A New Approach To Mentoring: Time To Drop The Old Image

Written by Mike Shapiro | | August 2, 2016

Read any business biography and you’ll see references and expressions of gratitude to the people who came along and mentored the successful person writing the book.

The classic definition says a mentor is “someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person.” (“Mentor” Simple Definition. Merriam-Webster Online, Merriam Webster, n.d., Web 2 August 2016)

When we think of a mentor, the image that comes to mind is of someone:

  1. Older.
  2. More experienced.
  3. Who has a genuine interest in the success of the person being mentored
  4. Who will establish and maintain a continuous relationship

But if you look around, it’s pretty clear there’s no longer a direct relationship between age and experience and the acquisition of useful knowledge and skills. Individuals get special and valuable capabilities from unique situations they’ve been in, regardless of their age or length of total work experience. And, in today’s fast-changing, widely-dispersed, less personal work environment, it’s tough to establish and sustain a single mentoring relationship.

And, when viewed in the broader context of modern society, some aspects of this image smack of outdated paternalism, preservation of the “old-boy” network and just plain playing favorites.

Fortunately, none of the hallmarks of this old image are really necessary to give and receive the benefits associated with mentoring.

It’s interesting that even in the earliest example of mentoring– in Homer’s Odyssey, the teaching of Odysseus’s son by one named Mentor — there was a recognition of 1. The need for a switch in mentors, and 2. The role played by the fantasy of the mentor image:  At some point the goddess Athena felt it necessary to take over the mentoring duties herself, but to make sure it was successful, she disguised herself as the Mentor the boy had known.

Why did she have to disguise herself? Presumably because she knew the young son associated the high value of the lessons with their source, Mentor, with whom he had developed a close relationship. He’d be understandably resistant to learning from a sub, and she felt preserving the status of the messenger was critical to maintaining the credibility of the message, even if it meant resorting to subterfuge!

Getting real mentoring experiences in the new work environment means letting go of this stubborn image of the mentor as a wise, older person who takes a genuine and long-term interest in the success of the younger neophyte.

For a new approach to mentoring:

  1. Drop the hero worship. Be open to learning from anyone and everyone in any situation, regardless of age or level of experience.
  2. Drop the need for special recognition. Be ready to be generous in showing, telling, teaching, modeling everything you know to anyone who can benefit from it, without the need to be recognized as that person’s mentor.
  3. Drop the formality, restrictions and permanency of the roles of “Mentor” and “Person Being Mentored.” Any one of us can provide or receive a mentoring experience to or from anyone at any given time.

If you view yourself simultaneously as both a potential Mentor and also as a Person To Be Mentored, ready to seize opportunities as they appear, you’ll both give and receive all the benefits of mentoring experiences every day.