the importance of mentoring w/ alishah novin

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco.com is how to get in touch with me old fashioned email social media at tdssent, d-e-s-s-e-y-n. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. First, but let's just go ahead and dive in Alicia. So mentor-mentee relationship, general thoughts, do people need one? Why should people have one? Just some general thoughts. Yeah. So let me start by saying what I would consider a mentor. And I don't know if this is an official definition, so hopefully people don't like start before like that or whatnot.

My take on what a good mentor is, is someone who really has zero state in your success and really doesn't care whether you take your advice or not. Like they're... That sounds bad. It does sound bad, but they're not yet so did in your interest. Like think about your friends and your family, right? They're going to want to see you be successful, so they're bringing some baggage into their relationship and it's not going to be an outsider's perspective, right? And then even your manager, right? A lot of people look at their manager as someone of a mentor, but your manager wants you to not only to succeed, but also to do the things that they need you to do.

And so they've got this best interest, whereas a mentor is someone who is outside of the picture. They could be in the same company, but if they're in a different company, if they don't know you, those are the times when you're kind of like, if you're like, hey, I feel like I'm rambling. Am I rambling? They'll be like, yeah, you rambling. Hey, I feel like I say and like a lot. Do I do that? Yeah, you do like there gonna be the ones who tell you the stranger's perspective of what what you say sure Yeah, well no and I love that and I think I I want to go and dive into kind of the meat potatoes because the people have to log off I'm always cognizant.

I feel like people like washes maybe for like 10 minutes and they're gone, right? So I definitely want to like hit hit the most important thing. Yeah, and that's this relationship is not easy though, right? So, Alicia just said, hey, you really wanna engage somebody who maybe isn't very tied to your success, right? They can kind of third party approach it, right? Not really caring if you actually take their advice or not. But the flip side is the mentee has a lot of work to do. So let's break in, let's get to the meat and potatoes of it. What does that relationship look like? And what are some key things people need keep in mind as I hit my mic with my hands.

Yeah, I think I think that will depend on what what you're looking for. And I think that's probably the most important part is knowing what you're looking for. Because the worst thing that can guide a mentor-mentee relationship is if the mentee is looking for like, you know, so what are we going to talk about? What do we do here? It's like, you know, you need to come in with, it can be anything from a very discrete problem, I'm writing an email to my boss about this project or I've got this PowerPoint opening together, something like that. And I just need someone's thoughts on how am I messaging or it could be something a little bit more long term broader perspective in terms of like, listen, I've been three years into this role, I want to shift or I want to grow or I want to just form a better relationship with my manager or whatever it might be, right?

A little bit less of a tangible problem, but more broad and has to be driven by that mentee, and they have to, you know, make a very specific ask of their mentor in that sense. Yeah, and I really, really want to make sure to stress the mentee has to drive. Like, like, all right, so for example, I want to get really tactical here. So, Alicia, how would you like to be approached, right? So, Let's say I signed to your DMs. Like Alicia, hey man, I would love for you to be my mentor. Right? What do you want to see from that person? Like on the DM to like the monthly engagements.

So, okay, let's start with the opposite. Don't, this message means say, hey, I, you know. Yeah. The amount of, hey, hey. That's it, hey. It's like, listen, I'm a curse here, bitch. I got time. Like no time, zero time. I don't know what to respond back with. I'll write hi. And then it's just now it's become a longer conversation that's gonna span multiple days with one word at the time. But what I like to see, so there's a formula that was instilled into me that I will tell everyone to use because I think it's just phenomenal and it breaks it down into just something that's really structured.

Situation, ask background. So, hey, I'm currently struggling with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, my ask is that you help me with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then background only because it's there if I need it, if I don't need it, I've got the two most important things, the situation in the ask. And I tell that to people who report to me, I've told that to peers, it's been instilled in me, so it's not my own creation. But yeah, there's three things one more time. So I want to, I want to. Situation, situation, ask, and then background info. And sometimes, and now I'll use that same format for if I'm just keeping someone informed.

So there might sometimes be no ask and I'll state that. I'll say informational only, you know, situation being formed up or takeaway and then background just as it's necessary. But that way, especially if you're dealing with someone who's fairly high up and doesn't have the time to get into all the nitty gritty, They'll be able to say, they'll see the situation they ask and we'll say, hey, I can help you with this or I can't and they can get back to the important parts, quick hunting side. If they need the background information, then it's there for them. But never start with the narrative, never start with the background information first because if you're on the other side, you're sitting there going, what do they need from you?

