“On more than one occasion.”
I laughed. “So that’s the lead. What about follow? Is that like the coach who trails behind the young African tribesman to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble?”
“In a way, yes. Following is an important stage of the mentoring relationship. It’s that link between doing something under the tutelage of someone who’s been successful and acting on your own.”
“I know what you mean. I remember my algebra class. When the teacher was there, everything seemed so simple, but when I did the homework, I couldn’t believe how hard it was.”
“That’s exactly my point. When you returned to class the next day, your algebra teacher was available to assist you with the problems you had trouble with—that is, if you had the initiative to ask for help. That’s the interim step that can spell the difference between success and failure.” He stood up and began pacing. “Rachel, I’m disturbed when I hear managers delight in bringing new people into their organizations and using a philosophy of sink or swim. I don’t believe we can hold someone up indefinitely to keep him from ‘drowning,’ but neither should we continue to operate based on a philosophy that considers employees disposable. The cost is too high—to our society, to our country, and to the spirit that says we count all people as important. Sometimes we just have to look back at the forces I’ve already described and ask ourselves, how can we do better?”
“I see what you mean, Lucky, I mean Lucien.” I said.
Beth smiled. “It’s okay. You’re family.”
Lucien glowered. “Is it okay for Rachel to call you Lizzy?”
She frowned. “No, it’s not. I don’t like that name. It sounds like a reptile. I’m not sure it’s okay for you to use it, Lucien.”
I smiled. “Don’t worry Beth, I won’t use it. I value your friendship too much.”
Lucien continued, “So you see, the concept of following is to understand that people need to experiment a bit and then have a friendly counselor to whom they can turn for guidance. The reason I think of that as follow is because at this stage, the adviser assumes a more passive role. It is now up to the learner to seek the advice or listening ear of the mentor.”
“And if he doesn’t know enough to ask?”
“There’s an old saying. Experience is the best teacher. The only problem is the exam comes before the lesson.”
“I’d hate to name the many things I’ve learned that way. But being a passive mentor is not easy for me,” I said. “When you’ve got so much invested in someone’s success, it’s hard to stand back and watch her make mistakes.”
“It is, but that’s an essential part of learning,” responded my teacher. “When a person decides to seek further guidance, advice, or feedback, she tends to be more receptive to the information than if it is offered by another. Also, because she asked for it, she probably feels more free to make her own decision on its value.”
“It sounds like ‘getting out of the way’ may be the simplest part of all.”
“Not necessarily, Rachel. Consider this: how does one know when the relationship between mentor and pupil is over?”
“I guess it’s when one or the other decides, isn’t it?”
“Some mentoring relationships end when the mentor sees in the person the maturity and judgment to make it on his own, or the individual recognizes her own need to fly solo. Some evolve into a collegial relationship. Occasionally, there is a battle of wills followed by an abrupt ending. There are issues of control and approval in almost every mentoring relationship. The mentor has to realize his advice may not always be taken, and the individual at some point must free himself from the need for the mentor’s approval. For some people that requires a complete break. Sometimes the relationship breaks off too soon, leaving both individuals not completely satisfied. Then, there are some people who think they can fly solo before they are ready.”
“Some people aren’t very strong in judgment. I know my sense is that might be a problem for both Stuart and Katy.”
“Maybe so, but don’t be too sure,” he responded. “Katy’s judgment is obviously maturing. The first situation you described, the one with Super Health, required that you take the lead. You gave her some advice and followed up. Right?”
“Right. I thought she was going to backslide when Stuart entered the picture, but fortunately she got back on track and made the apology.”
“The key is you taught her what to do. Then came the situation with the meeting. From what you told me, I surmised Katy realized she had messed up, and that’s why she came to you. You didn’t send for her. So, in this situation, your role was following.”
“Ah, I get it. Stuart’s situation is much more difficult. We seem to have a communication barrier that I can’t get through,” I said shaking my head.
“I suspect he’s pretty disappointed and sees you as fair game.”
“Yes, a goose. The problem is it’s turned me off so much that every conversation we have seems to evolve quickly into a power struggle, and that’s out of character for me. Frankly, I’m beginning to doubt that I’m the right mentor for him.”
“You’re probably right, Rachel, but at the same time, what he may need from you is what I call a mentoring moment.”
“That’s a concept new to me. What is it?” I asked.
“It just means that sometimes an individual can offer one of those flashes of insight or be part of a revelation that makes a difference in our lives even if a single piece of information is all this person can provide,” responded Lucien.
“I can relate to that. Once I was in a new assignment and working with someone who was very rigid and authoritarian. I was having a tough time and didn’t know what to do, but a manager at PWE saw what was happening, took me aside and gave me some important advice that helped. But how do you identify when that moment comes?”
“You’ll know. Someone once said, ‘When the student is ready, the teacher appears.’”
“I just feel so helpless when it comes to Stuart.”
“You’re anything but helpless. The moment simply hasn’t come yet, but I think it will. Just don’t get invested in that insight coming from you. It could be Elroy Grant or Charlie Rothstein who tells Stuart what he needs to know.”
