Mentoring — how can we make it successful

The success of any mentoring program depends on 3 parameters: mentor, mentees and the relationship between them. Take any organisation for that matter and you will find they have a mentoring program. But the question is, if the mentoring program is effective? Is it successful? Do mentees feel it valuable? Do mentors feel satisfied?

We all would be agreeing to the fact that a successful mentoring relationship can push us to a great professional and personal height. The success of mentoring program is reaped by both the mentees (in having a very rewarding and successful career) and the organisation (in having great employee connect, engagement and finally the retention). Let’s take a deeper look into how all the three parameters impacts the mentoring program.

“In order to be a mentor, and an effective one, one must care. You must care. You don’t have to know how many square miles are in Idaho, you don’t need to know what is the chemical makeup of chemistry, or of blood or water. Know what you know and care about the person, care about what you know and care about the person you’re sharing with.” — Maya Angelou

Mentor

Being an effective mentor is about the desire to help and grow others. It requires one to possess a good listening skill as well as the ability to reflect on and share their own experiences (be it a success or failure). Mentors don’t do mentoring to get rewarded but they do so to genuinely help someone grow and succeed. Good mentors possess the virtue of patience, they commit time and energy to work with someone. Inducing change is a time taking process and seeing those changes into results require further more time. Hence mentoring requires both time and energy to see it through. For our industry, mentors also need to possess relevant knowledge which mentees want to hone on.

So to summarise being a good mentor requires one to have listening skills, ability to think through, asking questions, having patience, giving feedback and above all showing interest in one’s growth without the possibility of getting rewarded.

Mentees

Everyone in the IT industry wants to learn and grow. And the beauty of the mentoring program is that someone is willing to help you learn and grow selflessly. As a mentee, one should be willing to discuss their thoughts, goals and clear about what to expect from mentoring. Mentees should be open to learn, explore new ideas, tread different paths and above all listen to someone with trust. They should be able to take and give feedback.

Mentee should be able to put in hard work and drive themselves to change. Above all they should be able to stay motivated to keep executing the plan co-developed with mentor.

The relationship

Mentoring is like a venture between mentor and mentee and most of the times they may not know each other, until they are put into this program. Each mentoring program should be custom designed keeping in mind the individuals, yes there can be templates as well as checks and balances. Both should spend time together to chalk out a program which contains certain details like: how to connect and contact, frequency of these connect meets, feedback process (when and how), accountability (from both ends). The chemistry between mentor and mentees play a very important role in the success of the program.

Mentoring could be a life changing experience for both the parties involved and the success of this program primarily relies on both the end.