Our careers and lives follow unique trajectories and structures. While we all have our own paths, it is helpful to have people who have gone ahead on similar paths to share experiences and thoughts on the future. Part of our professional development are mentorship relationships, which can be done in a wide range of settings, relationships, and time frames.
I am going to define mentoring as a longer term, unstructured professional relationship, with the focus of the relationship being the personal growth of the mentee. Typically, the basis of the relationship is that the mentor has gone on a path that the mentee is on themself, and the insights of time may be helpful for the mentee's development.
One thing that distinguishes mentorship relationships from other professional relationships is that mentorship relationships are holistic. They look more than just the task at hand, or even a job position. The mentorship relationship may be career focused, but it will look at the whole person, and will recognize that overarching goals can change with life events, even life events outside their occupation. So, while a supervisor/manager can be a mentor, this is really not apparent until after the manager relationship has ended, and the relationship has become larger than the roles both individuals had when the relationship started.
As we all have unique life paths, we cannot expect that any one person has gone on the same path that we are on, but mentors bring not only their own life experience, but also the experiences of those whom they have lived life alongside. They have seen the decisions and choices of others, and how those decisions have advanced the goals, or not. They have seen people whose lives have taken them on different paths, and so have a broader view on what the future can hold than those whose view of the world is from the relatively structured life of home and school.
What topics come up? The focus on a mentorship relationship is on the growth of the mentee. In the context of technical professionals, this is the professional growth, but as part of a full life. So, with an understanding of the long term goals of the mentee, it can be working through broader issues on a project, such as other points of view. It can be soft skills or relational skills working with co-workers, superiors, juniors, or outside colleagues (customers, business partners, etc.). It can be suggestions on how to stretch as a person, to see and work through things from a broader perspective, and the skills needed to do this. A mentor can be a sounding board, providing different points of view (especially on the behalf of people who may not be good at communicate their point of view). It can be how to handle work/life balance, looking at a whole person. It could also include looking at alternative paths, that different positions or even career paths may be more suited for the goals of the mentee.
How does a mentorship relationship start? Like all relationships, you can never tell if a relationship is going to be long term at the beginning. But you have to begin somewhere. A first conversation is often about a particular topic, one that is of mutual interest. (and this initial meeting is sometimes arranged by organizations such as a company or a professional organization trying to promote mentorship among employees or members). After the first few conversations about that first topic, you should have observed if the relationship is broader than that first topic, and you can talk about if you want to continue meeting about topics as they come up.
What does the mentor get out of this relationship? Typically, people who are in mentoring relationships also have other rich relationships, which is how they get the background that makes them valuable as a mentor. Over time, the relationship becomes driven by both concern and curiosity about the other's experiences in life. Often that includes issues that are more apparent to someone at an earlier stage of life or career. A mentorship relationship can then become one of an ongoing set of relationships that makes up a life well lived, and the ultimate hope, even when it is not an expectation, is that a relationship be one that lasts.
Do mentorship relationships last? Sometimes. Organizations such as workplaces and professional societies will often organize mentorship relationships, but these are always based on a topic of interest in the moment, and these relationships typically start out with short term boundaries. But, like all relationships, a short term relationship is what has potential to broaden into something longer. Does the relationship broaden beyond the topic where it was started? Do conversations evolve organically and feel natural when they branch into new topics? Over time, can the relationship feel like something that lasts as both sides grow and change (as all growing people do). So the transition from a formal, temporary relationship with a defined schedule and defined boundaries changes into something more long term and fluid. And a mentor/mentee relationships begins to feel more like professional colleagues, each moving through life and careers on adjacent paths.
Can mentorships relationships be informal? Yes, in the sense friendships are informal. In professional society meetings, it is common to see someone and immediately follow up from a conversation from a year ago, just like old friends. So you can have a relationship where you only see each other on occasion, but immediately pick up where you left off, just as old friends do. But the key is the long term relationship, that the conversations are about growing people, not only about topic at hand.
Are there aspects of Analytics that mentorship relationships are especially helpful? One area are the soft skills, the skills of working with colleagues, managers, and customers that is not part of the standard training of a technical professional. A mentor can relate to what the other person may be thinking and help the mentee develop that sense of empathy for others that make them more effective professionally. A second aspect is dealing with the hype that often accompanies the profession. The most recent example is the rise of Generative AI, but similar waves of publicity occurred around deep learning, big data, and machine learning in general. A mentor can place new ideas and concepts in the context of everything else a mentee knows, in contrast to teachers or thought leaders whose responsibility at any given point in time is single topic focused. A third aspect is a sense of what a mentee may need to be a well rounded professional. Training programs and classes tend to be singularly focused with a specific goal, but professional growth needs to be holistic, and designing such a path needs the attention of a person who is looking at the whole person.
Mentorship presents the potential of a valuable relationship, fostering personal and professional growth through a holistic and potentially long-term connection. It goes beyond task-oriented guidance, embracing the mentee's whole person, from developing crucial soft skills and navigating career paths to contextualizing industry trends. While it can begin focused on specific topics or within formal programs, at their best mentorships evolve into enduring relationships, offering mutual benefits and enriching the lives of both mentor and mentee. In dynamic fields like Analytics, such relationships are particularly vital, providing the comprehensive support needed to cultivate well-rounded, effective professionals in changing times.
If you are interested in mentoring relationships, I would look to your professional society. If you are in analytics, I would recommend you look at INFORMS and their mentoring programs (Video on the value of mentoring in analytics) It is a professional society for advanced analytics (broadly defined) and is vendor, tool, and methodology neutral, which is important for a field that sees major changes over the course of decades.
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