“I hope someone does,” I sighed. “He’s a lot more lost than he realizes. So ‘getting out of the way’ is a decision based on judgment. I like that, but I’m not sure how you tell if the person has enough judgment to go it alone.”
“Let me make a comparison to the relationship of a parent with a young adult. The teenage years represent the youngster’s struggle for independence and the parent’s for control. The young adult thinks he can make it on his own. Yet, when he needs something, he often doesn’t even consider using his own resources. Mom and Dad are available, and they can help.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve got the perfect example at home. Brad decided he was grown up enough to have his own apartment. Next thing we knew he had his hand out. ”
“Right, and from what you say, you didn’t trust his judgment enough to fill it up with money. Instead, you and Paul took him shopping. But at some point, every young adult has to demonstrate to his parents that he can make it on his own.”
“Well his stint as king of hamburgers sure hasn’t proven anything to me.”
“Of course it hasn’t, but you haven’t made the mistake some parents do who unwittingly hurry the process along by confusing physical size with emotional maturity and then find themselves with a boomerang kid. A young girl marries too soon, divorces, comes home with a baby. A young man leaves home and when things go wrong, returns to his old room and his old ways. This is the analogy I’m making. The role of the mentor, like the role of the parent, is to help someone build judgment and independence. So how do you know you’re there? By the hard choices that people make. By their ability to overcome obstacles. By their accepting the consequences of their actions. And when you see that in the person you are mentoring, it�
�s time to ‘get out of the way.’”
“What if you never see it?”
“Perhaps you’ve taken over the controls. Birds fly when their parents push them out of the nest, and not until.”
“What sort of relationship, if any, can you have after that?”
“It depends. With some people, you give up contact. The end of the relationship is just that. With others you back off and see what happens. I’ve had some people I mentored become friends, but I must tell you, that happens less often than the other two situations.”
There was a lull in the conversation, and Beth took that opportunity to ask about Paul and how we had met. From this we turned to the accidents of time and place from which one creates friendships that last a lifetime. It was luck, sheer luck, that had placed me across the hall from the Powells. Sometimes fortune smiles.
NOTES TO MENTORING FILE
_____________________________
Process Summary
In the first phase of the process, the mentor takes the lead. In this stage, the mentor plays a very active role, teaching, coaching, and explaining. The person being mentored seeks to profit from the knowledge and skills, which are exemplified by the mentor’s achievements.
The follow phase is a gradual transition as the lead moves from mentor to mentee. In this stage, the mentor becomes a consultant, advisor, counselor and sounding board to the person mentored. The key to success is to continue the process at some level even if the mentee doesn’t seek counsel. The solution might be some form of “how’s it going” process or check-in on a regular basis so the mentor can continue to provide limited feedback or information and so the mentee doesn’t feel cut off .
Getting out of the way represents a challenge for both mentor and mentee. There are issues of control and approval in almost every mentoring association, and quite often one party feels more strongly than the other that it is time for the relationship to end. Important considerations for getting out of the way include: the mentee’s independence and judgment and the mentor’s sense of how much more she can offer. Sometimes the relationship becomes collegial, but often it breaks off completely as the mentee “leaves home.”
Mentoring Moments
These are powerful revelations or pieces of information that make a difference in our lives sometimes offered by an individual who is not our mentor.
CHAPTER 12
Problems and
Problem Solving
A word is dead/When it is said,/Some say. I say/It just begins to live,/That day.
— Emily Dickinson, Poem
It was Thursday and I was looking forward to a quiet day at work. I had an early appointment with Lily Sheldon to discuss Justin’s salary, a couple of meetings to attend, and phone calls to return. Maybe I could leave early and spend the weekend in Oakville. My discussion with Lucien had been an eye opener, but I wasn’t sure how we could apply it to Brad’s situation. He certainly wasn’t living up to the “warrior” tradition—at least not in my eyes, but Lucien had pointed out the transition he was attempting to make toward manhood. That was something to think about.
I had gotten just that far in my inner wanderings when I noticed my gas gauge perilously close to “E.” I stopped at a gas station to fill up and discovered a tire was low and that the “service” station I was in didn’t change tires. They didn’t do windows either. I finally found a “full service” station; however, there were several cars ahead of mine, and that meant I would probably not make my appointment with Lily Sheldon to discuss Justin’s salary. When I tried to call the office, I got a busy signal, so I was unable to tell Judy about my situation. I finally reached Lily, and we rescheduled for eleven. By the time I got to work, I was feeling frazzled, so much so that I was oblivious to the fact that Judy wasn’t wearing her usual smile. Her voice, however, was not so easy to ignore. She was rattled.
“Rachel, can I talk to you a moment?” she asked.
“Sure, come in. What’s going on?”
She sat down. “I don’t want to be petty,” she said. “It’s not like me.”
I agreed.
Overworking Others
“My phone has been ringing off the hook. Alicia has called me so many times I’ve lost count.”
“Is she having a problem?”
