How to Mentor Under Time Pressure

Done well, mentoring can provide:

• Suggestions of who people should be talking to
• Introductions to those people
• Short cuts
• Insights into individual situations
• Big picture insight that one of the participants isn’t aware of

Mentoring has many benefits over and above other forms of professional development: Training, which is time specific and often done over one day, just doesn’t allow for the insights that develop over time.

Coaching, especially when carried out by an outside party, doesn’t allow for company culture or knowledge of specific people and protocols.

And we all know that it’s much easier to read a book than apply anything you’ve learned within it.

Even when somebody comes in from a different industry, mentoring can be the catalyst for massive changes. On one occasion we worked with someone who had moved from the automotive industry to the military sector, and she was astonished at the amount of waste going on. Under her mentorship many cost-saving changes were made: changes which just hadn’t been considered previously.

Time saving tricks for great mentoring sessions

• Facilitate access to the mentor by giving any PAs or assistants the mentees name so that meetings can be set up swiftly.
• If the mentor has a specific topic or issue they would like to discuss let the mentor know in advance so they can start preparing, or at least pondering the subject.
• Practise great listening. High quality attention has massive power. Resist the temptation to rush in too early with the solution, or your own take on the subject, and just listen to what the other has to say. This allows the other person to put all their efforts into the thinking process, rather than worrying about capturing your attention or rushing to get everything out before you can interrupt.
• Consider some “off job mentoring sessions” where the mentoring pair meet over lunch or dinner to specifically develop the relationship and find out more about each other. This helps build trust and allows the on the job mentoring to be much smoother and more focused.