277. Maximising Success Through Mentoring

In this first episode in our 4-part focus on the Magic of Mentoring, we unpack why mentoring is the fastest, most human way to close skills gaps, transfer culture, and build confidence in a time-poor, AI-shaped workplace. 

We define mentoring against training and coaching, set boundaries, and share practical ways to start and sustain great partnerships. 

Sharing tips for working as ‘colleagues with benefits’ we share practical ways for both the mentor and mentor to maintain good boundaries and maximise time through great conversations.  

Transcript

Lighter Days And A New Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Debs. Law, are you alright? Yeah, I'm doing really well. How are you doing? Yeah, good, good week, actually. Um, yeah, it feels like because the days are lighter as well. So for those of you going into darkness, if you're across the other side of the world, we do apologise, but it's wonderful to wake up to daylight in the UK, isn't it? And um to sort of still have it in the evening for now. Yay! Loving it. So it's making a huge difference to people because you can feel the lightness literally coming through some because they've got daylight, and that's what we need. So it's amazing, it's been a good week.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

And you can hear the birds singing, and it's just that sense of things being kind of connected and joining up together, and that's a really fitting link to our focus this month, which is all about extraordinary mentors. So, yes, what is mentoring? How do you become a great mentor? What does that mean in terms of looking for a mentor? And how do some of those really great mentoring partnerships, how do we maximize that? And why do we think that's relevant? Well, the World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Workplace and Industrial Success white paper has made it really clear that around the world there are um a real demand for these human-centric skills, resilience, creativity, dynamic problem solving. All that stuff that we've been talking about for um, you know, for a while now, yeah, for years. However, there's a skills gap because there's not enough time for all the training courses that you probably need to put a population through in order to feel future proofed, equipped, empowered, and full of the knowledge that you need. So, what do you then need? Well, you then need some alternatives to putting everyone on a training course, and that is where mentorship devs, I think, is really going to come into its own in the second half of this decade. Yeah. Because there's that give and the get, it's about those strong working relationships, and mentoring can work in a virtual environment as well, because it's relationship and it's that um kind of uh that dynamic that exists that creates a safe space to learn.

Passing Knowledge In A Post‑Pandemic World

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, I I think you're spot on, Lauren. I remember you talking back in, well, 10 years ago now, wasn't it? You were banging on about the robots, that's where you started. Um, and like wake up and smell the silicone was your moment. And you know, when you think 10 years ago you were talking about this, and it's only really sort of you know come into fruition now. And I think also we were talking around back then the importance of passing knowledge on, sharing our gifts because of the next generation coming into the world of work, yada yada yada. Um, and I just think it's incredible to know that 10 years ago you were talking about AI's coming, it's here, but what do we do? And as you said, time is the one thing that we don't have. But how do we equip the you know people for the future to you know, whether it's next week, next month, 10 years, again from now, so it fits in with your future proofing of you know of your career really and organisations. Can you believe that was 10 years ago though?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

I know, I know, Debs. And what was un what was unknown at the time was um I thought the biggest ticket item that was going to be impacting our ability to have careers that are, you know, that tickle the boxes and give us what we need and you know ensure the next generation have some good work um experiences kind of coming their way. I thought that was just gonna be robotic process automation and AI. Little did we all know there was gonna be a global pandemic around the corner. And what that's done is we got double bubble. So we've now got not only some of those manual and cognitive skills that are now being done by something other than a human, we've also now got a lot of remote working and sitting side by side with people and watching different generations at work via osmosis. That's how you work out do we shake hands or not? Um, who starts off sharing a meeting? You know, what's the etiquette of all those little things that enable us to be able to work in a smooth and frictionless way with each other? So, with that in mind, to be able to put mentoring intentionally on our radar as part of our go-to toolkit to not only equip and empower ourselves, but also to think about how we bring others along with us. And the wonderful thing about mentoring is you don't have to get a qualification to be a mentor, it's almost like a uh a state of being.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

