mentortogether

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Why mentorship?

This is a guest post from Sergio Rinaldi. Sergio is a 3rd year Industrial & Systems Engineering student at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is interning at Mentor Together as part of the NUS Overseas College program.

As many of you know, Mentor Together is a strong advocate for the power of mentoring. As an intern for the last 8 weeks, I have interacted closely with some of Mentor Together's potential mentees, and I would like to share what I have seen first hand as the need for mentorship.

I have been engaging with many college students from various universities in Bangalore who are under the Foundation for Excellence Scholarship Program. These students are being selected for a mentoring program we will run. I see these students as the beacons of change in India. All of them are fighters; overcoming adversity to be the first in their family to get undergraduate education. However, there is one common unsettling answer that I received in my discussions: we are unsure what to do if we cannot work in the IT sector.

The IT sector, the way I understand it, is the "It" industry in Karnataka, India’s very own Silicon Valley. Hence, people naturally will flock to the sector to reap whatever it offers. These students are not wrong in choosing the IT sector as a sector they want to start their career in. What I am concerned with is the mindset that one can only be successful if he or she is in the IT sector.

Who instill such mindset in the students? Perhaps they see it in the news or hear it from their peers. These students might not think such if only they had more knowledge of what other career opportunities exist. They need someone to be the devil advocate, and challenge their notions; so that these students can critically filter whatever bits of information is presented to them. With that, they can make more informed decisions.

It is pretty common that people who hail from similar family, culture or career background surround us. However, in some cases where people are only confined to their own community, their knowledge is limited to what they already know and what people around them know. The ubiquity is very worrying. They may have little knowledge of what is out there or worse, they may have a distorted view of the outside world.

 That is not what we want for our bright FFE students. We want them to be critical and make more informed decision for themselves. We want them to objectively know what is out there. It is good that they know what they want to do. It is even better if they know why they want to do something and what they do if things do not go as planned. This is why we need adults from outside the students’ communities to give them insight of a bigger world out there. As mentioned, these FFE students are mostly the first in their family to go to college. Thus, adults from their community (parents, relatives and friends) may not the best source for career advice. Adults who have better knowledge of the professional sector should advise the students instead.

When the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a ditch. We can only maximize our students’ potentials if they are properly prepared and guided by those who have valuable working experience and know what it takes to climb the corporate ladder. Confusion will only lead to oblivion. With that I rest my case.

[mentortogether]

The incredible opportunities of 2014

6 months of 2014 have gone by! One of the promises I made to myself after turning 28 in May this year, was to be more reflective and vocal about life.

But just like that 2 months since May have passed. So here’s an attempt to cover some ground, and document some of the incredible, exhausting, and unique experiences that have made this year feel like 3 years rolled into one already.

a)    The surrealness of Davos  - I participated in the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting at Davos, 2014, in January. I was part of a group of Global Shapers from around the world. As Davos started, I was tense but ready with my pitch on Mentor Together, and got some fantastic opportunities to do that. The surrealness of Davos though kicked in at a lunch panel where I spoke on religion and changing values, along side the President of Columbia University and the Archbishop of Nigeria. On being invited to speak at this session, my first instinct was to say no. I have very few religious inclinations, so what would I speak about? But Davos had brought out a strange sense of conviction in me - to always have an opinion, to genuinely engage and to keep looking for opportunities where I can create impact. So I spent sometime thinking about the issue as I would discuss it with a group of peers I really respected. I spoke about the disillusionment I felt, when religious leaders who commanded so much influence in my country didn’t stand up for basic human rights, of women and sexual minorities especially. The archbishop and I ofcourse disagreed on many things, but that's what good debates must entail, right?

