January is National Mentoring Month, which is a time to reflect on how mentoring has added value to our lives, as both mentors and mentees. Never has being connected to a mentor been more important than during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many of us find ourselves working remotely and at greater risk of loneliness and feeling disengaged.
When you ask both mentors and mentees why mentoring is so important, you’ll find that both find value and benefits through mentoring. It is common to hear from mentors that mentoring others provides a way to give back to others, helps them stay connected with advancements in their fields, feel connected to a larger community and feel valued for their expertise and knowledge. Mentees often report that their mentors have helped broaden their perspectives on work and life, feel better acclimated to a new work environment, and build confidence to achieve their goals.
This mutual benefit of mentoring goes beyond individuals and helps organizations succeed. This is why for the past few years, we have celebrated mentorship with a special #ThankYourMentor campaign to recognize the amazing mentors in the Argonne community. National Mentoring Month culminates in #ThankYourMentor Day, which this year will be held on January 29th.
This year, we invite the Argonne community to recognize their mentors on the Help Each Other channel of Argonne Cares during the last week of January. Share a few lines about what your mentor has meant to you and tag them in your post. Add the hashtag #ThankYourMentor. We will highlight some of the common themes in a future Mentoring Blog post. Need inspiration? Check out some of the stories from the 2020 #ThankYourMentor campaign!
Just as mentoring benefits both mentors and mentees, so does the power of thanks.
Recently, we discussed the value in asking questionsto keep a conversation going. What happens when you don’t know where to start?
One common answer I’ve heard when I ask mentees if they’ve met with their mentors is, “I would, but I don’t know what to talk about.” Well, that surely can make keeping a conversation going quite a challenge.
When pressed, though, mentees will disclose a variety of topics they’d like to learn about, skills they’d like to develop or areas in which they’d like to improve. You can almost hear the “click” when they realize they can use these as discussion topics with their mentor. Someone just has to ask that question, “What do you want?” That someone can be a mentor, a peer or preferably, oneself.
Answering this question is one of the first–and vital–steps in launching a mentoring relationship. That’s not to say that it is an easy question to answer, though. I have a tough enough time answering that question when it’s time to plan dinner, let alone thinking about what I want from my career and how a mentor could help! Luckily, there is a wealth of resources out there to help you get started in setting your mentoring goals. While many of these were devised for postdocs and early career researchers, the concepts apply to any field. A few quick steps can help any mentee get started down their mentoring journey.
Think about where you’d like to go and what can help get you there.
Sound trite? It is. But that’s about as basic as it gets. You must know this about yourself before you can reap the benefits of mentoring. For postdocs, this might be an easy question to answer, as they have a definite need to get to some next stage of their careers. Mentees at other career levels might have to ponder this a little more. But, what if you don’t want to “go” anywhere? That’s okay. Maybe there are things you’d like to work on to grow professionally and personally in your current role.
Common topics mentees seek to work on with their mentors often include communication skills, leadership skills, networking, work/life balance, learning organizational culture and management skills. Researchers may prioritize discipline-specific skills that will help them become independent–proposal writing, lab management, publishing, collaboration. Whatever comes to mind, write it down.
Do a self-check to see what your current comfort level is with each topic.
How confident are you with your communication skills? Does writing grant proposals or publications scare you under the table? How much do you know about managing budgets or directing the work of others?
Some tools to help you gauge your level of confidence include:
While the last three were developed for researchers, they cover global transferable skills such as management, communication, leadership, networking, and managing conflict.
Write questions to ask your mentor about each topic and script your next meeting.
Let’s say, for instance, you’ve been told you have leadership potential and want to build on this. You’ve been reading books and articles on leadership and have been following several influencers on LinkedIn. When you sit down to write out goals for building leadership skills, you become overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. You feel confident in some areas, but less so in others. You might want to start your next mentoring conversation by saying something like, “I’d like to work on leadership development. This seems like such a broad topic, though. Can we spend some time discussing key leadership skills and identify some attainable goals I can work towards?”
