This article by Jim Ylisela at Ragan.com caught my eye right before the weekend hit last week. The piece talks about the attributes that make for a good mentor, and Mr. Ylisela’s point is that the people who are good mentors aren’t always the ones who are best at what they do.

Over the weekend, this concept kept returning to me as I spent time with my kids and many of the volunteer groups I work with throughout the year.  I suspect, as does Mr. Ylisela, that there are a lot of good mentors out there who have never been given the opportunity or taken the chance to be the mentor they could be just because they don’t feel like they’re ready.

Are you in that category?  Do you think you’re too young, too inexperienced, too busy or too quirky?  Take a look at Jim Ylisela’s list of what it takes to be a good mentor, and then consider some of the opportunities for mentorship I’ve listed at the bottom of this article.

Jim Ylisela’s guide to being a good mentor:

1. Be a good listener. Mentors are like therapists, without the hourly billing. They listen to your problems, and ask good questions, but they don’t necessarily tell you what to do. Instead, they help you think through a problem so you can figure it out for yourself. 

2. Don’t be a blowhard. Everyone likes to hear a war story or two, but don’t overdo it. This isn’t about you; it’s about someone else. Your past experiences can be instructive, but only up to a point. Then it’s time to return to the present and offer real advice.

3. Don’t think you have to be right all the time. You’re not the pope, for God’s sake. This isn’t about infallibility. You don’t have to know it all, just enough to be occasionally helpful. And here’s the most important thing: When a mentor doesn’t know something, he says so.

4. Don’t try to fix everything. Mentors aren’t there to clean up every time a writer makes a mess. Mistakes are valuable experience. Writing a good story gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling, but think about how much you learned from that time you:

  1. didn’t check a fact and got it wrong.
  2. didn’t make the extra phone call and missed a great opportunity.
  3. failed to ask the dumb question for fear of appearing, well, dumb.
  4. tried to write a complicated story with no clue as to what it was about.
5. Be critical, but do it nicely. Too many corporate writers work for editors and vice presidents who don’t take the time to explain how to do the job better. Others are overly critical without adding any support, preferring to rewrite everything without showing you how to improve. Neither method gets us anywhere. Mentors hold writers accountable, and when necessary, they give them a kick in the pants. But they also assure writers that if you don’t struggle, fail and try again, you never learn a damn thing.

6. Learn something from the person you’re mentoring. The best part of being a mentor is that it reminds you of why you became a writer: the thrill of telling a good story.

Take advantage of mentoring opportunities when they come up
Don’t think being a mentor has to be a full-time job or long-term committment.  In fact, if you work in an office where there are new employees added every so often, your mentorship commitment might not have to extend beyond a friendly lunch during the first week or a couple of morning “get to know you” sessions with the new person.

Here’s a list of mentoring opportunities for you to sieze in the future and an explanation as to why it’s good for your business (in italics):

  • When a new employee starts at your company or, more specifically, in your department.   Some of the easiest way to get into the “mentoring business” is to spend time with a new employee to explain some of the basics that may have been covered in an “orientation process” – but didn’t stick.  No matter how long you’ve been at your current job, you’ll always learn something new about company and department policies once you have to start teaching them to someone else. 
  • Junior-level marketing support types hired by clients who often wind up doing the legwork for your clients are always in need of mentoring.  Junior marketing types, if they’re successful, often become senior level marketing types on other brands and will look to their mentors for advice on matters like selecting an agency, choosing a supplier, etc. 
  • When direct reports or other work colleagues receive a promotion or a new assignment. Promotions or new account assignments can make a person’s world change in a hurry.  A friendly word and an objective point of view can be tremendously helpful in re-establishing focus and bringing that colleague back into line and contributing to the success of the company.  Try a lunch or two, setting aside a few “quiet hours” for a few weeks or a series of breakfast meetings to help create time to allow the employee to get their days organized and track progress. 
  • When a co-worker has a major change in his or her personal life. Obviously, major life events like marriages, deaths, births and moves can have a disruptive effect on an co-worker’s performance on the job.  But smaller changes like the loss of a pet, a child going off to college, or a move into a new home can create just enough stress to “knock someone off their game” for a few weeks and contribute to a bad month, financially.  Be aware of what’s going on in your colleague’s lives enough to spot these disruptions if they occur and offer to step in and provide the support they need to deal with their outside issues outside of work and regain their focus for the work commitments while they’re on the job. 
  • In a small business, when children of employees or colleagues get summer jobs at the business. Be careful here.  This can be a tricky one; but for family-owned businesses and owner/managed businesses, summertime can see an influx of family members into the workforce.  A helpful, respectful mentorship of some of these youth can bode well for the business long-term because it’s likely these kids will come back right after college and stay for a while (maybe not permanently).  
  • When a school or educational organization asks your business to send a speaker or provide a tour.  Yes, I’d include talks given to schools, educational organizations (like 4-H or the Boy Scouts) or other vocationally-interested groups to be a form of educational mentoring.  The basic rules apply and the benefits can be considerable.  After all, you never know who’s kid might be taking a tour of your office. 

I’ve written about mentoring before.  It’s an important subject for the growth and development of the marketing profession and it’s important for each our personal development.

Take some time out to mentor someone – you’ll be glad you did.

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