Mentor Tips

Transcript

1. Judging Criteria Mentoring Tips
2. You don’t need to have the right answers, just the right questions.
3. But it’s not just the act of asking questions, it’s how you ask questions, what you try to accomplish with the questions, and what your responses to the answers are.
4. Here are five tips to help you be a great mentor.
5. Often times, entrepreneurs do not accurately define the problem or who their customer is. They may jump to conclusions and can’t see through their own bias and assumptions. Tip #1
6. You’re job is to help them see this for themselves. • Use questions like; “Why is that?”, “Tell me more about…” • Push them to be very specific about everything as a way to uncover root causes and assumptions
7. Frame questions with, “How might you/we...” • Use this question to get them to think openly about possibilities • Position yourself as a co-creator who will help find answers Tip #2
8. Mentorship starts with empathy. Work to understand how they view the world. If a question is posed to you, ask yourself if this is a question that they should try to answer first for themselves. Return the question to them. Tip #3
9. Speak from experience rather than advice. • Use “Here is what worked for me,” instead of comments with you should or I would • It doesn’t have to be your experience. Use case studies or analogous examples to share lessons and possibility. Tip #4
10. Vulnerability lowers defenses. No one wants to feel silly about their ideas/actions. Lower defenses by sharing failures or mistakes; “I’m not very good at [...] so instead I […]” Tip #5
11. Example of poor Mentorship Mentee - I have been having a lot of employee issues lately. Mentor - Do you do any type of employee screening? Mentee - No, I don't really do any type of background checks or drug testing. Mentor - You really should start doing employee screening if you want better employees.
12. Example Good Mentorship Mentee - I have been having a lot of employee issues lately. Mentor - What seems to be the problem? Mentee - We have had a lot of bad hires that are driving up turnover. Mentor - Can I share with you my own experience around some employee issues we had ourselves? Mentee - I would love to hear how you dealt with those issues yourself. Mentor - At one time I thought we were making great hires but we were still experiencing high turnover. So we hired ABC Company to conduct police background and credit checks on all new hires. We also started to do drug tests. At first it was hard because it really limited the number of people who we could hire but after a while we found out that we were doing much less hiring as turnover went down substantially.
13. How to feel credible. You might be thinking, “what do I have to offer?” You don’t have to establish your credibility – you already have it. Guide the conversation through questions and, when in doubt, simply ask, why is that? to help get to the root of problems.
14. For questions or support, please email inclusionplus@goverb.com