Or, maybe you want to be more effective at networking. After your self-assessment, you seem pretty confident with your ability hold technical conversations with colleagues in your field. You are aware that your field is becoming more interdisciplinary and want to adapt and grow in this direction. Talking to people in other fields is a mystery to you, though. You might consider starting your next mentoring conversation by asking your mentor to talk about his or her journey and how they’ve met people and built relationships throughout their career.
Bring it all together by planning your mentoring meeting.
Quick guide for planning mentoring meetings. Click on image for link to table in PowerPoint.
Take this information–your goals, assessment, potential starter questions–and plan your next mentor meeting. And don’t just plan, schedule the meeting and go!
A little bit of planning can go a long way in achieving your mentoring goals. As you can see, questions are just as important in startingthe conversation as they are in continuingthe conversation!
Support. Advice. Inspiration. These are just a few of the words used to describe mentors by those who participated in the annual #ThankYourMentor Day campaign to celebrate National Mentoring Month. On January 31st, several Argonne employees shared stories, videos and photos to demonstrate the power of mentoring through simply saying “Thank You.”
These stories were shared across all of Argonne’s social media platforms letting our followers know the value we place in shared experiences and growth. We encourage you to see for yourself! Follow the links below and engage with your colleague’s expression of gratitude. There are few main take-aways from these stories.
Mentoring is valuable at any stage of your career. Whether you are a high school student learning how to become a researcher, a postdoc learning how to become independent and take that next career step, or a professional learning how to navigate a new workplace and build skills to be successful in current and future roles, mentors can make a big impact.
Mentors benefit just as much as mentees in mentoring relationships. As you will see from these stories, mentors learn just as much from their mentees as their mentees do from them. Mentors find personal satisfaction and joy from sharing their experience and continue to hone their skills through mentoring.
Mentoring happens in many ways. If you think of your personal and professional journeys and the people who have been influential to your learning and success, you will find that many of your mentors were not necessarily called “mentor” at the time. Mentoring happens organically through our professional networks. It can also happen formally through mentoring programs such as the Postdoctoral Mentoring Program, the Argonne ACT-SO Program and the EGS-SA Mentoring Program. One question to ask of your colleagues when you are interested in advancing your learning is, “Who would you recommend I talk to?” This simple question can lead to finding a mentor even if the connection is made informally.
Want to learn more about mentoring at Argonne? Follow the Argonne Mentoring Blog for tips and stories from mentors and mentees. Watch for upcoming Meaningful Mentoring workshops from the Leadership Institute and check out materials from the 2019 Meaningful Mentoring Workshop Series. And look for ways to say “thank you” to your mentors throughout the year. The Core Values Shout Out Program offers a quick, yet meaningful way to tell your colleagues how much they mean to you!
The new year presents an opportunity to launch new goals or reboot existing ones. While holding true to our new year’s resolutions may seem daunting, the support of mentors can help us to succeed.
January is National Mentoring Month making it the perfect time to reflect on what it means to be a mentor and how mentors help us to learn, grow and achieve our goals.
This month, we encourage the Argonne community to think about how we can celebrate our roles as mentors and how we can show appreciation to those who have mentored us. There are a couple key dates to encourage sharing our stories.
Jan. 8 is “I Am A Mentor” Day. On this day, we encourage mentors to reflect on how being a mentor has enriched their lives and to celebrate this mutually beneficial relationship. Several Argonne mentors have expressed the many benefits of being a mentor – advancing your own learning and personal growth, honing skills, expanding networks, and the enjoyment of feeling valued and giving back to the next generation. Please consider sharing your own story with your mentees or on your social media pages.
On Jan. 30, National Mentoring Month will come to a close with “Thank Your Mentor” Day. Last year, we celebrated this day with a campaign encouraging people to recognize their mentors on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) using the hashtag #ThankYourMentor. Several mentor-mentee pairs were featured on Argonne social media with the #ThankYourMentor sign. We plan to do the same this year and want to feature as many mentors and mentees as possible on Argonne’s social media channels on Jan. 30.
