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Mentoring Without A Script

Useful help for someone a few steps behind you

Noir designOpen as PDF

Mentoring Without A Script

Useful help for someone a few steps behind you

Your name

A4 Β· this is a layout preview in the β€œNoir” design. When you generate, the studio writes every chapter in full, paints the cover and chapter art, and composes a downloadable A4 PDF with your name, bio and store link on it.

7 chapters40-52 pagesTone: warmFor experienced people asked to mentor others

Being asked to mentor someone is flattering and slightly alarming. There is rarely any training, and the obvious move, telling them what you would do, turns out to be the least useful thing available. This book is about the rest of it: listening properly, giving advice that fits the person in front of you, and knowing when the arrangement has run its course.

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What's inside

  1. 1What Mentoring Is And Is NotSeparates mentoring from managing, coaching, sponsoring and friendship, and explains why confusing them causes most of the trouble. After this chapter you can say clearly what you are offering and what you are not.
  2. 2The First ConversationProvides a structure for the opening meeting: what to ask, what to agree about frequency and confidentiality, and how to end it with something concrete. After this chapter you will have a first session that sets expectations without feeling formal.
  3. 3Listening Before AdvisingCovers the discipline of holding your own experience back long enough to understand theirs, with questions that open a problem rather than close it. After this chapter you will be able to spend a whole session without offering a solution, and have it be useful.
  4. 4Advice That Fits The PersonShows how to translate what worked for you into something that might work for someone with different constraints, temperament and circumstances. After this chapter you will offer options with their conditions attached rather than instructions.
  5. 5Feedback They Can Act OnDeals with saying the difficult thing kindly and specifically, including how to give feedback on work you did not commission. After this chapter you will have a way to raise a hard subject without either softening it into nothing or landing it badly.
  6. 6Opening DoorsExplains the difference between advice and sponsorship, and when an introduction or a recommendation is worth more than an hour of conversation. After this chapter you will know which doors you can actually open and how to offer them well.
  7. 7Endings, Drift And The Long TailCovers what to do when sessions lose purpose, how to end an arrangement cleanly, and what a relationship becomes afterwards. After this chapter you will be able to close a mentoring relationship without either party feeling dropped.

A sample from chapter one

Your route is not the route

The first instinct is to describe what you did. It is the thing you know best and it feels generous. But your route depended on the year, the people who happened to be around, the money you did or did not need, and a temperament that may be nothing like theirs. Handed over as a plan, it fits badly and quietly makes them feel they are doing it wrong.

Offer it as evidence instead. Here is what I tried, here is why it worked in that situation, here is what it cost me. That gives them something to reason with rather than something to follow. It also leaves room for the possibility that their answer is one you would not have chosen, which is usually the point of the arrangement.

  • Ask what they have already tried before suggesting anything, because most people have thought about it longer than you have.
  • Agree the frequency and the end date in the first meeting, so nobody has to guess whether it is still running.
  • When you do give advice, attach the conditions it depends on rather than presenting it as a general rule.
  • Write down what they said they would do, and open the next session by asking about it.

Key takeaways

  • The most valuable thing a mentor offers is attention, and advice given too early spends it badly.
  • Your experience is evidence for them to reason with, not a plan for them to follow.
  • A mentoring relationship should be given an agreed shape and a way to end, or it drifts into obligation.

The studio writes every chapter from this outline, paints the art and hands you a PDF you can sell the same afternoon.

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