Preparing: Reading 4
Mentor Preparation
For the most part, mentors do not deliberately think about preparing themselves
in advance for the mentor role. Formal mentoring programs usually provide some
assistance and training prior to assuming the role (which is usually not very
effective in furthering self-preparation because of the limited time available).
Those who are mentoring on their own, however, are not likely to consider
self-preparation before meeting with a prospective mentee.
Motivation drives participation in a mentoring relationship and has a
direct impact on behavior, attitude, and emotional resilience in mentoring
relationships. Reflecting on motivation before engaging in the relationship can
affect the quality of the interaction within it. Mentors who have a deep
understanding of why they are doing something end up more committed to it.
Because of that focus of their energy, they do it better,and probably save time
in the long run.
Understanding motivation requires introspection and candor. We all have
internal and external motivations for doing things. We are sometimes unaware of
the former until we need to articulate them. An in regard to the latter, even
though we verbalize them, they are not always perceived. We may think that one
reason is motivating us, but when we look beyond the presenting reason we come
up with new understanding.
There are many reasons for becoming a mentor: the satisfaction of passing
on knowledge, helping to build a business, expanding someone else’s knowledge
base, achieving recognition, receiving reward for the effort, increasing one’s
own productivity, expanding one’s personal network, getting known, repaying the
debt of what others have given to one, and being in a position to exert positive
influence.
Lester, a rising star in a training and development department of a
public utility company, had just asked Sylvia, a twenty-three-year veteran in
the department, to be his mentor. He admired how easily she was able to develop
training curricula and how facile she was on her feet. He hoped to have the same
abilities himself someday.
Sylvia was ambivalent about accepting the invitation to mentor him.
Although she felt a sense of duty, she knew that was not sufficient reason to
say yes. As she began exploring her motivation, she realized much of it was
externally driven, base on what others expected of her. She did like the feeling
of having others seek her out for advice (which her coworkers frequently did).
She did find helping others personally rewarding; for example, she could point
to multiple coworkers whom she had influenced at some point in their careers.
But now she was feeling the limits of her own knowledge. In looking for
opportunities to further others’ learning, she had been neglecting her own, and
she was not confident that she could adequately fill Lester’s learning needs.
Before Sylvia considered Lester’s invitation, she decided that she needed
to learn more about his learning goals to determine if his goals would fit with
her experience and knowledge.
Understanding Mentor Motivation
Exercise 4 helps you understand your own self-motivation to become a mentor for
the AAMN. You may be tempted to write the questions off because they appear to
be the same, but once you start working on them, you will find that they come at
motivation from different angles.
Exercise 4 represents several broad commonly articulated motivations. You
might think that it would be hard to imagine anyone answering no to these
questions, but most people, at least to some extent, would like to believe that
they have the qualities addressed in the exercise. But note that because the
exercise asks for specific examples, it forces concrete and candid evaluation.
Motivation may be tied to conditions of a particular relationship or
external pressures. On one level, it may feel like an organizational imperative
or a voluntary engagement (or both). The underlying question is, What is driving
your participation? As with most questions in life, the presenting reason is not
always the underlying reason. Discovering core motivation is a little like
peeling back the layers on an onion and finding ever more layers underneath.
What you find will depend on how truly candid and self-reflective you can be.
Sally is looking for assistance in developing her fledgling packaging
business. Leonard, a retired small business owner himself, has volunteered to
mentor her as a part of the Small Business Association’s business mentoring
program. His primary motivation for mentoring her is his felt obligation to give
back some of the wisdom he gleaned from other businesspeople who helped him get
started. In peeling back his onion, he discovers that his motivation came from a
feeling of loneliness and a lack of stimulation; since his retirement, he was no
longer interacting with other business owners.