best is announcing the program, providing people with scaffolding to make their own matches, and then support.

Give Them a Good Start: Ready, mentor, go is seldom enough. Even your smartest, most creative types can get a little twitchy when asked to do something outside of their day job. We’ve found a half-day kick off workshop including multiple mentoring relationships can go a long way in launching them toward success.

Establish Boundaries: Boundaries are vital. If you’re a mentor, does that mean you’re signing up to be a sponsor? These are key conversations. We’ve mentored a long list of folks we’ve helped to improve, but we wouldn’t put out brand on every one of their careers in support of the next promotion.

Give Them Something to Do: In every mentoring program we’ve developed, we’ve given them easy tools and activities to get them started.  Organic is great, and some will throw your guidance away. Awesome. Others will kiss it and make it so.

Consider Alternative Models: We’re  big fans of alternative mentoring models: speed mentoring, mentoring circles, peer mentoring, reverse mentoring. Too much to discuss here, but contact us to learn more!

Mentoring relationships can be extremely beneficial to both parties. Use these steps to make it so!

 

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