Those that took the time to read my State of the Universe 2021, know that I have decided to dedicate 2021 to the topic of mentorship.  During a recent conversation with a friend and coaching peer, the topic of automatic mentorship came up.  What I mean by automatic mentorship is really best posed in a question.  Are there certain positions that make you an automatic mentor?  Obviously, since it was a discussion between two coaches, the position of head coach came to mind.  Is a head coach automatically a mentor to their assistant coaches?  The answer would seem to be an easy “yes”, but as we discussed it further, it became cloudy.  There are a lot of times, especially in youth sports, where an assistant coach may actually have more experience than the head coach.  There are a lot of reasons this may happen such as scheduling, a kid on the team, or just the lack of desire to be a head coach.  I am certainly not saying that a seasoned assistant coach can’t learn things from a younger/greener head coach.  I am just bringing up the point that it may not always be an “amount of experience” situation.

I think one of the issues facing true mentorship is the belief that someone in a top position (head coach, lead trainer, c-suite) is automatically going to be a good or effective mentor.  For me, the keys to a great mentor are:

• Willing to put in the time to be a real mentor and not just one by title
• Open to the idea that the mentee may not always agree with your ideas and teaching
• Willing to learn as well

All those keys may seem pretty simple and basic, but oftentimes these are the areas where the mentor/mentee relationship fails.  Sadly, I am one of those failure stories.  Recently, as a mentor, I have failed.  I committed to being a mentor, then when COVID-19 hit, I let the craziness take over.  While my mentee was very understanding and forgiving, I failed her.  It may have also been the time she needed me most.  We are back on track and I have recommitted to our relationship, but it still bothers me.  After all the research and “talking” I have done on mentorship, I failed at step #1.  That may be the catalyst for my drive to make 2021 about mentorship.  Let’s take a moment and look at my three keys.

Key #1 – Time Commitment

This is number one on my list for a reason.  It does not matter what your resumé is or how many years of experience you may have.  If you do not have the time to work with your mentee, the whole relationship is in jeopardy.  In fact, it may go from a lens of learning to a lens of resentment.  How much time varies by field and level, but I would suggest setting aside 5-10 hours a week to work with your mentee.  Some of this may be face-to-face (or remotely in today’s world), but a lot of it is just listening and helping the mentee talk it out.  Personally, with my mentees, we have a standing 45-minute call weekly, then throughout the week, we hash out issues and items that the mentee finds important.  A lot of this is done via email and text.  It may also be as simple as sharing a Linked-in post and chatting about it quickly.  It does not have to feel like a workbook approach, although in some industries and cases that make be very beneficial.

Key #2 – Being Open

This is a big issue I hear about when I talk with other mentors.  Many of them, while great people and good at what they do, they fall short as a mentor because they treat it like a boss/employee relationship.  Chances are your mentee already has a boss that is directing their work life.  They may just be looking for methods to cope or structure to better function in their role.  Note that this is different than learning to do their role.  The minute you start telling them how to do their job, your relationship begins to move from mentorship to apprenticeship.  That is why I always encourage mentors to seek out mentees that may not be in a directly related field or area.  Going back to the coaching well, maybe you can mentor a coach in a different sport, gender, or age level.  You have to come to the realization that your mentee needs to do things in their own manner.  You want to offer your sage advice and share your personal experiences, but you have to let them learn a lesson or two on their own.  That can be frustrating at times as a mentor.  You have that sense of “look, I have been here and made this mistake”.  Learning from our failures is a key component of growth.  If we take them all away, are we creating better leaders or just carbon-copies?  More importantly, in my opinion, is that we may miss out on other solutions that did not come to us in the past.  You have to be able to shake off the disagreements and let go of the ego.

Key #3 – Willing to Learn

This goes hand and hand with Key #2.  As a mentor, you can’t be so close-minded that you miss the chance to see a new method or solution.  Your mentee can be a great source of learning and education for yourself as well.  Don’t be afraid to ask your mentee to guide you through some of their actions and solutions as well.  The mentor/mentee relationship is not a one-way street.  Just like Key #2, letting go of your ego may be the biggest obstacle in your way to a great relationship.  It is very easy to stick to your methods and solutions, but don’t be afraid to learn a little, even from someone who doesn’t have the same level of expertise or experience.

