This week’s post is by our Chief Mentor Officer, Chevy Cook. It’s about setting the right conditions for a learning environment in your mentor relationships to craft eureka or ‘light bulb moments’. The principles here are grounded in Adult Learning Theory. Comment, like, share, and visit MilitaryMentors.org. Sign up and encourage others to do so as well!
Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin
“I’m a success today because I had a mentor who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let them down.” – Abraham Lincoln
“A mentor empowers a person to see a possible future, and believe it can be obtained.” – Shawn Hitchcock
I’ve had many experiences that have shown me where to look, but never taught me what to see. We all think we want the answer, but we all know that it is much better to be given the equation so we can apply it to other similar problems. Mentors should do just that. They shouldn’t be full of answers… they should probably be full of more questions. I’m thankful for the many times that I’ve been placed in a learning environment by those who’ve been a beacon of guidance in my life.
We know learning is going to happen between a mentor and protégé, but isn’t it matter-of-factly set up purely by the nature of the relationship? The mentor is probably older and wiser, so just by engaging with them the mentee is engulfed in learning, right? I beg to differ. We need to setup a specific environment to ensure that a process of exploration and discovery happens. We have to have a two-way methodology set on mutual discovery. To reiterate from earlier, mentors should not pass along the answer key from the tests they’ve aced, they should cultivate and nurture a broader perspective in their mentees that allow them to come to their own level of understanding. Help spark the filament; a mentee’s potential is their inner light.
So how do we set a learning environment for a mentorship relationship? In her book “The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships” Lois Zachary lays out seven critical elements to a learning-centered mentoring paradigm: reciprocity, learning, relationship, partnership, collaboration, mutually defined goals, and development.(1) Reciprocity ensures the two-way street is maintained. Learning is about creating opportunities for engagement and discovery. Relationship is about actually getting to know each other on a personal level through openness. Partnership is about trust and respect to create security in your mutual efforts. Collaboration seeks sharing, consensus, and togetherness for the individual engagements as well as the way-ahead for the mentor-mentee team. Mutually defined goals establishes, clarifies and articulates the flow of your ongoing conversation and ensures a continual discovery intent and mindset. Finally, development is about a presence of mind that allows for a future orientation, which naturally induces the momentum or ‘potential energy’ within the mentor-mentee connection.
You may be scratching your head trying to see how those differ. There is tons of overlap, and that is the intent. A mentor-mentee relationship shouldn’t have a checklist; it should feel like the natural outcropping of true connective tissue being built. As you discuss who you really are (relationship) it shouldn’t be one sided (reciprocity) and you should be establishing a safe environment for that discussion (partnership) and the ones in the future (development). These ideas are largely about communication, and they also involve the character of each individual. These aren’t steps; Zachary defines them specifically as elements. I would offer that the most effective way to use these elements is to look at the mentor-mentee relationships you are in and look for what’s MISSING. If one of these elements is somehow not a part of what you have, 1) ask yourself why, 2) talk about it with the other person, and 3) figure out a way to add it to what you’ve got going. You’ll both be thankful for the discovery.
It feels good to share responsibility in our learning relationships. Screwing in the bulb and turning on the switch just isn’t the same as watching the light come on in someone else’s eyes. A shared ‘aha moment’ brings joy, smiles, and grateful thanks. We aren’t happy or thankful just because of some instance of eureka. It’s more so because it brings ‘truth to light’… it is a validation of our connection.
“If you light a lamp for someone it will also brighten your own path.” – Buddhist proverb
1 Lois Zachary, The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships, (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2012), 3-4.