My Davos capped off with a fierce snowstorm that I got stuck in with the head of an investment bank, a rabbi, an international development consultant and a royal family member (if I remember well enough)! As the year got busier, I fondly remembered the intensity and awesomeness of Davos; and it never failed to energize me.

b)   New partners & sponsors– I came back from Davos, to opportunities to pitch for our 2014 mentoring programs in Bangalore and Pune. In a very short span of time, our team verbally closed funding for 500 mentor - mentee pairs. 500! Double what we’ve done in any full year, and all that confirmed in a space of a couple of months. It felt like the world was ready for our mentoring model. 

c)    The exhaustion of legal and governance work – But (this wouldn’t be a story worth writing about if there wasn’t a but) not much sooner had we closed our plans, than the enormity of formalizing and governing this growth began to set it. There was new legal compliance, internal governance compliance, external accounting and finance compliance.  As with anything new I’ve had to learn in my entrepreneurial journey, my first instinct was to dive in to research and understand everything I could. At about the 15th revision of an agreement and the 10th reading of the nth law, I realized how overwhelming this was for me. My instincts always make me want to take responsibility – I think it has reaped a lot of rewards for me. But this was the wrong situation to think I could decide myself. I then did what I needed to have done 3-4 months earlier – which was to ask for help. With the help of our Board and their network, the fog slowly started to clear. And the most valuable lesson on how one could squander an opportunity, by not giving it its due, was learned.

d)   The fear of dreaming big – At a national competition where we were finalists, I realized I had to change my lens for Mentor Together forever – this had to be something that would benefit thousands of youth, or we would fail trying.  The best advice I got was to write a letter to my team from 5 years into the future.  Despite doing this exercise with my mentees so many times, I completely froze at the thought. 5 years. Gulp. Won’t it be easier to decide at the end of the year when all of this current work is done? Or better next year – I’m  sure everything will be clearer then? As the thoughts raced in, I smiled wryly and realized I would be my best enemy in writing that letter.  So here’s a commitment to write that letter and post it next week!

e)    The thrill of a new city  – Just like that, we presented about our work in April and were invited to start in a new city. The feeling that we had a real value proposition – one that really can scale began to sink in.

f)     Accepting the challenge of the organization we need to build – My cautious assessment is that as an organization, we’re about 70% ready to absorb the full scope of opportunities we have. The pace at which we’re moving is amazing, but we also have a huge requirement to buckle down and execute with blinkers on. The opportunity to build a scaled model for one-to-one youth mentoring is historic. I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity and hope for the rest of 2014, my team and I can build a vehicle that is similarly fulfilling to many thousands of people who we will interact with this year.

[mentortogether]

Reflections from a mentor : Nakul Deshpande, Amdocs

Nakul Deshpande works as a “Senior Test Analyst” at Amdocs Pune. We've always appreciated the sincerity with which Nakul has approached his mentoring - he's empathetic and patient, but also strategic about the mentoring styles and the approaches he uses. Nakul is midway through his 1-year mentoring relationship and reflects on the journey (we're thrilled with the very complimentary statements he has made, and promise he was under no duress ;))

It was in June 2013 that I first read about Mentor Together (MT) from an article sent by the Amdocs CSR unit. What I understood from this article was that this was a not-for-profit organization which was partnering with companies to provide mentors for underprivileged youth. I immediately got attracted to this idea. I work as a software testing engineer and deal mostly with computers and technology in my job. But I have a deep interest in working with different people and in the human side of organizations. Also, I was looking to contribute in CSR activities on the weekends. I feel one can donate money to charitable causes and that is a good start but the next step is to dedicate some time towards social causes. My colleagues in the software industry will agree that for our breed (technology workers), time is more precious than money. A couple of years ago, I was trying to mentor the son of a domestic help who works in our housing society. He is a bright boy and is very hard working. He delivers newspapers during his school vacation and also works odd jobs on the weekends to support his family while going to school. He is only fourteen years old. I think with proper guidance and access to social networks, this boy can really get a good job, become financially stronger and have a better quality of life. I had spoken to him and his mother and offered to teach him on the weekends. But somehow that did not work out though I hope it will someday. So when I saw the Mentor Together article, I felt that this is an ideal program for me to make a positive contribution in someone's life and hence I decided to apply immediately.

Mentor Together's process for selecting mentors is very good. They have a four step process, one of which involves answering a set of questions. These questions really make you think. ‘Do I have a strong desire to become a mentor? What is my motivation for becoming a mentor? Who has mentored me in my life and how has that helped me?’ I knew that it would not be easy to devote time on every other weekend. But I also knew that if I gave it my best, things will work out. Along with being excited about becoming a mentor, I was also worried that I might not get selected for this program. I read the MT blogs written by the MT team and existing mentors. I realized that these people are very serious about Mentor Together and they are making a difference in people's lives. They were also creating the program based on research. I mentioned to my wife that this is the first time that I am seeing young people (the MT team) studying the research in their field and moreover applying what they learn towards a creative and useful cause.