As we continue this series all year on mentorship, we will look at concepts such a dual mentorship, forced mentorship, and methods for selecting a mentee.  I firmly believe that mentorship is one of the greatest, yet underutilized, tools in the world.  If you have any personal stories on mentorship, I would love to hear them.

TL;DR Section

• Mentorship is not automatic
• There are three keys to mentorship: Commitment, Openness, and Learning
• Mentorship is underutilized

The post Is Mentorship Automatic? appeared first on Dan Mickle.

On December 31, 2020, I will be posting a “State of the Universe” blog and podcast.  Before I do that, I felt a little background on the actual title and concept was needed.  I guess I should really start off explaining how the “State of the Universe” started since this will be the first time I am doing it as a fully public release versus a private e-mail distribution.  The whole state of the universe concept was something that a former mentor of mine had done every year via his private e-mail release.  Tom Berwager was one of my very first business/work mentors that I ever had.  Sure, I had manager and bosses before that, but Tom was really the first person to start to groom me and teach me for something better….deeper….down the line.  This is the story of my boss, my mentor, and my friend.

In 1997, I had come off a few rough years, professionally.  I left a steady job of 3 years in 1995 (please keep in mind I was only 21 at the time).  I was doing inside technology sales and wanted something more.  I jumped ship to another company with the promise of moving from sales to tech.  After a year and half of driving 3 hours to Bristol, PA every week to live in a hotel (the office in Harrisburg they promised never happened) I had to leave.  Because they never transitioned me into tech, I only had tech sales experience.  I basically lived in late 1995 and all of 1996 hopping from horrible sales job to sales job.  All while maintaining an amazing 1.75 GPA at the local community college.  I felt like I was going nowhere fast.  In August of 1997, I had seen an ad for a new position at a local tech firm for “Technical Sales Support”.  I decided to apply for the job and had an interview with Tom.

The interview with Tom was not what I expected.  First, he was only in his socks.  Secondly, he had a knack to showing you how smart he really was, without making it seem like he was arrogant or being a jerk.  The interview was more like a friendly chat.  I just remember being comfortable enough to tell him “Look, I don’t know where my path is going to lead me, but I am sure that right now I do not have a guide there.  I am not just looking for a paycheck.  I am looking for a company and a mentor to guide me to something better.  I am not going to always get it right, but I am always going to learn…”.  Two days later, I was offered the job.

Tom was a unique person.  He was a Harrisburg Hashers.  A running group with a drinking problem (I mean that with all love).  He was a professional skydiver.  He was a pilot.  He was also one of the smartest tech minds I had ever met.  Not in the sense of book smart (which he was), but practical smart.  Really able to fix things in real-time, not some book scenario.  He was the first person to introduce me to sushi.  We would often have lunch at Fuji-Do’s.  He was the living breathing version of a Jimmy Buffet song.  He was an amazing mentor.  He would give me just enough space to really mess up yet give me the tools to redeem myself.  My job was basically the bridge between the sales force and the tech force.  I had to make sure that the salespeople weren’t overselling things and I had to make sure the tech side knew what they were getting into.  Tom mentored me on the tech side, the co-worker relationship side, and the customer relationship side.  1998 was amazing for me..Until June 7^th.

Tom recently purchased a Mooney M20A plane.  He was flying out to Idaho to pick it up and fly it back to Harrisburg.  This is the part that only a handful of people knew about.  In fact, I really don’t talk about it much to this day.  We had talked about the trip and originally, and I was going to accompany him on the trip.  It was going to be a great chance to talk about the department and where it was headed.  It would also be a great chance for some one-on-one time out of the office to learn more about life from my mentor.  I also was worried about the flight back alone for him.  I thought having somewhere there would be better.  We would fly out on a commercial flight to Idaho, get the plane, then fly home with a stop in Montana to break up the trip.  Fate would have a different idea.  A large contract for a local company got changed.  This would require me to stay back in Harrisburg and then work with the client on the 8^th.  We were worried that the trip would not give us time to have any final revisions made (remember this was 1998 and remote working was really slow and bad).  So, I agreed to stay back and get things done, and he would join me.