It is, yeah, that's a good way. It's a good way of looking at it, and I think having a mentor is is really powerful, actually. I know I've had some over my career, and I also mentor others as well, and it's just so powerful because for me it's not necessarily about giving everybody um giving them the answers, if you like, all the time, but it is about access, and I think it's also about that access to perspective and experience, stretch and belief. And I think because sometimes you've got to have that level um of belief that in the other person that you might be mentoring that they can do it. So linked in with you know some other skills that you would have as a great leader, you know, a really good mentor actually for me sees your potential before you fully trust it in yourself. Um, and they I always like the fact that you we talk about we lend you the confidence until yours catches up. So that ability to be able to recognise um what that person brings and what talent they got, because we don't always recognise it in ourselves, but a great mentor will see the potential and they're start to work with that person to unlock it. Um, because they I think they shorten the learning curve as well, actually, Law. Like you were saying, because you know, you can't put everybody through training courses or you know, what e-learning or whatever, um, because a mentor, if you're getting a great one, has what we call a walked the walk, talk the talk, been there, done it, got the t-shirt, got the whole works. So they've made the mistakes already. And I think once they've done that, they help you avoid the avoidable and navigate the inevitable. So that ability to have been there, done it, and learnt, um, to pass that knowledge on. And I think we always hear back sometimes, Laura, that yeah, but the only way you're gonna learn is to make a mistake, and I think, well, yeah, I get that because that's how you know we've all learned along the way, but it's making a mistake with somebody beside you so that they will just watch it, keep out you know, an eye out for you, which I think is really important. Um, because having a great mentor, it is powerful, and that relationship is so strong that you just yeah, it sort of lasts and they become your go-to sometimes. So, yeah. I mean, you fix you you mentor people as well, Lord, don't you?

What Great Mentors Actually Do

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah, but you know, I'm just listening to you talk, thinking actually mentoring can also be a you know, uh as well as um the sort of this the soft and gooey stuff. So it's a it's a brilliant way to fast track a sense of belonging and and and engagement and also um fast track culture um uh acquisition as well. So, you know, one of the quickest ways to um uh bring on board, for example, let's say you've had a whole organisation of people who've been tupied in. If you were to set up mentoring relationships, that would be one of the quickest ways to then be able to almost kind of get fuse those two cultures together. But you've I've just had a trip down memory lane as I was listening to you talk. I had a temp job um when I was away travelling in Australia in the year 2000 deaths.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Oh my goodness, Law, that makes you feel old now, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

It does. And the challenge that the Sydney State Rail Authority had, or the Australia the State Rail Authority had, was you had the Olympics come in. And so suddenly there was going to be a huge influx and demand on the train transport systems. And I imagine someone in LD would have sat there in 2018 or whenever it was kind of thinking, hmm, we've got a bit of a challenge here because we need to onboard and recruit a whole load of train drivers. There isn't enough time to be able to do it the traditional. How do we then make sure that we have that we're safe and compliant and we've got all it is? And so they set up a mentoring programme, and that was where time was scheduled for new train drivers and uh existing experienced train drivers. So, from a compliance point of view, mentoring is also part of that LD bit in that if you literally haven't got the time to put everyone on training course, which is hugely expensive as well, in terms of backfilling people, you know, in kind of roles and stuff. So, mentoring as a way to be able to fast track that knowledge transfer between different um people within an organization. So, yeah, I just I I remember thinking actually, that's that's quite an interesting thing to think forward and as before I'd had any job in in learning and development, that was like my first touch almost of it.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Okay, if you've got a big organizational problem, which is we need our people to be able to transform or get ready for a big deadline, how do we do that? Well, if the knowledge is all trapped inside all of our people's heads and it's not written on all of those operating processes, you've got to be able to put in that time. And time is the currency of mentoring, I guess, isn't it?

Mentoring For Culture And Compliance

SPEAKER_00 9:12

It is, it is, and I think picking up on your point about the soft and gooey, it's definitely isn't soft and gooey because if you have a great mentor, they will actually challenge your thinking and they will actually enable you to expand it. So it's not a it's a it's a great relation to have, but it's not just oh, that was really good. Have you thought about it? It is the challenge and direction to get you to think differently. And a great mentor, if you have them, will um you know give you that feedback as you're going along and you know, tell you what they valued you did, and you know, as a suggestion, may you you could like you could do this, you might like to consider. So they stretch you as well, um, and they still hold you accountable for it, um, because you know, we're only accountable for ourselves and our actions. But what they do is they will enable you to um to learn from that. It's not, it's I want to say it's not a hard relationship. It isn't hard in that respect, but it's honest, I suppose. And I think they're the things that you know you would not necessarily have a conversation with that in an open office or in a meeting, but in that relationship you've got with your mentor, um, that feedback, which is challenging at times, and it may be hard to hear, is so important because that's it should be what we call that safe space. They um is a brave space as well, and I think that's the bit where you can say the thing, if you like, that you don't say in meetings, as we said, but you can explore any questions you've got or or any doubt that you've got without any judgment, and I think that is the the mentor has to have that mindset about them, um, as well as the mentee, to know that actually this is a safe space to just say what you hear, say what you see, put your doubts in, have those difficult conversations with them because that's that's how we learn, right? So it's the relationship is so powerful.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