 I responded to the interview questionnaires from my heart. As I had mentioned earlier, the selection process had many levels. We had reference checks and a final interview after passing the two questionnaire stages. I was very happy when I got selected. The training program for new mentors was excellent. The MT staff took a lot of efforts to make everybody feel welcome and they shared the best practices of mentoring. At the same time they conveyed their expectations and the seriousness of the program. One thing that I learnt was that the Mentor Together team is there to support me in case I am struggling with any issue. The quality and effectiveness of my mentoring is in direct proportion to my communication with the MT staff. 

I remember the first time I met my mentee, Rushikesh. He lives in the Salvation Army Hope House for underprivileged kids. Other than a cousin he has no family in Pune. I was told that his academic performance was poor. To be honest, I was a little overwhelmed after hearing about his challenges. But I decided to put in my best effort and see how the process unfolds. Rushikesh was a little shy in our first few meetings. But, I had expected this initial awkwardness. Even I was unsure. By asking him questions and listening to what he has to say, I was able to build a bond with him. This is not an overnight process and one has to be patient. Another thing which helped me is that I set realistic goals for myself. I don't consider myself to be a messiah in Rushikesh's life. I want to play the role of a big brother and a good friend. So I don't expect him to come first in his class, all of a sudden. I am looking for gradual improvement in English skills, studies, computer skills and life skills. In my opinion life skills are as important as academic performance. Life skills include topics like decision making, choosing the right friends, choosing the right vocation based on the individual’s dreams and strengths, assertiveness etc. I have personally struggled while learning these skills so I don't expect everybody to be naturally good at them.

My happiest time with Rushikesh so far has been his birthday. We watched a cartoon film and laughed a lot together. Our friendship has become stronger and continues to grow. He is more open with me about his aspirations, likes and dislikes. My goal is to help him achieve his dreams and grow as a person. The MT program benefits not only the mentee but also the mentor in many ways. I know for sure that I have benefited by knowing and mentoring Rushikesh. He is always cheerful in spite of not having many things in life. These are things which I normally take for granted. This process has taught me to have an attitude of gratitude.  The process of building a bond with him has taught me to be more patient. My listening skills have improved. My weekends have also become more productive and fulfilling. There is a sense of responsibility and joy of accomplishment on the weekends.

I am very happy that I decided to apply for Mentor Together and I encourage those who are interested in this concept, to apply to be a mentor

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Reflections from a mentor : "It’s not age which teaches you, but circumstances and life conditions which do"

Swati Dogra works as a "Senior Compensation and Benefits Specialist" at Amdocs Pune. She has mentored with our Pune program for close to a year now. This is a guest blog from her on what the year has taught her.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 I decided to become a mentor because it would give me an opportunity to make a difference in somebody’s life, while adding more meaning to mine. This journey of mentorship has transformed my life in an amazing way.

 Many of us often sulk about our life conditions. We don’t have this, we don’t have that, our house is small, our car is small; we need to upgrade everything ! My mentee, Shraddha, tells me that she considers herself extremely privileged to have received an opportunity to study in the Annapurna home. She is content with her small classroom where she studies in the morning, eats during the day, and sleeps along with 20 other kids at night. She is all praises for her teachers and friends in the school. She made me realize that a lot of us have forgotten to cherish our blessings. Children like Shraddha, living away from their family, call themselves extremely privileged, while many of us, born in better circumstances and life conditions, have forgotten to be thankful for all that we are blessed with.

One day, when I was at the Home, I came across a Carrom board that the kids had made on their own. They had cut plywood into a square and made holes on the sides; buttons became a striker and they played happily. What an example of resourcefulness!

 Another evening, when I was in the Annapurna home, it was dinner time. So I decided to stay and serve the children dinner with their attendants. The children brought their plates and sat in rows in a disciplined way. Serving food to these kids and to see them eat was a heart touching sight. Their menu does not change and they do not go to restaurants to “taste” different cuisines, yet they are content with what they have. So you see it’s not age which teaches you, but it’s circumstances and life conditions which teach you.

I have numerous examples to share about how mentoring has changed my life but it’s an experience that you need to experience on your own; to feel its intensity and impact on your life! 

