Mentorship
On the Designer Hangout Slack someone asked:
I’ve often heard the advice “find a mentor” (most recently, in the thread above). Perhaps its my antisocial nature, but I’ve not been able to image what a mentor-mentee relationship looks like.
Can people share how they’ve found mentors, and how their careers have benefited from it?
Here is my response.
I can’t think of anything in my career that has a greater impact than having and being a mentor. Going back to Kim Goodwin’s talk in IxD09, “Each One, Teach One” she outlined the importance of teaching and mentoring to the success of our community and careers.
For me personally, my mentors are many. Some are peers. Some are much more experienced. My mentors both formal and informal are equally important.
The question though is how. But I think the real question isn’t how it been valuable, but how does it work. The main thing is that mentorship is everywhere. It is not a relationship but a mindset. It is the difference between looking for knowledge and looking for guidance. Both are necessary, but guidance gives direction to the knowledge. Knowledge is also is also easy. Guidance is hard BC it requires us to accept thing at a more personal level. It cuts at our core, at our personality. It requires us ready to be told that our behaviors have to change.
So what values do I get?
- course correction
- a third eye into me
- access to alternative experiences, often much richer than my own.
- wisdom
- networking
I seriously can’t imagine having achieved anything without the mentors I have had over the last 15 years of my career.
Now I’ve upped my game and am changing from mentorship to coaching. But that’s a whole other thread.
Additional material I didn’t put in the hangout.
This mindset though also answers how you “get a mentor”. I’ve never gone up to anyone and said “can you be my mentor?” and been successful. I’ve tried and usually failed at it. Why? because it has been the wrong mindset. The mindset of acquisition just doesn’t inspire mentors nearly as much as the mindset of growth. When I’ve gone to people with passionate curiosity wrapped in a growth mindset I have found the relationships blossoms and the value happens almost automatically.
