Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Writer, lecturer and poet
The Power of Mentoring
Mentors are incredibly powerful. A mentor is an experienced person with an area of expertise who provides support, constructive feedback and encouragement to an individual usually with less experience in a specific area. The purpose could be for career advancement, personal growth and skill development. It is a true gift when mentors generously share their knowledge and expertise with you.
The individual to whom the mentor provides support to is called the mentee. A mentor provides to the mentee: advice, expertise in a specialized area, support, encouragement, and practical strategies to achieve goals. Mentors also receive benefits through personal growth and developing their leadership and communication skills.
I’ve been blessed to have several mentors in my life. As a speaker, I’ve had mentors who have helped me to develop professional level platform speaking skills. In turn, I’ve helped to mentor and coach several people throughout my life. It’s very rewarding to be a mentor to help another person develop personally and professionally.
As a leader, you will be called upon or you might decide to offer your expertise, experience, knowledge and skills to assist another person in their development.
There are various types of mentorship formats available including: formal, informal, and peer mentoring. Below are some good rules of practice that can help guide and encourage you to have a successful mentoring relationship, whether you are the mentor or mentee. They are:
1. Respect
Being mutually respectful in terms of behaviour, words and attitude helps to consolidate goodwill in the mentoring relationship. Mentees want to develop their communication and leadership skills in an environment that is positive, supportive, and respectful. Likewise, mentors want to be respected for their expertise and knowledge.
2.Commitment
Mentors function as a support system and it’s very important that both the mentor and mentee follow through on their individual commitments. For example, if contact between the mentor and mentee is to occur every week by phone or email, both parties should ensure that commitment occurs.
3. Establish Regular Contact
As a mentee, ensure that you are in regular contact with your mentor. Establish regular times that you will speak or meet with each other. Regular meetings could occur through email, telephone or in person. From the start establish a routine. As mentors typically have busy schedules, sometimes the mentee may have to be the one to reach out more frequently. Likewise, mentors should check in with their mentees periodically.
4. Patience
The old adage that “patience is a virtue” rings true especially in a mentoring relationship. It would be wise if both individuals learn to have patience with each other. This is especially true in the beginning stages, when the mentor and mentee are getting to know each other and setting goals.
5. Empathy and Compassion
As human beings, we do the best that we can on any given day. Our backgrounds, standards, beliefs and opinions will be different from one another. Through empathy and compassion, we can learn to respect each other and celebrate our differences.
6. Learn About Strengths and Areas for Improvement
The mentor and the mentee each bring strengths and areas for improvement to the relationship. Focus on what each person does well and capitalize on those strengths. On the other hand, realize that each person has areas that are in need of improvement. Pay attention to those areas and work on improving them. Learn to work together to develop a realistic plan for improvements over time.
7. Trust
In order to build trust and rapport, matters discussed within the mentoring relationship should remain confidential between the parties.
8. Honest and Constructive Feedback
In order to improve communication skills, leadership skills or any other skill the mentor must be willing to give honest, open, fair and constructive feedback to the mentee. If you “sugar coat” your feedback, your mentee will not improve their communication and leadership skills. If you are too harsh in your feedback, it could damage a person’s self esteem. Always leave the mentee something positive to take away from your interaction. Delivering specific feedback with examples of what was done well and what could be improved will help the mentee to improve and reach their goals.
9. Productivity
We live in a time where everyone is busy juggling multiple commitments. Time is precious and no one likes to waste their time. When you’re in a mentoring relationship, ensure that productive meetings occur. For that to happen, have clear agenda items that will be discussed during your meetings to ensure maximum productivity.
10. Set Goals
At the beginning of the mentorship relationship meet regularly to set clear and achievable goals. Throughout the mentoring period, both the mentee and the mentor should monitor those goals. Keep track of goals by documenting or writing them down so that progress towards goals can be measured.
Mentoring is an experience that is ultimately rewarding. It’s an experience where people come together to grow and inspire each to develop a skill or ability and to strive for excellence.
What about you? How have the mentors in your life impacted you? Take the time to thank those who have helped you to develop a skill or an ability by generously sharing their expertise, knowledge, connections and advice with you. It’s a gift when someone graciously takes you under their tutelage to help you learn and grow.
On the other hand, have you thought about becoming a mentor? Each of us has gifts, skills, abilities and talents that we can use to help other people reach their goals. When you become a mentor, you just might change someone’s life! We want to hear from you. Share an experience about the impact of mentors in your life or your experience as a mentor.
Please comment and share if you obtained value from this post.
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. Joseph Campbell – American mythologist, writer, lecturer
Joseph Cambell
Giving Effective Feedback
As a speaker and a leader, if you want to elevate your skills, learning to accept feedback is paramount. There are aspects of our behaviour where there are “blind spots,” where we are unconscious or unaware. Feedback helps us to improve our skills when it comes to these blind spots.
There is a difference though between delivering effective feedback and criticism. When you deliver feedback to a recipient and it’s done appropriately, it’s a gift to the recipient as it helps them to improve. Criticism that is posited as feedback is not really feedback if you’re just listing the negative aspects about someone without delivering points of value to help the person improve. The way that feedback is delivered is so important because it can enhance or damage a relationship. The suggestions below will help you deliver effective feedback.