What are they asking? Like, what? Correct. And by the time you get to that, you don't know what information from the earlier parts was important, was helpful or something that you could just kind of ignore. And so you're having to retain a lot of information. It's just, it's not the most prioritized way of me beginning. Well, and I want to interrupt Alicia before we continue on with what he likes to see in this relationship. I want to get this across, and I know we're getting a lot of topic with the DMs, but I can't tell you all who are watching how important the DM the DM game is.

But I also can't stress to you how busy the people you're probably reaching out to are. So again, you have to be able to communicate what you want in three sentences. Because here's the deal. So last night, I was working late and communicated with the wife. That's another thing. Work-life balance, communication. I asked the wife, it's a cool to work late. And I was on LinkedIn and I was like, I was messaged back a bunch of people. So if you were on LinkedIn with me last night and I was messaging you, like, you got me at a good time. But I typically don't have that type of time, right?

And so if you don't message me and Alicia, I'm sure you can attest to this as well. If I have to go back and forth with you more than I think twice, I'm probably not going to continue the conversation. conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, it's funny because I think the habit that I had that I had to break, hopefully I've broken it, is I would always preface conversations. Hey, do you have time to talk? Hey, you need to know something. Oh, I got to tell you something. And that like now that I'm on the other side receiving those things, it's like my anxiety level just goes through the roof.

Like, do you have time to talk? Oh my gosh, what's it Yeah, listen, Alicia's the director of engineering and that the whole you got time to talk Like we as humans are so wired. I don't know what it is I don't know what our parents did to us, but like the whole you got time to talk is terrifying Yeah, and I mean, you know all you'd say like with with conversations With with my wife with friends, it's you know when it's kind of like so so something happened today or I need We need to talk about something. It's like, what is it bad? Is it good?

Like, can we start there? We're not. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I literally messaged when somebody messages me that, I'm like, am I in trouble? Like, what did I do? Is usually what I do. So I think that's where that situation asks can really be helpful. And actually, let me slightly amend that to say sometimes, putting the ask first is helpful, depending on what the situation might be. So the ask can be very discreet and very clear, but that way you're getting to the most direct thing. And it might seem difficult at first because it feels a lot less personal. It doesn't have that kind of natural cadence that a conversation has, but what it does have is that situational awareness that that person, you are making an ask of them and you're valuing their time and you are valuing what they're about to give back to you.

And so it's not about putting the person on a pedestal and saying, oh, I have to be very careful about talking to the big person on the top of the hill. It's more just about getting to the point quickly so that they can really do what they're otherwise meant to do, which is either helping other people or doing their day job. Yeah, exactly. Well, and Dr. T. Chaminin, of course, always with some great stuff. Also, doing the leg work before sending the DM may get more response. It is possible to start a relationship, going in hard with the unsolicited ask can be uncomfortable. I would totally agree with that.

Of course, Dr. T. Brigham the Heat as always. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that you should just go into like a DM with someone you don't know and saying this is what I need from you. But I think that finding a way to still kind of like make sure that your ask is very clear, make sure that your situation is very clear, then that helps, right? So if you were to say more tangible example is like, hey, Alicia, I saw that you're in this area, in this field, I saw that you've worked here, I saw that you wrote about this, and I'm currently struggling with something in that, I'm trying to build my own portfolio, I'm building work in my resume.

I was wondering if you could take a look at it when I'm done with it, I'd really appreciate your feedback. That's a little more conversational, that's a little bit less like that kind of formula. But the point is, is that now I'm clear about what is needed out of me. And I'm a lot more willing to help than if it's just ambiguous kind of opener. 100%. So let's move past the DMs now, right? So they messaged the DMs. They're open to communicate. You're like, you get back to them. They ask you to be, hey, Alicia, I'm looking for a mentor about around this. What do you like to see moving forward in terms of driving conversation, cadence of meeting, all that?