So let's do a um let's let's do a bit of an explainer. So kind of mentoring explained, and then we'll have a look at some practical sort of tips and tools, and then um what might be an action plan to go about starting up mentoring. So, Debs, here's how I have tended to explain the difference between coaching, training, mentoring. So I'd love to run it past you, see what you think, and add in your thoughts as as as well, because I think sometimes just being able to work out what's the difference between a coach, a trainer, and a mentor. So here's how I describe it. So if learning is like a vehicle, so it takes you from A to B, your train is your training, is your track of content, and um that's where let's say you needed to equip someone in a way of working, that would be where you take them through and instruct them and train them on a track of information, and the conversation uh uh ratio is probably 70%, you as the trainer talking, and 30% is your learner kind of you know, checking in on checking understanding. That's your training. Then you've got your coach, which is like the vehicle of a coach, it can go out on the over and road, it can go left, it can go right, it can go backwards, it can go forwards, whereas a train can only go forwards on a track of info. So a coach is much more question-led, and it's helping someone arrive at their own thinking between I'm at A and I want to get to B, and so that talking ratio probably flips, where the if you're in coach mode, you're speaking 30% of the time, and your coach, she is speaking 70% of the time. Yeah, and then mentoring is you're in the car together, and you are almost telling them examples of well, this is what worked for me, or when I was in that particular situation, these are the things that helped me. And then you might then get back into your coach mode to then say, What do you think you could try? So that mentoring is almost let me share with you and give you advice on the things that have either worked for me in my career so far or what I've seen has helped other people. So it's back to that sort of telling, but it's more sharing info in more of a discussion-based way, and then you'd nail it with a coaching question at the end to get a bit of commitment.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Yeah, no, definitely. So, how's that spot on? How's that work?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Does that sound like as an explainer?

Brave Space, Boundaries, And Challenge

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah, I think that breaks it down really, really well. And what I love is that mentor, like you telling, but then you're asking, so you're moving along the coaching continuum really quickly, but with a mentor, it goes backwards and forwards, um, which is the difference. So it's like a two-way, whatever you want to call it. It can like go back and forwards. Um, but I think it's the ability that actually recognising what that person wants as well. Um, and I think a lot of people say, Well, we're gonna give you a mentor, and you go, Great, okay, well, what do I want in my mentor? How do I go about getting one? What do I know if if they're good or not? And it's it can be a really tricky time um because some organizations allocate you a mentor. Um, so that mentor has to be super, I always think, super knowledgeable, has the company at their heart, is is wanting the company to survive and prolong its existence. It's not one of these people that might be like a bit old, in the no, you know, seen it, done it, oh, here we go again. No one's pointing that. You don't want a jaded mentor. I don't want to jade, I couldn't think you definitely don't want a jaded mentor. Um, but you need to really consider how do I go about getting that person and what are some of the questions that you can ask of a potential mentor just to see if you can align um if you have that opportunity. If you're allocated a mentor, you can still ask them the questions because you have to build the relationship first. You have to know a bit about them, they have to know a bit about you, because it it becomes that two-way conversation going through, but bearing in mind that the mentor isn't the only one, as you said, talking at them. It's very much a two-way conversation with that mentoring piece. I this is what I did when, um, and then flipping it into. So, what do you think? You know, what will you take away from that? How might you approach it? And I think it flips between coach, mentor. You're not gonna go, all right, go ahead and do that, knowing it's gonna be wrong. I think the mentor can also step in and go, actually, before you go ahead and do that, let's just talk around some of the pitfalls that that might do. So it sort of goes in between the two. Um, because you know, you've got to keep that person safe.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