Justin Breaux (CPA), digital social media producer, will be available to take photos to be featured on social media for “Thank Your Mentor Day.” If you are interested, please talk to your mentor and complete this Doodle Poll to schedule a time for a quick photo.
Here are a few other ideas to thank your mentor:
Give your mentor a core values shout-out
Send your mentor a nice, handwritten thank you note
Offer your mentor a cup of coffee and share what you’ve learned from them
Write a recommendation for your mentor on LinkedIn
Stop by their office and just say, “Thanks!”
Pay it forward by mentoring someone else
Helping each other grow and accomplish individual, group, and laboratory goals is a hallmark of mentorship and our core value of Teamwork. There are many small gestures you can make to show your appreciation. Choose one and let everyone know what a great mentor you have!
The Postdoctoral Program Office will offer the last Meaningful Mentoring Workshop of the year on Tuesday, December 17th. This session will focus on ways to maintain effective communication in a mentoring relationship. The target audience includes postdoctoral appointees, mentors and supervisors. Case studies, group discussion and interactive exercises will be used to illustrate learning objectives. Materials presented will draw from the Center for the Improvement for Mentored Experiences in Research https://cimerproject.org/. While examples from a research setting will be presented, the concepts covered in this workshop can be applied to other mentoring experiences.
The workshop will run from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM in Building 201, Room 102.
Please register through the RSVP link by December 13th.
Materials from the first two Meaningful Mentoring Workshops are available on Box.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
Provide constructive feedback to mentees
Identify different communication styles
Engage mentees/mentors through active listening
Identify challenges to providing feedback via email
Workshop Agenda:
Introductions and warm up exercise
Case study exercise–Your Presentation Needs Help
Activity–assessing communication styles
Overview of communication styles and strategies for active listening
Case study exercise–The Feedback E-Mail
Summary and relation to core values
Facilitator:
Kristene (Tina) Henne, PhD, is the Postdoctoral Program Lead at Argonne. In this role, she facilitates postdoc career development, mentoring, advises the Postdoctoral Society of Argonne and serves as a navigator for postdoctoral issues. She has presented JumpStart Seminars on Mentoring at Argonne and has facilitated mentoring workshops for organizations such as the National Postdoctoral Association and the Association for Women in Science, Chicago Chapter. Henne earned her Ph.D. in biological sciences from Purdue University and holds certificates in Mediation Skills Training from Northwestern University School of Professional Studies and the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago.
On February 5th, participants of the Energy and Global Security Directorate (EGS) Support Administrative (SA) Staff Mentoring Program gathered to reflect on their first year of growth and learning and to plan for the next year’s activities and goals. Keith Bradley, Director, National Security Programs and recipient of the 2014 Outstanding Staff Mentor Award, opened the session with welcoming remarks on the importance of mentoring and key elements in building a mentoring relationship.
Bradley shared with the group that everyone benefits from having a mentor and that, “Building trust between the mentor and mentee is critical for success. And I personally think the best mentors are the ones who are not in the mentee’s management chain. The mentor must understand the mentee’s job responsibilities and the overall work environment. But the mentee must feel comfortable asking candid questions and seeking advice without fear of being critically judged. Trust and confidentiality are key to maximizing the benefits of the mentor-mentee relationship.”
Keith Bradley delivers welcome remarks at the EGS-SA Mentoring Program celebration.
EGS Support Administrator Supervisor, Wendy Torres provided an overview of how the EGS-SA Mentoring Program was formed. In November 2017, the Energy & Global Security (EGS) Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Council introduced a Mentor Program for support administrative staff in the directorate in response to overall concern from EGS employees regarding lack of professional development opportunities. This concern, identified through the ‘What’s Next Diversity & Inclusion Climate Survey,’ was on the Council’s proposed list of action items for 2017. While it was agreed that a Mentoring Program would be valuable for all EGS employees, it was thought that the support administrative staff could serve as a pilot program. A discussion, facilitated by Postdoctoral Program Lead Tina Henne and EGS D&I Council Chair Molly Finster, with the EGS support administrative staff, successfully confirmed the need for and interest in a mentoring program.
