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As I was launching a mentoring program recently, a participant expressed concern that mentoring was another thing to do – she didn’t have time to add one more activity. Many of her peers nodded their heads in agreement.
I get it! The days already feel clogged. So, I recommended Synchronous Mentoring. We can’t wait until we have time to do mentoring – our calendars abhor a vacuum, causing available slots to fill quickly! So, we must make time. Consultant Alan Weiss says we need to shift from managing our time to managing our activities in the time we have. Bingo! And that’s precisely what powers Synchronous Mentoring. Fortunately, mentoring is not contingent upon the time we have. It’s contingent upon the conversations we create. In my experience, people don’t enroll in mentoring because they are bored and looking for new activities or friends. They enroll because they are starving for wisdom. They crave fresh perspectives, thought partners, insights, validation, shared experiences, a sounding board, new ideas, advice, and encouragement. And none of that takes enormous amounts of time. But it does take intentionality. In Synchronous Mentoring, we mentor at the same time as we do another activity. For example, when I walk my dogs, I am not on zoom calls or distracted by emails. And because I walk my dogs at about the same time every day, my mentees know when to connect with me. With Synchronous Mentoring, I make time to exchange advice, perspectives, and ideas by coupling one activity with another. Examples of Synchronous Mentoring:
Synchronous Mentoring often requires us to lean into a moment spontaneously. So, it behooves us to carry a list of mentoring questions to evolve any conversation and make the most of those moments. Here are 5 go-to mentoring questions:
Synchronous Mentoring is about the conversations we create for the moments we are in. © 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved. |