So when, let me answer that from the mentors perspective. So when I've played the role as a mentor and when I've had mentors and I've seen them, I have the problem, but I've found that mentors are good at driving the conversation. Once the problem is kind of like clear and out in the open. And so there's a great book that I definitely recommend people read. very short simple read is called. I would like obviously them. It's called the coaching habit and I've talked about it a few times with others but there's two it basically breaks down how to have a good conversation with people and the first two as a mentor or a coaching kind of role and the first two sections is like you know first really just ask them how they're doing and that's kind of like like, you know, a standard opener.

But the second one is like, it's almost like hacking a conversation. I read it, I was like, there's no way this works. There's no way. And then I would go and I would ask, I would try this out on people. Sometimes I would tell them, I'm going to try this out, let's see happens. And sometimes I wouldn't tell them. And both times it would produce the exact same results. So basically it's the end what else question. So you ask them what's on your mind, and then the next thing is end what else. And it's that ability to like, okay, you said everything that's at the surface level, right?

How's it going? Good. They're going well? Yeah. What else? You get into what else and all of a sudden, people start digging deeper. They start telling you the more important stuff. They start getting into what's really, really on their mind. And so I think that that's kind of like, the mentor structures the conversation and guides it, but what the mentee brings to that is like, that needs to be comfortable, that needs to be open with someone in transparent about what is going on in their world so that they can actually get to the heart of issues. Right. Well, do you think, I mean, like, when do you think you need a mentor in your career?

Because like, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people watch this like, well, man, mentor mentee relationship sounds great. I've had a ton within Vaco. I sometimes, it's actually funny. I don't know what it says about me, where almost every mentee I've had at Vaco has left Vaco. So I don't necessarily know what that means about me. I don't think it has anything to it with me. I think it's just the timing. All that being said, when do you think it's time and a little EQ self-awareness? When do you think it's time for somebody that should reach out to a mentor? So I think it's always good to have mentors in different stages and different types of mentors.

So let me start with where I was at, like early in my career. I used to think mentors and the whole idea was just lame. Like I just thought, you know, what, like, why do you need a mentor? It either means that like, I don't know what to do. I don't know like, you know, you're showing a sense of like uncertainty and in a world where you're constantly having to portray confidence, why would you show that uncertainty? Right. Or otherwise it was just like this weird kind of like, oh, someone's gonna teach me how to live my life kind of thing. I just, I always shied away from it.

But then gradually, as I grew in my career, I started to see that I was emulating people who were informally mentors on my career and on the decisions I would make in terms of how I would apply the network. So that started to open my eyes to what a good mentor can be. And it doesn't have to always be this official thing. You don't always have to go and say, hey, will you be my mentor? Or will you take over my life? Exactly, yeah. It can just be people that you admire, people that you appreciate, people who show you how to do something that you otherwise never had the chance of doing.

And you start to kind of emulate that but also make it your own. I think so. There can be like little bursts of when you need a mentor because you're dealing with a new problem. And for coders, you know, it can be technical things. Yeah. It can be how to problem solve things. But otherwise, it can be like, how do I grow in my career? And I think that that's one of the biggest areas where, especially those in technology, who don't know how they want to grow or are always faced with that one question of you either go and become the super specialized coder or become the manager, right?

Having someone who can help you navigate that whole spectrum and knowing which way to go and the other ways in which you can kind of navigate your career, that's where it can become really, really powerful and really helpful because you're not reinventing the wheel on your own independently and above it, you're leveraging the experience of others. And last bit I'll say is that as a mentor, going back to what I said, I don't care if my advice is taken or not. I'm not throwing it up as my experience. Correct. If you come back and say, hey, I did it this way, I didn't follow your advice.

This is what happened. That's informing me. That's what I get out of being the mentors. The fact that I get to learn about other things that work and I get to grow from that experience as well. Yeah. And again, looking back on my mentor-ment relationship, I did all the driving. And I got burnt out and I didn't want to do it anymore. Right? I mean, I'm not really taking on any mentor, any mentees right now. And, you know, I got really burnt out by that experience. And so, you know, in hindsight, I think you as an individual need to really need to figure out what you want a mentor for.

Right? It's all intentionality. It all goes back to what I preach all the time when it comes to interviewing, when it comes to the job search, when it comes to networking, it's intentionality, figure out what you're trying to get better at, right? And I really awkward in social situations, right? Well, I'm gonna seek out a mentor who's really good at public speaking, who can guide me on kind of how to be more human, right? And then also too, I think you need to be, you need to go in and you need to tell that mentor, hey, I need you to be completely like unapologetically honest with me.

