The Female Bond Fellowship: Importance of mentorship early on in your career

Alan Bowser, co-head of Americas at Bridgewater Associates, dismisses the notion of a self-made man or woman: “Anybody who thinks they got where they are without the significant help of others is probably just not seeing the whole picture.”

Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations found that mentoring programs boosted minority representation at the management level by 9 to 24 percent (when compared to a -2 percent to 18 percent boost with other types of diversity initiatives).

Mentorship can be life-changing.

Thanks a lot for volunteering to mentor the first cohort of The Female Bond Fellowship! Your mentee will reach out to you to introduce themselves (by 15th October) and coordinate setting aside time for an introductory 30–45 minute video call.

Purpose

• The purpose of these meetings is for mentors and mentees to exchange information and work together towards achieving the mentee’s professional goals.
• The mentor may offer advice, share knowledge, talk about their own past experience, and help the mentee come up with a plan for moving forward.

Splitting out the 3 sessions:

The first session: Introduction -

The first mentoring session should be all about giving the mentor and mentee an opportunity to get to know each other and establish a comfortable relationship. This will lead to a much more meaningful experience for both of them.

Here are a few examples of discussion topics you can prepare:

• What brought you to the association/organization?
• What has your professional experience been like so far?
• What challenges are you facing in your career?
• What are you hoping to get out of this mentorship program?

Design a Goal-Setting Framework

An effective mentorship experience is centred around clearly defined goals that the mentor and mentee can work together to achieve. To help them do this, discuss this clearly.

• What are the short- and long-term goals of the mentee?
• When should they ideally be achieved by?
• How will success be measured?
• What obstacles is the mentee facing in achieving their goals?
• What can the mentor do to help with these goals?
• For each goal, are there milestones or sub-goals that need to be reached?
• How often should the mentor and mentee check-in on the progress of each goal?

Feel free to send them questions to answer over email or ask them to think about responses for next time. Before the end of the meeting, you should also discuss the agenda for the next meeting.

The second session: check-in (approx 2 weeks later) -

Achieving Goals: Suggestions on interactions to be had-

• The mentor can review the mentees resume and/or cover letter
• The mentor can help the mentee prepare for an interview or a presentation
• The mentor can give advice on how to go through a performance evaluation
• The mentor can give advice on how to discuss difficult topics with a manager
• The mentor can help identify gaps in the mentee’s skillset and recommend next steps for filling them

Share Ideas

• Mentees come to you because they value your opinion. While you don’t want to dominate the conversation or dictate to the mentee what they should or shouldn’t do, you can certainly offer ideas about whatever situation they are facing.
• Ask them if they want to brainstorm ideas together; if they say yes, then start a conversation where each of you shares ideas and builds off one another’s thoughts.
• You can act as a sounding board for many of their ideas. Sometimes just hearing options is enough to help the mentee know what they do or do not want to do in a career path or beyond. It can also help them see options they hadn’t considered.

Tell Stories

A great way to convey an idea is by sharing a story. Stories offer a way for you to connect with your mentee and show them that you understand what they are going through. It also shows your mentee that they are not alone nor is their situation unique. Someone has been through this before and navigated through the resulting challenges. Stories also allow you to build a personal connection with the mentee by showing a vulnerable side of yourself. This most effectively takes place when you share a story in which you failed or struggled. These can be great ways to help illustrate how things can be turned around and how a positive outcome can come from a negative circumstance.

Dig Deeper

While a mentee shouldn’t come to you and expect you to solve all of their problems, they also should not come to you and expect you to just listen and nod and agree with everything they say. A part of being a mentor is to ask questions and dig deeper into what you hear the mentee telling you. Maybe this means challenging them on their assumptions and taking them out of their comfort zone. Or maybe this means looking for the reasons why they feel a certain way or believe a certain thing. You can ask probing questions to help the mentee discover truths, which can then lead them to finding solutions. You can even try asking “why” multiple times in response to each answer the mentee gives you so that you can start peeling away the layers and find the root of the issue for long-term success.

Before, the end of the meeting, discuss your final FBF mentorship program meeting, and how you will measure progress in that.

The third session: check-in (approx 2 weeks later) -

Since this is the final session, it would be great to establish the path going forward. It is totally understandable if you don’t have time to offer long term mentorship or you don’t think you are best suited to support your mentee in the long term. Here are some tips for the final meeting:

Make Introductions

• One reason why someone may ask you to be their mentor is to access to your network. If you are comfortable with this situation, then make introductions between your mentee and people in your network who can help them.
• But don’t feel obligated to do this; it’s not a requirement that a mentor open up access to their network for their mentee. If you do choose to do this, consider making very targeted introductions with a clear and express purpose that everyone agrees to. You don’t want to put an undue burden on the people in your network nor make them feel uncomfortable by the request you are making.

Offer Encouragement

• Mentors are often chosen because they have been through a similar situation as the mentee, and the mentee wants to learn from them about their experience. When this is the case, it can be easy to fall into the trap of telling the mentee what they should do, especially since you have already been through this. Don’t do that!
• Instead, offer encouragement to the mentee and provide a safe relationship where they can ask questions, share ideas, vent frustrations, and seek a better understanding of the situation at hand. Encourage your mentee to push through difficult situations, cheer them on as they attempt a new (or uncomfortable) task, and celebrate with them when they learn something and grow.

That’s all! Thanks so much for your time and efforts. It is MUCH appreciated!