“No, but she’s creating one. She’s called to check on things that I have on my list, to ask me to make some calls for her, and to follow up on messages. It’s clear to me she thinks I don’t have anything else to do, and what’s more, that I’m incompetent. Let me show you the list she left me when she went to PWE. There is so much detail a second grader could do it in her sleep.”
There was.
“This constant checking up is making me crazy. I know that she’s ‘over me,’” continued Judy, shaking her head, “so I can’t tell her not to call. I’m not sure what I should say or do. I certainly can’t get any of my normal work done. But about ten minutes ago was the last straw. She asked me to call Super Health to check on the order they gave Katy. I don’t mind doing that, but it took me three phone calls to get her what she wanted. Each time she called she asked me to find out something else from Frank Manchester. Then she called back to see what he said and had another question. I felt foolish the third time I called him, and he sounded irritated. What worries me is that she’s likely to call back with another question after this one.”
“You’ve had quite a morning already, Judy. I can certainly testify to the number of calls, since I’ve had my share of busy signals trying to call in this morning. Alicia is a bundle of energy, and this is the first time she’s been away from the office like this. I’m sure she trusts you. I certainly do. I don’t want you feeling incompetent, but I’d like to talk with her the next time she calls. See how things are going and all.”
Judy smiled. “Thanks Rachel. Oops, I hear my phone. I’ll bet it’s her.”
It was Alicia, and she was excited. She told me about the dinner with Elroy, how friendly every one had been and how much she was learning. I listened, asked questions, and congratulated her on all she was doing. Then she asked to talk with Judy. “I don’t think this is a good time to do that,” I told her. “Judy’s had a rough morning.”
“Really?” asked Alicia. “I’ve talked to her a number of times, and she’s seemed fine to me.”
“I think that’s the problem, I mean the number of calls. I know that you are making sure nothing slips, and I appreciate that. At the same time, the constant interruptions and the ‘first-shoe’ conversations are making a nervous wreck out of a very competent woman.”
“Excuse me. I don’t think I heard you right. Did you say ‘first-shoe’?”
“I did. That’s my name for those three-party conversations in which person one tells person two to ask person three a question. That’s the first shoe falling. Then person one gets the reply from person two and asks another question and the cycle goes back to the beginning. It’s as if the first shoe is dropped, picked up, and dropped again and again. Person two keeps waiting for the second shoe to fall because that means the situation is concluded, but it can go on for a long time. So, person one gets her needs met, at the same time frustrating person two and annoying person three. Make sense?”
“I guess I’ve been person one today.”
“Big time. My suggestion is (1) if it’s something that is extremely important to handle right now, Judy will handle it, but you should provide all the information she needs to do that with one call. If she needs to check with someone, there are plenty of people available to ask. (2) If it’s something that will require more questions depending on the answer, make the call yourself. (3) If it can wait, let it. You’ll be back Monday and can take care of it then.”
“I’m really sorry, Rachel. I didn’t know that I was upsetting Judy.”
“Judy is fine, just feeling a bit undervalued and overworked. I know I’ve said it before, but I do appreciate how conscientious you are, so I hope you understand what I’ve been sayi
ng.”
“I do, Rachel. Can I ask Judy just one more question?”
“You can, if it’s critical, but Alicia, she is over-committed right now, so please don’t ask her to do anything else. If it’s something simple, tell me and I’ll do it.”
“I thought I left a paper in my right hand desk drawer, and I need it faxed.”
I got the information from Alicia, promising to look into it myself. Three minutes later she was on the phone. She found the paper in her briefcase, and I had her promise not to call again unless there was a hurricane or a flood.
A De-motivating Salary System
There went my quiet morning. Maybe the afternoon would be better? Wrong. It started out well enough. My discussion with Lily Sheldon about Justin’s salary was enlightening. Talk about tinkering! The changes in the salary system the last two years of Altis Dunlop’s regime as President of To Your Health had certainly been de-motivating for the Marketers. They were now on a salary plus semi-annual bonus based on sales. The problem was that the salary was paid at ninety percent as I had learned from Tom. So, for example, if your salary was forty thousand dollars, your pay was thirty-six thousand. I found it no coincidence that this new salary situation occurred at about the same time Tom Gaines stopped bringing in new customers. As for Justin, without a marketing manager present, no one had set his target. No wonder Justin was perplexed. He had received a nice raise (if you add in the ten percent) but the difference in his paycheck at ninety percent was very small. I also checked the situation with Katy’s salary. It was slightly higher than his based on her education and a signing bonus. TYH was proud to have a Stanford graduate with Katy’s grade point average and references.
I went back to my office to consider my dilemma. First, I decided to communicate with Elroy. I had a feeling he would want to look into the salary situation. I also needed to know when a bona-fide manager would be coming in so I could tell Justin something more than, “We’ll get back to you.” Elroy returned my call at three with instructions. I should look at Katy’s target and assign the same one to Justin. When he came to Houston, he would be talking to Human Resources about the Marketing salaries. He didn’t like the sound of what was going on, and he thought once the new regime was in place, the salary schedule would bear more resemblance to that at PWE. Until then, I was to “hold the fort.” And then he chuckled.
The Art of Mentoring Page 16