Because I think a lot of times, People want to do a mentor relationship because they like, which is good, right? They want to network. They want to like, you know, rub elbows with the big guys and gals, right? But also I think in the end of the day, I think there's not a lot of honesty and there's not a lot of transparency that happens. Yeah. And I think that has to have, has to. Thoughts on that? No. All right. The only agreement. Yeah. Well, I, so, um, what do you think is a good cadence, right? So people watching us are like, all right, I got the three things in the DMS.

I got that I need to drive it. Can I go every week? Can I not like once a month? Like twice a month? What do you think feels good from a mentor-mentee relationship? So that's something to set with the mentor to figure out the right cadence. Because sometimes it might be just purely based on schedules. Once a week is probably as much as it should be or as frequent as it should be. It shouldn't go daily. But I'd say, you know, I've had really great ones that were once a month. Yeah. I've had ones that were every two weeks. It really can vary depending on just the overall needs.

But if it's meeting for 30 minutes, just to meet and kind of catch up on stuff, you know, that doesn't mean that in between that there can't be a, hey, how would you handle this or what should I do about this kind of thing? The whole thing is that you're looking for perspective, right? And it doesn't mean that that's the only perspective. That's the only way of doing things. But it's that sounding board for what you're struggling with. So it could be something that is very tiny, discrete, or it could be something that's like deep and profound and rocks you to your core. And so it's like those types of things is like, like half the flexibility of the relationship.

You shouldn't just go into it. You're like, okay, well, I'm not going to see my mentor for three weeks. So I won't be able to talk to them. That's why I'd say have multiple people who can act as their mentors. And look it. I mean, you don't even have to tell them that they're your mentor. You know, you can, there's, there are people who've mentored me and they've never realized it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell you a great that. So as you wrap up here, and of course, this always happens whenever you get a leash on, we just chat and the all of a sudden a 30 minute mark.

So as you wrap up here, what do you think companies, right? I'm going to switch it up on you a little bit. What do you think companies should do, or how should companies facilitate a mentor-mentee relationship within their company? No wrong answers. I just wanna see kind of from your experience, or I guess why should companies do it, right? I mean, you could take it any which way you want to. Yeah. So that's a good question. It has me thinking. I say good question just to buy time. I know. So one of the first times we went live, I'll never forget you're like, I really try not to say that's a really good question, but I'm pretty sure that you do that every single time.

But it's fine. So I think that it's a good thing for companies to have, simply because it's showing their investment in people's growth. When you have a mentoring program internally, you're doing something that allows people, or it gives them the sense that there's opportunity for growth and perspective. So I think that's really important, just purely at the almost superficial level. I think that if you do have a mentoring program internally, that it should not be anyone that is on that hierarchical chain of command kind of thing, because then you've got some bias. The worst thing that you can have is a manager slash mentor, because then you don't have anyone to go to to complain about your boss.

Yeah. Exactly. You can be someone who's completely independent from that. But I think the key is that everyone has, there's this desire to, like, that I think not everyone, but a lot of people have in terms of wanting to know how they are progressing. And I say not everyone because there are people who do very much have a separate kind of relationship between work and their personal life. Right, right. They, you know, there's no judgment in that. They just wanna kind of work as work. and that's all that they're gonna like ever put in and they'll get out whatever they take out and they're happy with that.

And there's other people who kind of blur the lines and look at it as how is this gonna help me not only just in my professional life, but in my personal life or in my life, like my social life, right? How is this gonna actually give me the opportunity to do stuff that I wouldn't otherwise think to do? And so I think that that's an important perspective that companies should have to offer their employees because it'll just allow a tighter connection between the people in the office, whether remote or not. And there's a lot of different programs out there. There's places where you can partner with that will offer you mentors and you pay a subscription fee and get access for your employees or you can just do it in house and set up a program to do that.

I would say that if you do that and you have mentors you've never officially been a mentor that they should probably just read the coaching habit or just kind of go through being a mentee first so that they can be a mentor. But yeah, I think there's a lot of different ways that you can approach it. Yeah, 100%. And I would say, I think, and I think, you know, Alicia and I are pretty open to text messaging, but with each other, I think it's big for mental health. Or I think Alicia just shows, you gotta have somebody to, you gotta complain to somebody other than your boss, about your boss.