As a follow-up to the facilitated discussion, the D&I Council mentor subcommittee surveyed the EGS support administrative staff on topics of interest, areas of expertise, and desired program type (i.e. mentor-mentee, group, or both). Based on their individual feedback, Torres, facilitated 13 mentor-mentee pairings and identified many topics for group mentorship events (such as procurement, travel, honorariums, BOX, etc.). In November 2017, a formal kick-off of the program served as the perfect opportunity to make introductions and to review the guidance document prepared by the D&I Council subcommittee, which provided useful tips and tools for mentor-mentee pairings. Throughout the year, the turnout at group mentorship brown bag events was an obvious indicator of success, averaging 22 attendees per event!
Following Torres’ recap of the program, IAEA Training Coordinator and EGS D&I Mentor Subcommittee Member, Natalie Zender, provided a summary of feedback from the Mentoring Program participants based on a survey that was sent by the EGS D&I Council at 6 months to check-in. Nearly 50% of respondents attributed the program to improving their skillset and other positive feedback included feelings of empowerment and benefits of networking. Still, opportunities for improvement are evident and mainly reside with the mentor-mentee pairings, which for almost a quarter of respondents are no longer active.
Susan Podoba (left) and Wendy Torres (right) lead a group activity at the EGS-SA Mentoring Program Celebration.
To close the event, Mentor Subcommittee Members, EGS Directorate Executive Assistant, Susan Podoba, and AMD Division Executive Assistant, Sharon Nykolyshyn, led an exercise where participants shared their ideas for future group mentoring sessions, brown bag training and professional development topics and renewed interest in being a mentor, mentee or both.
More than providing an avenue for staff to find a mentor, the EGS-SA Mentoring Program is helping to build a culture of mentorship, which goes hand in hand with modeling Argonne’s Core Values: Impact, Safety, Respect, Integrity, and Teamwork. Mentoring is a professional relationship that promotes talent development and trust by bringing employees together to share knowledge, skills, and experiences. We can all benefit from wider access to opportunities which aids to professional and personal goals to build a more capable, satisfied, and committed team.
About the Mentoring Program, Zender said, “It’s been a rewarding experience to be part of the creation of this mentor program – this mentor culture, really. The act of collaborating with the subcommittee on the development of this alone was a great opportunity for me to participate in a sort of group mentorship as I learned so much from their experiences and feedback. And, I hope to continue to use mentorship as a tool for the rest of my career.”
Creating a culture of mentorship is a continuous journey of listening, learning, and practicing. Sharing her own perspective as a mentor, Wendy Torres notes, “Mentoring is one of the best gifts you can give someone else. It helps to bring the best out of somebody else’s talents.”
Each January, during National Mentoring Month, we are presented a chance to reflect on mentoring—what it means to be a mentor and how mentors have helped us learn and grow. I’ve shared my own experiences as both a mentor and mentee on here before. As a mentor, I’ve been fortunate to have had the chance to help others acclimate to a new environment and find their way through their own career path. I didn’t know I was viewed as a mentor until each “mentee” wrote to me years later to thank me for being a mentor to them.
The sense of purpose each of these random notes brought is the type of benefit mentors commonly report as why they choose to mentor others. If you note from my examples, you might not have “mentor” as an official title, but bear in mind, someone may see you in this light.
As a mentee, I’ve benefited in uncountable ways from mentors—official and unofficial. Whether it was getting a boost of confidence, being introduced to new professional opportunities, or being challenged when I needed it the most, mentors have helped me learn and grow as an individual and professional.
I continue to reach out to my mentor network as I journey through my career. When I transitioned from being a Postdoctoral Appointee to the Postdoctoral Program Coordinator almost eight years ago, there was a steep learning curve. My Division Director at the time thought it would be useful to connect with mentors who had taken similar career paths. That’s when I met Katie Carrado-Gregar, Associate Division Director for CNM User Programs & Operations. Katie helped me gain a broad view of the Laboratory and learn how to communicate with people across the career and leadership spectrum. I also learned how to find value in my work and manage the “identity crisis” one goes through when moving from a research to a management role. While we have not established formal mentoring meetings, I still call on her from time to time for advice and guidance.
