Mentor First Aid Kit

Last year I became a mentor. My manager suggested assuming this responsibility and I said a great YES. I have always felt a motivation to encourage and support others in their growth. So that was my opportunity to do it!

But now what?

In a few days I had my first one-on-one. What a responsibility! It had been a long time since I had my last meeting with a student (before being a developer I was a language teacher). That was the most comparable situation to a one-on-one I had faced, and I thought this would be similar. Maybe you also have some personal or professional background that gives you tools to face your first one-on-ones. Think about it.

After this consideration, I started thinking how I could help and guide my mentees to become the professionals they wanted to be. And here was my first thought about this:

“To achieve my purpose, I firstly need these one-on-ones to be a place where my mentees can openly share their motivations, needs and concerns.”

Following this premise, I wanted them to come and say: “Irene, I have no idea what goal I can choose” or “Irene, I’m finding some struggle with ….” I even wanted to keep track of how they felt not only about their goals or tasks but also about their client, project, team or even the company. I’m convinced that all these factors have an impact on someone's performance. So, I wanted them to feel confident to say “Irene, I have a lot of workload, I’m exhausted” or “I’m bored with my project, I need a change”. That was the only way to know what help I could bring.

First step, to get all this information I needed, I decided to write a script . This way I could make sure I would not forget about any of the important topics I wanted to keep track of. So, this was what I came with (and what I still use in my one-on-ones):

Personal questions:

• How are you?
• What about (something personal your mentee told you during your last meeting, e.g. holidays, parenting…)?

Follow up questions:

• What about (any topic pointed out in the last meeting that is worth a follow up)?

Project questions:

• How are you feeling about your project?
• What about the workload?
• What about the team? Do you feel ok with your mates?
• What about the client?
• Are you motivated? What are you lacking or needing to feel more motivated?

Company:

• How do you feel within the company?

Goals:

• How are you doing with your goals?
• Do you have any blockers? Do you need any help?
• Do you think your goals are still meaningful?

Reminders:

• I am always available, ping me if you need me before our next meeting.
• I will do (whatever is agreed) and I will come back to you as soon as possible.

Next meeting agreements:

• When will the next meeting be? Agree date and time.
• Did you find this meeting useful? Any feedback?

You may think: “What a big number of questions!” Obviously, as the conversation goes by during your one-on-ones, there is no need to explicitly ask each of these questions. Many of them are answered along the way.

Anyhow, having a script was only a tool to help. From the beginning I had this premise in my mind:

“I’ll give importance to what is important for my mentee.”

This means that, if my mentee has any important concern about anything, that is the main and first topic for discussion. After that, we continue with our chat, but first comes first. Only very urgent communications from my side would break this rule. So that is why at some point during the beginning of the meeting I ask: “Is there something that you want to talk about before anything else?”

Another thing I thought about before starting my one-on-ones was that it was useless to have a script and the motivation to help if my mentees did not feel comfortable and safe enough to talk about their deepest needs or concerns.

Have you faced this situation when you have a concern, but you feel ashamed or fearful to communicate it because of the consequences or the other person's reaction? That is what I always want to avoid because it would block any opportunity to help. Because of this, I try to avoid those feelings in my mentees as much as I can.

So, while looking for some information about how to prevent these feelings from rising, I found the “safe space” and “active listening” concepts. There’s too much to say about them, so I encourage you to google them if you are interested. Or you can wait for my next posts where I will cover both topics 😀!

Finally, I decided that after each meeting I would write down the important points covered in the meeting. My memory is not the best, so I need these notes to keep track of the topics discussed from one meeting to another. Before each one-on-one I read them and raise any topic again if I need to make a follow up.

But not only do I want to write down some notes to remember things from meeting to meeting, I also want to have those notes available even months later. For example, during the Performance Review process. Can you imagine recalling those first meetings one year ago? Not an option.

Lastly, it is important to do what you commit to during your meetings as soon as possible. For instance, if your mentee asks a question that you cannot answer and you commit to ask someone else and come back with an answer, do not forget about it. If you do, the trust that your mentee has in you (and that was hard to build) can easily vanish.

And that is all! I hope my experience on one-on-ones can give you some ideas to face yours.

See you in the next one!