To have success in mentoring, it is important to prioritize building connections between a mentor and mentee that are professional (i.e., finding common research areas of interest) as well as social (i.e., finding personal ways of connecting).   Here are some resources to help you get to know each other professionally and personally.

Recommended for Early-on Meetings

• Timeline and mentoring roles exercises
• Metaphors for mentoring (in Videos, Books, etc.)
• Reflecting on mentoring experiences over a lifetime
• Reflecting on your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in a mentoring setting
• Thinking about being a good virtual mentor
• How asking questions can be a powerful way to connect with someone and build a mentoring relationship

Some Interesting and Meaningful Conversation-Starters 

How courage and recognizing the power of the situation is needed to create an ethical culture

What do you think of this quote about leadership? "Before you become a leader, success is all about growing yourself.  After you become a leader, success is about growing others.  - Jack Welch, CEO General Electrics

Learning and Talking about Imposter Syndrome

Short PowerPoint to identify Imposter Syndrome

A NY Times Article about dealing with Imposter Syndrome

Mentor-Mentee Expectations (Northwestern Network Mentorship Program website)

• Mentor Expectations  
• Mentee Expectations

A Fun Activity if Thinking of a Job

Try to do a "mock" job interview and ask your mentor to give you good feedback.

When reflecting on one's past mentoring experiences, probably everyone can recall when it went well, and why, and when it didn't go so well, and why.  However, it helps to know more about how to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of being in a mentoring relationship.  Here are some resources to help you think more about mentoring and, more generally, working well with others.

Consider this analogy from a naturalist on mentoring: 

In "The Mentors Guide by Lois Zachary (2000), there is a great analogy for mentoring. When trees start growing again in a forest where there were trees before, the roots of the trees that went before help to strengthen the roots of the trees now growing. The trees now growing end up having stronger and deeper roots. Consequently, these trees are better able to help younger trees that are growing nearby because their stronger and more extensive root system helps the root system of these younger trees to grow strong. 

What are the benefits of being a mentor discussed in The Mentor's Guide by Zachary (2000)?

Reflection - the habit of critical reflection when mentoring can be internalized and carry over to additional aspects of one's life, enriching and bringing more satisfaction to other relationships and activities.

Renewal - the enthusiasm and excitement of one's mentee can give a renewed sense of purpose and a boost of energy to one's own work and life.

Consider the most commonly reported reasons why mentoring fails: 

See below from in Further Investigation of Protégés’ Negative Mentoring Experiences Patterns and Outcomes by Eby and Allen (2002) the most common reasons people have negative mentoring experiences.

Negative Mentoring Experiences - Highest Mean Percentage Reported Frequency to Lowest: 

• Bad fit/mismatched values
• Mismatched personalities
• Mismatched workstyles
• Distancing behavior/Exclusion
• Neglect
• Self-absorption *
• Manipulative behavior
• Abuse of power
• Credit taking *
• Sabotage
• Overt deceit
• Don't have the expertise needed *
• Interpersonally lacking
• Bad attitude/dysfunctional person
• Personal problems

* Highest reported "Very Frequently to Almost Always" frequencies

Videos to watch and discuss with Mentee

• Forget the pecking order at work by Margaret Heffernan (with some great thoughts about emphasizing “fika”--collective restoration-- time to achieve high performing teams that trust and support each other): 
• Failure and the importance of mentors by Patrick Boland (TedxYouth@TheSpire): This video begins by talking about an evolutionary biologist called William Muir and his study on chickens, but what it will teach you about teaming and productive work is well worth the 15 minutes 
• 5 ½ Mentors that will change your life by Doug Stewart (with some interesting analogies for the types of mentors we all need)
• How to overcome our biases?  Walk boldly toward them by Vera Myers

To improve mentoring, it is important to understanding your partner in the mentoring relationship.  One fun, informative way to better understand each other is to take different types of assessments (i.e., Are you introverted or extroverted?  Task oriented or relationship oriented?). 

Here are some (free) fun and informative online assessments that you could take and share results:

High5 - a free strengths test

Myers-Briggs

A site for all kinds of tests to "Understand who you truly are" (i.e., The Big Five; TypeFinder for the Workplace)

A site that demonstrates the mind’s blindspots and then helps you learn via tests how to make better decisions in life and at work

Cautionary Note:  Keep in mind that such assessments often "type" or categorize people, but everyone can grow or shift their style or change (i.e., I may be task-oriented, but I do realize when traveling to more relationship-oriented cultures, or when on a team with more relationship-oriented people, that I need to be more relationship-oriented myself).  Still, it is helpful to realize more about one another and preferred styles or personality orientations.

It is also useful to assess how the mentoring relationship is going. 

Here are some starter questions a mentor might introduce into the meeting to see if you both are on the same page:

• Do you feel that you are getting some of the questions that you had answered?
• Is there anything else that you'd like to learn from me or ask me? 
• Should we revisit and talk more about any topic that we already discussed?  

Here are some starter questions that a mentee may ask to assess the mentoring relationship:

• Is there anything more that I need to be doing to respond to what we have been discussing?
• Do you feel that I need to work more on some areas of my professional development given what we've discussed?

At a recent mentoring UNM conference, I was struck by how much the "themes" around mentoring have changed post-COVID to emphasize the importance of building relationships.   Here are a few topics that helped me re-examine my mentoring style:

• How important kindness and inclusion are - especially for underrepresented students
• How asking questions can be a powerful way to connect with someone and build a mentoring relationship
  
  • Pay attention to the early part of this attachment about getting started with the process

If you have anything that you've read or thought about that you'd like to see added here, please just email me at driscoll@purdue.edu!

We will be planning a final meeting together as a group to help facilitate this process of putting closure on mentoring.  In the meantime, here are some helpful tips:

Celebrate Learning and Growth

One should prepare for a closing that celebrates learning and growth.  We often don't take the time to acknowledge where we began and what we might have learned along the way.  By making it explicit -- being more mindful of our goals, abilities, and skills at the start vs. the finish of the mentoring program -- we can better appreciate the learning and growth that did take place.

• Think about writing down how you were positively affected by the mentoring relationship, both personally and professionally; share your thoughts with each other

• Revisit the expectations, goals, abilities, and skills that were discussed early on; where did you see the most growth? 

Questions to Reflect Back

Here are some questions to ask yourself when reflecting on the year: 

• What did I learn personally and/or professionally about myself'?
• What do I now feel are my mentoring-related weaknesses and strengths?
• What will I do the same or differently the next time I am in a mentoring relationship?
• What other thoughts or feelings do I need to acknowledge to put closure on this mentoring relationship?