On January 31st, National Mentoring Month will come to a close with Thank Your Mentor Day and I encourage everyone to reflect on their mentoring experiences and thank their mentors. One way to do this is to give them a shout out on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) using the hashtag #ThankYourMentor.
This could be a photo with you and your mentor holding a #ThankYourMentor sign. Justin Breaux, Argonne’s Digital Social Media Producer with the Communications and Public Affairs organization, has offered to take photos and help get them promoted. If you are interested, talk to your mentor and let us know when Justin can come by and snap a photo.
Here are a few other ideas to thank your mentor:
Send your mentor a nice, handwritten thank you note
Offer your mentor a cup of coffee and share what you’ve learned from them
Write a recommendation for your mentor on LinkedIn
Stop by their office and just say, “Thanks!”
Pay it forward by mentoring someone else
There are so many small gestures that mean a lot in letting someone know you value their mentorship. Choose one and let everyone know what a great mentor you have!
Lastly, there will be Meaningful Mentoring Workshop focused on setting expectations and assessing understanding on January 31st. See details and registration information on Argonne Today.
The Postdoctoral Program Office will offer the first Meaningful Mentoring Workshop of the year on January 31, 2019. This first session will focus on two fundamental skills in mentoring–setting expectations and assessing understanding. Future sessions to be scheduled will address maintaining communication, setting mentoring goals and basic steps in building a mentoring relationship.
The series is recommended for anyone seeking to strengthen skills as either a mentor or mentee and have more meaningful mentoring relationships. The target audience includes postdoctoral appointees, mentors and supervisors. Topics covered are applicable to non-research settings as well.
The workshop will run from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Food will be provided. All are welcome to attend. Please register through the RSVP link by January 28th.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
Identify expectations for mentors and mentees
Understand the impact of misaligned expectations and making assumptions
Communicate expectations using tools such as mentoring compacts
Assess understanding through thoughtful questioning
Workshop Agenda:
Introductions
Overview of mentoring, mentor/mentee roles and phases of mentoring relationships
Case study exercise–challenging assumptions
Case study exercise–aligning expectations
Overview of tools to set and assess expectations
Case study exercise–mentor/mentee misunderstanding
Overview of communication tools for assessing understanding
Summary and relation to core values
Facilitator:
Kristene (Tina) Henne, PhD, is the Postdoctoral Program Lead at Argonne. In this role, she facilitates postdoc career development, mentoring, advises the Postdoctoral Society of Argonne and serves as a navigator for postdoctoral issues. She has presented JumpStart Seminars on Mentoring at Argonne and has facilitated mentoring workshops for organizations such as the National Postdoctoral Association and the Association for Women in Science, Chicago Chapter. Henne earned her Ph.D. in biological sciences from Purdue University and holds certificates in Mediation Skills Training from Northwestern University School of Professional Studies and the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago.
Recently, we talked about why it is important for mentors and supervisors to give specific feedback and ways to do that through the SBI model. SBI stands for Situation-Behavior-Impact and is a three-step model to give feedback that helps the mentee understand not only what they did (right or wrong), but also reinforces why it is important to learn from the experience and the impact of the behavior.
But what if you are on the other side of the desk–the mentee seeking feedback? Can you use this model in reverse to guide your mentor through understanding your needs? Are there other ways of asking for specific feedback? Yes!
Consider a situation where you are on the job hunt and are hitting some roadblocks during the interview phase. You schedule time with your mentor to talk about your challenges and ask for feedback. You mentor says something to the effect of, “You’re doing great! You just need to sell yourself better.” The conversation ends there.
Is there anything wrong with this scenario? Not necessarily. That’s common advice all postdocs get when they are on the job market. But what do you do with this information? Is there anything you can act on? Have any behaviors been identified that would be good “selling points”? Have you discussed any situations where you’ve demonstrated these selling points? Do you know how to articulate the impact, which leads to understanding your value?
