NLIGHTEN

Lessons
for Mentors
“Mentoring is an art only few could claim to
have mastered and here, a few practices that
can help one gain this mastery.”

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The Business Enterprise | Apr 2011

D
o you think we are not mentor-
ing our subordinates? What do
you expect us to do differently?
as the question that was posed by one of our
senior managers at the end of a day-long pro-
gramme on mentoring. I felt that the efforts
of the whole day were watered down by this
simple question. As we grow into senior lev-
els, one vital responsibility that gets added
up, though it may not be spelt out explicitly
in your Job Description is ‘mentoring’ of the
greenhorns. Mentoring calls for an earnest in-
terest to groom the youngsters and it is more
about attitude than about skills. It is quite a
task to provide structured instructions as to
what mentors should do on a daily, weekly
or monthly basis and any such regimented
exercise would be devoid of the spirit of
mentoring. However, when I recently hap-
pened to observe the way yoga masters taught
their learners to learn some difficult postures
(asanas), I felt quite a few things could apply
to mentoring practice.
Drill the habit of 'learning by do
ing'
You cannot simply learn the difficult postures
of yoga just by listening to your yoga master.
What masters do to teach them is to get you
into doing it right away. You get to listen to
instructions as you practice and now your lis-
tening is more intense because it matters to
what you do.
Mentoring is not about giving monologues to
your captive protégés but getting them into
action. Assign them projects and assignments
where they can learn from first hand experi-
ence. The best way to help them is to guide
them by sharing from your experience the pos-
sible pitfalls they need to be wary of.
Give it when they need it the most
Masters were doing the rounds and giving us
instructions, but were not intervening in every
step. The mere feeling that they were around
gave us the confidence to try out postures
which we would dare not, left to ourselves.
And help was at hand, when we faced diffi-
culty.
It is but natural that a greenhorn would be
twice careful about trying out anything new
for the fear of making mistakes and would
rather avoid the risk. But that does not mean
that you spoon-feed. As a mentor, all you need
to do is to give them the confidence that when
you are around, they can’t go wrong and if at
all they do, you are there to assure them ‘main
hoon na’.
Push for the little extra stretch
A maxim we have in our vernacular says, ‘what
was not bent at five can not be bent at fifty’.
After attending the yoga session, I don’t sub-
scribe to this view anymore. You can, if you
persevere to bend of course, under the guid-
ance of a right trainer. Yes, there could be
pain in trying to flex what has hardened up
for years. But the gentle push the masters gave
at the right point made us stretch beyond the
normal, and the feeling that we were capable
of doing it took the pain out of the extra-
stretch.
Mentoring is no different. It is the onus of
mentors to ensure that their protégés do not
settle into a comfort zone that may mar their
growth. Mentors need to give that extra push
to stretch them beyond the comfort zone and
take them to newer levels consistently.
Support when they tilt
Sometimes, when a beginner in an organisa-
tion is assigned to a difficult and challenging
project that calls for coping with different
pushes and pulls, demanding customers and
tight deadlines, s/he may tend to lose emo-
tional balance and might decide to call it quits.
All that is needed of mentors is to provide
that emotional support to keep their proté-
gés in balance like how our yoga masters did.
They were right there and provided a kind of
9 to 6
scaffolding support to prevent us from tilt-
ing and falling off while trying some difficult
upside-down postures (Sirasasana).
Make them feel good even in
awkward positions
A beginner, when trying to do a new thing,
could get into an awkward situation until
s/he learns the ropes and becomes adept at it.
You would agree with me if you could recall
the time you made your first presentation to
top management. Many a time, awkward situ-
ations thwart the youngsters from trying it out
again in future and becoming better at it. If it
is a crucial skill for success, then it could mar
their growth. But a mentor can help a great
deal in such situations by elevating their feel-
ings and giving constructive feedback while
stripping out the awkward feeling associated
with the event.
So, if you have been doing all these already,
then you don’t probably need to be sitting in a
mentoring session.
Bharath Gopalan
The writer is a Learning & Development pro-
fessional and presently steers the L&D prac-
tice at Madras Cements. He holds Masters
Degrees in Psychology and Human Resource
Management.
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Apr 2011 | The Business Enterprise