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In my house, whenever someone hollers, “I looked. I can’t find it!” I instinctively respond, “Look around.”
And when people ask me, “How do I find a mentor?” I offer similar advice… “Don’t look for a mentor. Look around for mentoring.” Last year in one of our leadership mentoring programs at a small hospital, a nurse manager mentee confessed to me glumly, “Ann, I’ve never met with my mentor.” Concerned, I approached his mentor, a nurse executive at the hospital, to better understand the situation and hear her side. I was surprised (and delighted!) to hear the mentor say, “Ann, I love this mentoring program! Once a week, I walk around the hospital with my mentee as he sees patients and engages with his nurses. I get to observe one of our leaders in action!” When I asked the mentee about this, he staggered, “That’s our mentoring session? I envisioned sitting in her office immersed in conversation about leadership.” I challenged, “John! Be agile and adaptable! While you wait for Obi-Wan Kenobi to show up, your mentor is walking with you! Stop missing these mentoring moments and start asking better questions.” To prepare him for his walk-and-mentor sessions, we generated the following questions to spark the mentoring conversations he craved:
Once we closed his expectation gap, the mentee successfully kindled his mentor’s wisdom during their weekly walk-and-mentor sessions. Don’t look for a mentor. Look around for mentoring conversations by asking different questions. © 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved. |