1. Intent
I know the old adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, your intent; however, in delivering feedback is important. When delivering feedback to another individual, your feedback should be designed to be positive, motivational and encouraging. Your feedback will be more effective if it’s designed to highlight the strengths of the individual as well as the areas that require improvement.
2. Be Sincere
When you assist another person with their personal growth through your feedback, it requires honesty and sincerity. When delivering feedback highlight the receipient’s strengths and be sincere if there are genuine areas of improvement. You want to be honest about their strengths without glossing over or sugarcoating your feedback.
3. Immediate
Feedback is most effective and has the greatest impact when it’s delivered after a behaviour has occurred. When feedback is not immediately given, it may lose its potency. The recipient of the feedback also may not directly link the feedback with the behaviour that requires improvement if it’s not given immediately, for example, an aspect of an employee’s work performance. When you give immediate feedback, the recipient is able to correlate or link your feedback with a specific behaviour. They are then able to start implementing your suggestions for improvement.
4. Specific
For feedback to be effective and have an impact it should be specific. Giving specific feedback with examples will enable the recipient to take action to improve because they have specific information that they can implement. They will not be working with vague generalities.
5. Method
When you deliver feedback make sure that you have a method you can use. One effective method is called,”the sandwich technique” or approach. With this technique, you start by delivering the feedback on a positive note. In the middle of your feedback, the constructive part i.e. the areas of improvement are delivered. Lastly, you end the feedback again on a positive note. The reason that this technique is so effective is because the “constructive criticism” is “sandwiched” between two positive pieces of feedback. The sandwich approach is very effective technique to use as it “softens” the feedback somewhat, so that is does not come across strictly as criticism or in an accusatory tone to the recipient.
6. Use I Language
When you’re delivering feedback, remember to use personalized language or “I” language, such as I felt, I suggest, my recommendation is etc. The reason being is that when you speak from the 1st person when you deliver feedback, the tone of the feedback appears to be less harsh. Using “I” language also reflects that it’s your opinion and not facts written in stone. When you don’t use I language when delivering feedback and instead use the word “you” all the time i.e. you did this, you must do this etc. the language appears to be more accusatory in nature rather than collaborative.
By following these suggestions, you’ll be able to deliver effective feedback. What’s your experience with feedback? For you, what differentiates good from bad feedback? Let’s hear your thoughts.
Please comment and share if you obtained value from this post.
Live Your Values Consciously
To live a meaningful life, it’s important that you’re aware of the values and the principles that govern your life. Knowing what your values are can help you to make good choices and decisions in life. They can also help you to prioritize competing interests and help you mitigate conflicts in your life. Do you know what your values are and the guiding principles that govern your life? It is worth the effort to take the time to know and understand why your values are important to you. Once you know what they are, as much as possible consciously try to live your values and principles everyday. That really is the challenge for all of us, isn’t it? How can we consciously live our lives according to our values on a daily basis.
Below, I’ve outlined some principles that I believe can be useful in helping you consciously live your values. They are:
1. Human beings have many facets or aspects to our beings. These facets include the spiritual, physical, emotional and mental or intellectual aspects of our beings. If any of these facets are out of alignment, success can be more difficult to achieve. I believe one of the keys in life is learning how to balance all aspects of our humanity. One of the ways that you can learn to lead a balanced life is by ensuring that you have an overarching vision for your life that includes these various facets or areas.
2.Each person has many gifts, talents, skills and abilities. To have a truly meaningful life, we need to learn how to use our gifts and talents to their full potential in order to serve others. One of the most fulfilling aspects of life is for each of us to actualize our potential through the gifts, talents, skills and abilities that we are blessed to have.
3.Find a way to spend time with those that you love everyday and do the things that you enjoy. Each person has people that they love and things or causes that they are passionate about. Doing the things that you enjoy and being with the people you love makes life more meaningful (and enjoyable).
4. Knowing your values and living them are important keys to life. It is important to know what your values are in order to feel fulfilled. If love, health, family, spirituality, financial abundance and service are important to you ensure that you are living your values daily to the best of your ability. If you’re not living according to your values, you can feel disconnected with life.
5.Knowing your priorities helps you keep your focus in life. While it’s important to know what your values are, it’s also paramount to be aware of the competing priorities in your life. There will be many competing priorities between your personal and professional life. Knowing how to prioritize them ensures that you are leading the best life possible. You can achieve your goals and fulfill your dreams according to your personal definition of success, if you learn how to manage your priorities.
6. Learn how to deal with life’s challenges. We all know that life is a beautiful gift. Each one of us have many blessings to be thankful for. It is good to have an attitude of gratitude. As there are beautiful parts of life, there also will be challenges. For the challenges in life that inevitably come our way, having support can make all the difference on how we deal with those challenges. Throughout your life, ensure that you are developing practical, emotional, financial and spiritual support systems that can help you deal with any challenge or issue that arises. Aligning with your spiritual or moral compass can certainly help you when life becomes challenging.
7. Life is ultimately about service to others. It’s wonderful to be successful and ambitious, especially when you’re pursuing goals that are meaningful. We all want good health, loving relationships and abundance in all areas of our lives. Service to others is one of life’s highest callings. Success and abundance is much more meaningful when along life’s journey we can be of service to others along that journey.
Today, take some to time to reflect on your personal values and operating principles. In a future post, I will look at the topic of values in depth. I would love to hear from you. How are you consciously living your values on a daily basis? Is it easy to do or from time to time, do you find it challenging?