Week 6: Mentoring

Hi Keith and all of SCP13,

The topic this week is that of mentoring. I find this a tricky topic to deal with, what exactly is a mentor and what do they do? Who should have one and who should seek one?

I look first to a definition, Oxford dictionary describes a mentor two ways;
as a noun; an experienced person who trains or counsels,
as a verb; to advise or train.

That clears it up a little for me. So a mentor is an someone in a position of experience that can advise others in their field ox expertise. That brings me to the second point, who should have one and who's should seek one?

I believe that to attain any level of expertise one has to follow someone who has reached that level already. I'm certain that there are those that have blazed their own trails in life but in doing so would have borrowed an idea from another area, such as a coach in sport borrowing the theories of an army general, politician, or educator and transposed them into their particular area to great success.

An athlete today would not consider going into training without the help of a coach, why would a coach go into training without their own coach? I take an example of a friend of mine who competes in Crossfit. He himself is a coach who trains up to 100 athletes of his own, but when it came to his own programming he saw a fundamental flaw, he could not program sufficiently for himself without bias, and with enough intensity to get the full benefit. He looked around and saw an up and coming coach nearby, had a meeting with him to see how suitable he would be and went about setting up a schedule. 3 months of training ensued and his results were far greater than any he had had in the previous two years. Here I find a perfect case of one knowing when to ask for help, to seek a mentor, had he continued on his own he would not have been able to reach the heights he did.

In this case it is a relationship based on respect and goals, they begin together and set up a program with an end in sight, at the end they can choose to set new goals or finish there. But Keith alluded to a problem of knowing when to leave a mentor-mentee relationship. I can see a reason as to why this would become awkward and that is the opposite to what is mentioned previous, a loose relationship that has no discernible framework and no end date. Like any training program, this too needs a framework to ensure success.

Their was also the idea of comfort, both of the mentor and mentee, if either is uncomfortable it will be difficult to progress, this should be addressed at the very beginning when choosing a mentor. One must look at the person, not simply for their accomplishments, but their status as a person.
Do they share similar beliefs on training?
Do they share similar interests outside of training?
Do they have a sense of humour?
Do you want them to have a sense of humour?
Anything you wish to have in a mentor this person should possess, if they do not, don't enter into a mentor-mentee relationship.

I look at examples of mentor-mentee relationships

Obi-Wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker

Sidney Poitier to Denzel Washington

Phil Jackson to Michael Jordan

Each menthe was a special talent before they started with their mentors, but it is because of the mentors that they became great.

I look forward to the thoughts of next week, with the topic of Produsing.

Kieran