Join Swati and other incredibly committed mentors we have. Sign up to be a mentor today at www.mentortogether.org

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What makes a successful Mentor?

Our Pune Program Manager Tarun, looks back on a year of successful mentoring, and highlights key practices of great mentors that stood out for him.

Being a Successful Mentor

Statutory warning: Mentoring a child is not an easy task! In addition to a few innate qualities one can have, it’s essential to learn and adapt a set of skills to become a truly successful mentor!         

So what separates great mentors from good or average mentors? Here are some of the stand-out qualities, I’ve noticed:

Successful mentors understand their ROLES:

A big role that a mentor plays is that of an elder brother or a sister, who guides but doesn’t teach or lecture a child. An average mentor takes 30% inputs from the mentee, and uses 70% of his/her own discretion in directing the relationship. But a truly great mentor sees it as nothing less than a 50-50 bond, where everything is done with 50-50 input.

Mentor Susmita has all the qualities of a great mentor! Susmita’s mentees are able to tell her openly what they want to do, where they want to go, or how they exactly want this mentoring to be. But at the same time, they’re respectful towards her as well. Exactly how they would have behaved with their elder sister.

Successful mentor are INTENTIONAL:

Successful mentors make plans before they execute. A plan that starts with them understanding their mentees, and then arriving at a goal that they can achieve with them at the end of their journey. They realize that they may not be able to be present all the time in their mentee’s lives, but that they can plan on small and specific goals, which will help their mentees grow!

After spending his first 3 months understanding his mentee, mentor Dhananjay worked with his mentee to set clear set goals for their meetings. They spend their time doing a range of different fun and serious activities every activity. And they even time each and every activity to see that there is balanced focus! Their intentionality in activities gives them a better chance of achieving the final goal that they agreed to. He has even met his mentees 7 times in a single month!

Successful mentors have FUN

As adults, just having pure fun with your mentee can be a difficult thing to achieve. Successful mentors don’t see fun time as taking away from time that they would spend learning or doing serious stuff. They see it as essential in building a positive outlook in the mentee towards everything in life. Successful mentors make a thorough effort to come out their comfort zone and be a child with their mentee!

Mentor Swati Bhatnagar saw that her mentee is a lot more comfortable and open when her friends are around.  So she makes plan for outings with her mentee and her friends, where they celebrate birthdays, do arts & craft or watch movies at regular intervals. Her main goal is to make sure her mentee feels comfortable and enjoys herself.

Successful mentors SHARE:

Mentors can often feel that after 2 -3 meetings, they know a lot about their mentee. But sharing authentically in a relationship is not that easy to accomplish. Real sharing is when your mentee is open with his/her thoughts and tells you the things he/she is thinking, even when they may not be the most correct things to say. And such behavior won’t happen just naturally. Great mentors model such behavior in their mentees by being completely open, sharing their experiences, their own embarrassing stories, their feelings etc.

Mentor Nakul’s mentee was able to tell him about something he wants to do that would break one of the rules at the shelter homes he lives in. Now even though the mentee knew it was wrong,he felt comfortable enough to speak his mind. Nakul didn’t rush to tell him it was wrong. He instead saw this as a big shift in his mentee being open about these inner thoughts finally. And this would be termed as real sharing.

Successful mentor expand their LOCUS OF CONTROL:

When there is a problem, or any critical situation, successful mentors expand their locus of control. They take initiative and work together with their mentee to find out different ways they can deal with the situation. They reach out to external sources and work relentlessly until the problem in solved.

Mentor Harsha’s mentee was very irregular at school and in making it to mentoring meetings. His mentee’s mother said that they had shifted their house and the distance to school was too far now. Harsha could have lectured them on the importance of coming to school and left it at that. But he felt there may be more to the situation. He took out time to go to where the mentee’s new house is, and spoke himself to the parents. He gave them the school’s feedback that their son had a lot of potential if he studied well. He helped the mentee make a bus pass for the month, to ensure there was no hurdle in coming to school. The next time he went to the school, the Principal reported that the mentee had been coming regularly!

Mentor Nikhil saw that most of the children in the mentee partner institution were facing trouble in the Computer subject. Apart from his regular mentoring, Nikhil started taking sessions for all the children and prepared sessions to teach them the subject. This has made Nikhil’s mentee comfortable enough to call him if he has any doubt in any of the academic subjects; and they both work on it together.