Try asking for more. You could respond, “I know! I hear that a lot. Can we talk for a few moments about how I can do that more effectively? What do you consider to be my strengths? If you were me, what specific attributes would you point out if you were trying to sell yourself?”
If you ask an nebulous question (e.g. do you have any feedback for me?), you will likely get a nebulous answer. Be specific. Mentors cannot know what you need if you don’t ask.
Nebulous
Specific
Do you have any feedback on my presentation today?
I’ve been working to improve describing the impact of my results in my presentations, rather than just showing the data. Can we talk about how that went today and what I can do to improve?
How are my collaboration skills?
I appreciate being given the latitude to lead interactions with other groups and I think it is important to learn how to collaborate effectively. Let’s talk about how I’m managing communication with our collaborators and identify what is working and what I could do better.
How would you rate my time management?
With multiple projects, it is important for me to manage my time effectively. I’d like your opinion on my current ability to manage my time and ideas for improvement. What methods have worked for you while managing multiple projects throughout your career?
Want more tips on getting specific feedback? Check out articles from the following sites to start.
As a self-proclaimed mentee, I’ve fallen victim to the unrealistic view that mentors have all the answers. On the flip side, as a mentor, I’ve had to resist the urge to blurt out solutions and answers to my mentee’s issues. While expecting or providing quick answers may seem to be an efficient way to mentor, it hardly supports the notion of mentoring as the valuable component of learning that it is.
We’ve discussed on here previously that mentors are not meant to be “fixers” and sometimes may have to take a step back and help mentees learn from mistakes. This requires conversations that bring to light what’s on the mentee’s mind and asking questions to assess understanding.
Once you’ve had an honest and open conversation with your mentee and have some ideas to explore, what’s next? In the spirit of learning, now is a good time to help your mentee generate options and do a little reality testing. Here’s what that might look like.
Consider the case in the last blog post. The conversation ended like this:
As the conversation goes on, John keeps returning to this state of frustration. You begin to suspect there is a lack of understanding between John and his manager. Your reframing response might be something like: “It sounds like having clear expectations from your boss is important to you and that you would like more feedback. Let’s think of some ways of how you might communicate this to your boss…”
Already, the mentor has given John a cue that it is time to think of some options for solving his dilemma. What might those options be? For one, he may be thinking about how to let his boss know he needs clarity around expectations for his performance. In thinking how to approach this conversation, you may ask John to consider how his boss might respond depending on how he starts the conversation. This is a type of reality testing where you ask the mentee to put themselves in the other person’s shoes or see the situation from the other person’s point of view. In this scenario, “flipping” the roles may help John come up with several ways to start the conversation.
What if after all this discussion, John decides he wants to do nothing. You might be thinking, “Maybe he just needed to vent.” Keep in mind, though, that doing nothing is an option, and as such, it needs to be reality tested. In this case, you might respond, “Okay. That is one path you can take. Let’s talk for a moment about what that might look like.” And then you may wish to encourage John to think about the consequences by asking questions such as:
What do you think will happen if you doing nothing?
How might you expect things to change?
What kind of things can you do if the situation doesn’t change?
Generating options and testing them out is about pushing brainstorming past the idea phase and into the results phase. It is about asking the “what if” and “how” type of questions. What do you think will happen if you do X? What do you think the response will be if you say Y? What is the best/worst thing that can happen if you do nothing? How will doing X, Y or Z get you closer to your goals? How do you think doing X, Y or Z will impact your current situation? What would you like to see happen and how will the proposed solution get you there?
As you and your mentee work through reality testing options, don’t forget past lessons on asking open ended questions and clarifying understanding along the way. Conversations are a journey, not a destination!
Additional reading for having productive mentoring conversations:
January is National Mentoring Month, which is a time to reflect on how mentoring has added value to our lives, as both mentors and mentees. Never has being connected to a mentor been more important than during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many of us find ourselves working remotely and at greater risk of loneliness and feeling disengaged.