And with a mentor as well, you're almost sort of helping, let's say it's a new starter, you're you're signposting them to be able to navigate their way around the organisation and just to rather than it taking six months for someone to get their head around a roll, you're sort of fast tracking that. Um I know on each one of our um other three episodes in this mini-series around mentoring, we're going to take a bit of a deeper dive in each bit. But I think it would just be really handy right now to get your thoughts on how to ensure. So, if mentoring is all about that relationship and that space to be able to learn and develop and ask those questions that you might not want to to your line manager, for example, how does one ensure it doesn't slip into counselling and taking too much responsibility away from that mentee? So, any I imagine we'll go into a bit more detail of this when we look at some practical things in uh later episodes, but just a light touch nail sort of devs, what in your experience, what are some things that just help keep it a professional mentoring relationship without it becoming a bit too murky?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, I think um it's definitely the bit around you're not there to fix them. So, as the mentor, um, a bit like coach, you're not there to fix that individual. So you whilst you want to help them, but that's the skill in your coaching and exploration with them to not go backwards and um into their detail. It's like acknowledging it's it's happened, um, but that's not what you're there to talk about. You're there to enable that person to maybe think about um what getting what's clear on what you actually need from your mentor, I think is super important. What are you you know going to them first? But the mentor has a role to play in keeping the boundaries clean because it's not counselling, and if it does get into that, then you have to sort of pause the conversation and signpost them to this the help by giving feedback in the moment. You know, I hear what you're saying. Um, I I believe this is going down more of that route. So let's explore what you you could do, not what I'm gonna do for you, but what you could do to help you. And then once you've done that, come back and we'll pick up again. It's holding the boundary, really, really. Oh, it's such a brave thing to do as well, but you have to because you're not there to fix them.

Training vs Coaching vs Mentoring

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. And I and I know we'll we'll probably pick up on that um on sort of the later episodes. Um, so from a kind of different angles and a take on mentoring. So we've had a bit of a conversation around sort of defining what that might look like, how to keep it a professional relationship. Maybe it'd be good now to just share some practical examples of what does it look like in practice, what's the kind of ideal time frames and how might you go about setting up mentoring in your um career? So, Dibs, in your experience, what's the average frequency, duration? Um, and I know like a lot of other things that happen in relationships, you know, it's uh diff different different things work for different people. But if there were to be a kind of a template to aspire to for anyone listening for whom mentoring is a brand new thing that they uh that they hadn't actually, you know, had had a had a go of before, haven't experienced. So, what are some of the things that you've seen out there?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Um, oh that's such a good question. It depends on where the person is in in their career, what they're actually looking for, what they're needing. It's you know, when you're thinking about, is it about they're looking for more confidence or leadership or career navigation? Um, somebody might be looking for building their visibility and their resilience, um, the politics or things like that, and or might be moving sector. So it's looking for what it is that you need from your mentor. And it depending on what it is, it I've seen it last three months, that relationship, but I've also seen it last two years over um a career track. So, you know, people have been given their own personal development plan, they've been allocated a mentor that's gonna um help them get to that promotion. So that's taken a little bit longer. When it's around resilience or well-being or confidence, that doesn't change overnight either. So it's again agreeing how often you meet, how long for, and finding out what it is you feel is right. Um, so I that's so I can't answer whether it's yes, it's definitely three months. It should be three months, if not longer. If it's a week, really, you know, you can't get much done. Um, but what happens is the more you have a relationship with a mentor and you might get a different mentor, because you've already experienced it, you know what to expect. So that might shorten the time that you have with uh with an individual mentoring mentee because they've already experienced having a great mentor. It shouldn't go on for years and years and years. Um, ideally, it should be that right, what do you need right now? I need to navigate into my next leadership role. Okay, what's your time frame? It's my time frame's 12 months. Okay, I can work with you during that period of time to get you where you want to get to. Um, so again, it's agreeing what the need is, really, first of all. It shouldn't be less normally, I've seen not less than three months.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

So um, the person that I mentor, so she had tapped me up for uh a conversation after a virtual session that we ran right in the midst of the pandemic. And um, you know that lovely phrase, when the student is ready, the teacher will come. And it just uh yeah, I think it just got her thinking of right, actually, I I I I think I'm I'm I'm waking up. I think I want to take control of my career. That that was basically the wake-up then that she had. And that was quite a while ago, actually. And um, it's sort of a bit like when when uh when when she needs a bit of uh extra thought, like do I stay or do I go? Typically, that's when then we re engage again because she's like um and then because there's then almost that that ongoing relationship, I can hold the mirror up and I can challenge and say, Yeah, but do you remember that weird toxic relationship you had before?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yes, exactly.

Finding And Choosing The Right Mentor

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Make sure your boundaries are okay, and and so it's um, and and so and of course we've Then gone on to have quite a friendly, amiable relationship. I mean, that's how I like to work anyway. So it's a joy to mentor her. And I think that's the thing that I would say if mentoring isn't on your radar. Number one, the World Economic Forum is clearly signposting. We've got huge skill gaps around the globe. How do you close that? You've got to be able to create close working relationships where you've got that knowledge and that skill and that language exchange. What's the best way to do that when everyone's busy? You put in quality time, you call it mentoring, and it puts almost um a formality around it. So it's not going to be a chat you're going to cancel. So if mentoring isn't, oh yeah, you know, when we got some time, we'll have a catch-up meeting because a decade will pass, there'll never be another time. So putting it in and diarising it. And the other benefit.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