Successful Mentors DON’T GIVE UP:

Successful mentors realize their mentoring is for the long haul! They are always curious to know more, attend trainings regularly, consult program staff for advice and feedback, and are punctual in their meetings. They always have the zeal to “give it one more shot”.

Mentor Deepika doesn’t disregard any of her mentee’s thoughts as trivial. Even if her mentee has a small fight with another child, she tries to help her mentee understand the root cause of the problem, and she consults others to find out the best solution to this problem.

Mentor Sunil Anvekar, despite managing a large team at work, has kept up a consistent meeting frequency over 8 months and has now started seeing substantial improvements in his mentee’s English levels and confidence. His biggest achievement - that his mentee apologizes less and takes responsibility for his actions.

Mentor Rupali’s mentee took a few bad decisions that had the potential of derailing her academics. But Rupali has been a consistent presence through this difficult period, counseling her mentee to keep her spirits up, and working with a range of people - teachers, her mentee’s mother, and even a child psychologist, to help her guide her mentee better.

These and many more mentors are the backbone of our work at Mentor Together. We’re very proud of them, and hope their commitment inspires even more people to consider this important task of mentoring a young person!

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We grow with our mentees - Mentor Together Pune

In Pune we have a large pool of mentors and mentees now, where all the mentors are working relentlessly with their mentees. They are working towards building a bond with their mentees by lending a patient ear, teaching English to their mentees, imbibing life skills in their mentees, helping them academically, introducing them to different hobbies, helping them in a variety of extracurricular activities, and the list is endless. The one thing common in all of them is their sense of responsibility and the urgency they are working with. And in their willingness to see transformation and growth in their mentees, they are growing each day too!

Today, we would like to share some stories about our mentors which clearly show their dedication and commitment to our cause and highlight their invaluable qualities.

One fine evening I got a call from one of our mentors Sukhwinder. She called to see how she was doing as a mentor and also to check how the child was feeling and perceiving their relationship as. She told me. “Tarun, can you check with Varsha if she is happy with having me as her mentor, if she is happy with our relationship, if she would prefer someone with a different personality / hobbies etc as her mentor and the like?”I proudly thought aloud to myself then – Our mentors are thoughtful, considerate and caring. They always are open to feedback and are look forward to growing themselves. How could they not be focused on their goal!

Lorii Myers once said, “Team = Power” and that’s exactly the strategy some of our mentors are using to bring upon a bigger better change. At one of our mentee homes – Annapoorna, our mentors - Ila, Devendra, Vishal, Swati Dogra, Rupali, Deepika, Renu take group sessions for the larger cohort of children in the home after their individual meetings get over. From conducting quizzing sessions, to engaging children in dramatics, to facilitating group studies, to organizing group outings – our mentors are doing it all.

We all have grown up hearing this saying by Robert Frost - “But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep” – Zealous about the cause, our mentors aim at bringing about lasting changes in the lives of their mentees. Working towards fulfilling their aims they often display how vigilant, proactive, supportive and resourceful they are at all times. To cite examples –one time our mentor Rupinder increased her locus of control and impact and went beyond her scope of work as a mentor when her mentee faced a critical issue. One other time our mentor Rupali expressed concern over lack of computer education and that of a library in Annapoorna. Ever since she has been actively advocating how computer education and access to books could benefit all mentees / children in that home. And now, we are working towards the same!

Mentees not only get a mentor but a new family altogether. At almost all times our mentors make their mentees a part of their family - celebrating special occasions, festivals etc with them and creating opportunities for the mentee and mentor’s family to mingle. Recently our mentor Swati celebrated her husband’s birthday with mentees at Annapoorna. Her husband often accompanies her to the home, over and above her one on one meetings, to share time with the home children. Swati feels compassionate towards kids in Annapurna and not being able to bear the fact that the home children do not even have a decent pair of slippers to walk around in, reached out to all the other mentors in Pune to check if they all could donate a pair of slippers to each child at Annapoorna.

 It gives us immense pride to see how every time our mentors keep mentees’ needs first.