On June 7^th at 11:45 am (EST), Tom’s plane crashed in the mountains outside of Helena Montana.  There were no survivors.  The crash was attributed to poor weather conditions and pilot error (not enough training for the conditions).  Tom and I usually talked every day, but I had not heard from him since about 3 pm on the 6^th.  Again, there wasn’t the communication levels we have today, so I did not think much of it.  I assumed he got held up and maybe was late.  On June 8^th at 9:00 am, the President of our company called us all into the conference room.  He delivered the news that would set in motion a lot of things.  He informed the company that Tom’s plane had crashed and that there were no survivors.  Now, I was fairly new and there were a lot of great people that worked there.  I am not going to say that it hit me the hardest.  I just know that it hit me very hard.  I immediately left the office and went to one of our favorite clients to tell them the news.  I absolutely needed to get out of the office.  I made work for me to do offsite that day.  Most of that day is a blur for me.  I remember going to Fuji-Do and trying to eat and I just sat there and cried at the table, trying not to let anyone see me.  I eventually made it back to the office where everyone had left.  For the next three hours, I just sat at Tom’s desk and sobbed.  Complete, uncontrollable sobbing.  I had so many things running through me.  Sadness, anger, survivors’ guilt.  I honestly do not know how I made it through.  The next few weeks were a complete blur for me.  I thought I was doing well until I was tasked with sorting through his business e-mail and papers for things we needed to continue on.

In his email, I found the message he had sent to HR and the president of the company after our interview.  “Dan seems like a great kid.  Smart and eager to learn.  I really liked him and think with the right direction, will be a perfect fit for the position.  Would love to make an offer ASAP.”  I have this mail printed out and it has traveled with me to every job I have had since.  My only regret in Tom’s passing is that I did not make his paddle out ceremony in Key West.  I just was not in the place mentally.

After Tom’s death, things went downhill professionally.  Because Tom was my direct supervisor, when he passed, I was sort of forgotten about.  I went almost a month without any real contact from management.  I do not know if they were giving me space, or they honestly just forgot about me.  I would get assigned an odd job here and there, but no real direction from anyone.  Reviews, Christmas bonuses; all were missed.  There was no one there for me once Tom was gone.  Let me be very clear, there were A LOT of great workers there.  Even the management/ownership was great.  I just got “lost in the shuffle”.  Eventually, I got reassigned, as the Technical Sales Department was now gone.  I was moved over to the technical support side.  I had a lot of great co-workers there from the other techs to the awesome ladies of the help desk.  The problem was there was no one there who took Tom’s mentorship role.  I did land the on-site role with a local school district that we were supporting.  Eventually, however, I made the decision to go back to college and I needed a job that would be flexible with that.  Honestly, I also was looking for a new mentor.  Eventually, in February 2001, I stopped looking and went out on my own, starting my own I.T. support company.  A firm that I would grow, nurture, and love until I would merge with my parents’ company.  That is the story for another day.

I have rarely shared this story with anyone, let alone talk about it personally.  There are three main reasons:

1. I just needed to. This is one of the biggest moments of my life.  It literally would shape almost every decision and path I will take until I leave this earth.  It was time I realized it was ok to talk about it.  To let people, see this side of me.
2. I have decided to take up the “State of the Universe” job. I hope I can honor Tom with it.  I wish I would have saved his last ones to model after, but I am going to have to go of a fading memory.
3. I do not think the world puts enough stock in the role the mentorship provides people. It does not matter if you are in the business world, the educational world, or the coaching world.  The value of a mentor is hard to state.

In closing, and why this long post exists.  I have decided to dedicate all my resources for 2021 to mentoring.  My Podcasts, my blogs, my social media will focus mainly on mentorship.  It is time we grow the mentoring culture in life and help one another, as opposed to trying to keep all our “trade secrets” and holding others down.  I am not sure what all I will be launching in 2021, but I do know that you are all invited on the ride.

Stay tuned for the “State of the Universe” blog and podcast post on 12/31/2020.

With love and mentorship,

Feature image license
License: Creative Commons 3 – CC BY-SA 3.0
Attribution: Alpha Stock Images – http://alphastockimages.com/
Original Author: Nick Youngson – http://www.nyphotographic.com/

The post The Day That Changed My Life appeared first on Dan Mickle.