I think also, Lord, just on before you go on to the other benefit, the fact that you have that relationship as we were saying, it that person will come back to you two years from now because they trust you. And therefore you helped them before. So why would they not come back to a trusted source and engage in a conversation again? But again, you might not see them again for nine months, a year, two years. And I think that that's what a mental relationship gives you. Um, is yeah, it's a relationship that you can tap into with you know, no strings attached type thing. Yes. Um, yeah, and I've certainly seen that when I'm colleagues with benefits. Colleagues with colleagues with benefits. Not so sure about that one. But anyway, I remember coaching, I remember mentoring some young people way back when. Um, and they must be in their 30s, yeah, they're in their 30s now. So that's a long time ago when they were at school to now. And we set up a mentoring program for them, and it was really, it's really effective. And even now, I still see some of those young people around. Um, and every now and again, one of them will reach out and go, I'm thinking of this, I know you helped me. Yeah, would you mind? And you know, that is such a privilege to know that the impact you had on that person at that point in time, I had no idea. But when they come back around and say, you know, this is my career now, and you find out where they've gone to, it is incredibly powerful and very humbling. And I think that's what I love. They they know you're a trusted source. Yeah, no, as you said, there's no strings attached, they can reach out at any point, whether it's five years, ten years, fifteen years from when they last spoke to you, knowing because they had a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

And Dev, that was the benefit of it. The second benefit I was going to say is that it's a joy to mentor. What a what a privilege. What what a how flattering for someone to say, actually, I'd really trust your opinion on this. Can you mentor me? I mean, who wouldn't want to be asked with that? Yes, it might take time, but if you've clearly contracted it, then it's an addition to you as well. Because guess what? You learn as much, as much advice that you impart. And um, so I would say for anyone listening, if you're thinking, actually, I think it'd be really useful for me to have a mentor. I need a I need a colleague with benefits, and actually, um, rather than feeling like I've got to be guilty, it's a it's a two-way benefit because it benefits the mentor as much as the mentee. And I'm so looking forward to the deeper dives we're gonna do in the um the remaining three episodes of this four-part mini-series looking at extraordinary mentorship. So, where this is the explainer, what is it, what does it look like, how does it work, just getting some of those key topics out there. We're then gonna be looking at specifically around early career mentoring, so how to unlock talent quickly, how to be an extraordinary mentor, so skills and tips and strategies and language for being a great mentor, and then taking a bigger picture perspective, how do we future-proof our industries via a culture of mentoring? So, what does that look like from a um from an organizational perspective? So, I'm really looking forward to that. We're gonna mix it up, bring a bit of a creative vibe to how we're gonna go about it as well. So it won't just be our voices, we're gonna really mix this up on this mini-series.

Keep It Professional, Not Counseling

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Oh, I can't wait because it's such an important thing, and you've highlighted that at the very beginning, that this is the human, one of the human-centric skills, but actually it gives us you gives you the human edge, right? So I think, yeah, why would you not invest in a mentoring program for your people if you want them to stay and grow and develop and you know be great? Um, and I think that I think that sort of leads into my call to action law. Um, especially when we're talking about the confidence, you know, confidence might be an inside job, but growth is rarely a solo act. So I would say go and find your mentor or become one and make sure you find the right one for you.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Oh, love it, Debs. And my share of the secret would be um where mentoring doesn't cost any money, there's no qualification, you don't need to book a big training room or a conference venue. What it requires is willingness.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

So, how do we create an environment where people can be bothered to mentor? And I'd sort of say, if I were to be really harsh, well, if you want to have some kind of pension payout from your organization, that's the long-term win. Because if we're right, if we are not equipping the future of an organisation or an industry to be able to have the skills equipped. So getting that sweet spot of all of the new tech, but also all of that existing wisdom that sits inside the organisation already, then um that's the kind of the ultimate kind of benefit of mentoring. So share the secret, pass this on to someone that you think, you know what? I think there's an opportunity to mix things up a little bit. Learning and development isn't just e-learning, going on a training course, um, listening to static info. It's the sharing of that information or that tacit knowledge via conversation and uh putting a bit of a formula to it. So Debs, I can't wait to um we're gonna be going out and about and getting snippets and voices and insights. So it's gonna be really inspiring, I think, to listen to the realities and the practicalities underpinning extraordinary mentorship.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah, definitely. So looking forward to it, Law. And in the meantime, have a great week, won't you? Oh, you too. And I'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yay! Love you.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Love you.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

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