And I'm all about complaining. I think it gets to a certain point, and I am guilty of this. I think it gets to a certain point, like, all right, now you're just being ridiculous. But I do think from a company perspective, especially right now, people dealing with mental health stuff, right? I mean, like I said, I posted this the other day about mental health and how I'm back in counseling and I talked to our counselor, me and my wife talked to our marriage counselor that night and my counselor was like everyone's booked. She was like, I've never seen this before. She goes, COVID is playing a absolute havoc on people's homes and mental health right now.

And no one's talking about it, right? And I think that's why I have this platform for the six people who watch me outside of my mother every day, but like it's so important from this mentor-mentee relationship because it gives your employees another avenue to talk. Right? Like, for me, I don't want to be the sole person in my organization where people come to me. Right? Like, you need to lean on your other, you need to lean on people in your organization other than yourself. And that's why I think companies have, especially now more than ever need to have a mentor-mentee relationship. Yeah. So. you know that like if anything just to I guess like go back to where we started about that whole open to helping kind of bad.

I mean like yeah let's tie this tie it in. Like just like the circle right? The fact is is that I didn't want to be the only person helping everybody on LinkedIn and thankfully I'm not right. There's so many people who have added that badge. There's so many people who've shared it saying I'm willing to help, there's, you know, and that's been on and in fact let me even go and say like I wasn't as became evident by some of the comments, it's not an original idea. Like I didn't, I wasn't the first person and the only person to ever have this idea of helping.

Helping is not a unique concept but other people have created their own badges in the past. Some people even use the exact same hashtag so it's like pretty good coincidence there but that just points the the fact that it's not like there are a lot more people who are willing to help than we might even always realize. Yeah. And it's just, it's, you know, there's great ways to kind of get your thoughts there and just sort of, there's a lot of power in knowing that other people are either willing to help or are facing the same kind of struggles and challenges that you are. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And again, just ask, right, just ask for help. I mean, this comes, I mean, super high level, right? surface level mentee mentor relationship ask for help to have you're dealing with some shit ask for help because I will tell you this you know I you know and I give props to Alicia for just being such an amazing human being I post that thing about mental health and he called me Alicia called me guys don't call guys don't guys don't call other guys that they've only met once in person either right so Alicia I want to give you props being such an amazing human being I'm trying not to get emotional saying this but you know I I Want to encourage people That right now people are struggling and it's okay to reach out.

It's okay to call right literally one of my buddies called me this week And he was like hey, I just want to catch up Right and listen again dudes don't call other dudes and here's another dude in my network calling me And so again just just you know, I like Garrett said, you know, you know a good idea is to check If you're a current organization, you know, offer some sort of employee assistance program, right? Offer counseling, again, incredibly important, incredibly important. I know we're ending on kind of a little bit of a, a little bit of emotional, a little bit of a deep note, but again, going back to Alicia's banner that he created on LinkedIn, it's okay to ask for help.

Whether it's a mentor, a mentee relationship or deeper, just please know that I think a lot of people are more open to helping than you would think. So Alicia, thanks for coming on my friend. I appreciate it. Stay on a minute afterwards. Y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us this morning. Guy's counselor 2.0. Quick announcement. Tomorrow morning, unicorn finders. Listen, unicorn finders just pivoted. We are a product-focused podcast, discovering startups and companies doing unicorn-like things. So tomorrow morning, talking about mental health, we have a company all called Verify. Verify Warren Sadler. I don't know if you know, if anyone's watching Warren Sadler, he's very big in the market.

CTO is very prominent, having him on and Jesse Wooten from Verify, they are actually in the mental health space. They literally created a product for people to be able to access mental health more, more accessible mental health. So y'all want to tune in for that tomorrow, not 30 am central unicorn finders from our LinkedIn page. And then Friday, as I hope, as long as I don't get COVID, I will be going on our sales rewards trip down to Cabo and Mexico. So there'll be no guys comes with 2.0 on Friday. Hey, but again, thank you all for hanging out with us this morning, Alicia. Thank you, my friend.

You're the best. Thank you. All right, y'all have a good one. Take it easy. Peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it.

So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at Tdastin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.