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Building a more effective, bidirectional mentor-mentee relationship

Mentorship is such a key part of our industry that most of us will act as both mentor and mentee many times over the course of our careers.

Andy Andrea

Lead Software Developer at Panorama Education

William Frey

Software Engineer I @ Beyond Finance

Schedule Entry

Slides

Attendees​

  • Josh
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82

Notes​

  • Andy Andrea (Mentor) and Billy Frey (Mentee)
  • Not just how to be a good mentor or mentee, but both. Its bidirectional.
  • Mentee Problem
    • Under-mentoring: Mentor is too busy and doesn't have time for junior
    • If management doesn't believe you, show the numbers.
      • Mentorship increasing retention by 20%
      • Increase job satisfaction
      • Diversity?
    • Flash mentoring: Spontaneous on-the-job advice.
    • How to deal with under-communicating mentees?
      • Imposter syndrome; social anxiety?
      • Doesn't know how to ask good questions
    • Psychological safety: The belief that you can take interpersonal risk and fail, and that's normal. Problems aren’t “you” that’s wrong, part of being a human.
      • Project Aristotal: Google research to figure out how to make the best team. Concluded that psychological safety was where the buck stopped.
    • Let your mentee lead and facilitate the 1 on 1. Brainstorm what structure is helpful for them.
    • When they run into a problem, help them document the solution-will help them feel like they contributed.
    • Have your mentee pair with you on your problems. Let them see you make wrong decisions and right ones.
    • Practice failure. Mock emergencies. Bring down staging and help mentee to fix it.
  • What do mentors get out of it?
    • Improve communication skills. Explain highly technical problems to people with less technical experience. Using the right language is a good exercise.
    • Mentors are 6x more likely to be promoted and 5x more likely to get raises.
    • Satisfaction: Seeing them grow!
  • GROW - Goal, Reality, Options, Will. Help mentees to have vision, motivation, and a feeling of excitement on their journey.
  • HARVEST - reap the success of what you have learned with boldness (ask for promotion)
  • SHARE - share with community
  • VARK - Visual Auditory Reading/Writing Kinesthetic
  • ZPD - Zone of Proximal Development - the area in which a person cannot progress without another person with a higher skills set to assist.