Our mentors strive to succeed, to realizing their dream of being able to make a significant difference in the lives of their mentees. They do not give up. On this front let me tell you how our mentor Sunil Rangu has been incessantly trying to imbibe the skill of decision making in his mentee. Sunil’s mentee has company who tend to mislead him. Sunil has been openly discussing with me, how he finds it a little difficult to mentor his mentee and how it is hard to deal with his mentees’ new friend circle which is not benefitting him. But he is consistent in his efforts and perseverant to work to sort things out and have a supporting and healthy relationship with his mentee thereafter.”

Creative and innovative in their ways – our mentors try and make each mentoring session fun for their mentees. It makes me excited to see Swati Bhatnagar and Chaithanya’s innovative ways of mentoring and engaging with their mentees and keeping the fun and excitement alive in their meetings - by  going out to some interesting places for meetings, by getting to know new things which make the mentee curious, by helping them in academics through interesting ways and not just mundane studies, by watching inspiring and fun movies and then discussing about what they have learnt from it etc.

Finally let me highlight how sense of possibility is deeply ingrained in our mentors. Our mentor Susmita is voluntarily mentoring two mentees efficiently. Sunil Anvekar and Nilesh are making every attempt to have as many as meetings possible with their mentees! Kiran is making sure his mentee feels comfortable around him by adapting to his way of learning and behaving and making sure his mentee is committed towards the program.

Within just 3 months of the mentoring relationships there are stories galore to share and learn from. These inspiring efforts by mentors are not just impacting our mentees but the whole mentee institute in some positive way.

We, the Pune team, so far have found and solved a few of our mentees’ problems and still have issues to address both uncovered and the ones yet to be uncovered. But I am confident we will bring about desired changes with the proud team of mentors’ we have.

 - Tarun Joshi & Namrata Baruah, Mentor Together Program Managers

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Balancing building a relationship with skill-building

There is a paradox in my mind often when I conduct mentor induction trainings. A key message in the training is the emphasis on building a relationship. We refer to the Morrow & Styles (1995) study frequently when talking about “Developmental” versus “Prescriptive” mentoring. That study found that 90% of mentors who focus on building a relationship in their mentoring end up with enduring relationships. And 70 % who focus on setting and achieving goals end up terminating their relationships early. The message is clear – your first goal as a mentor is to build a close, trusting relationship with your mentee.

So then where is the paradox? I worry if we run the risk of becoming only emotional confidantes without the capacity to help our mentees grow their skill levels – whether it is English, Life Skills, Academic Skills or Work Skills. The skill & learning gaps our mentees have is huge. A recent log where a mentor pointed out that his mentee didn’t know that if he was multiplying a number by 100 hecould just move the decimal points by two, was one stark reminder of this. So how can we achieve with our mentees, alongside building a relationship?

Here's how I addressed the "paradox" for myself. A relationship is actually the premise for skill building. And if so, then how can mentors do this in the best way.

Learning is social. It doesn’t happen in isolation, but in a social context. Where do we learn? How do we learn? Using what do we learn? From whom do we learn? How do they treat us? What happens when I do/don’t do well? It seems obvious that a positive social context would foster better learning than a negative context. Without establishing a new relationship or context with a mentee, a mentor will only inherit their existing contexts. If a mentee is struggling in class and doesn’t receive any positive encouragement from a teacher, that is the context they associate with schoolwork. If a mentor rushes in to work with a mentee on homework, they could very well find the mentee disinterested/ demotivated and unwilling to learn or practice. It may seem frustrating or odd to a mentor, because he/she obviously doesn’t identify as a government school teacher. But the problems is that they haven’t spent time building a relationship with the mentee, which sets a new positive context for the mentee to spend time productively with the mentor. Imagine a different scenario – you have intentionally spent 5-6 meetings identifying and reinforcing your mentee’s strengths to him/her, through simple activities. You get a cake for everyone in the class and appreciate your mentee for dividing it correctly amongst everyone. You spend time in a park and appreciate them for helping a child who fell down.You also reinforce their observation skills when they recount later the different people you met in the park. You try the swinging bars in the park yourself, and fail miserably, but speak to your mentee about the importance of trying. Then you approach the formal learning . Do you think we would have a different learning context with our mentee, established on our own terms? YES! So the importance of first building a relationship that demonstrates the values you will need in formal learning cannot be overstated.

The second important point is what are the best practices then in skill-building? Empirical research on mentoring has shown that it has to be collaborative. It seems intuitively simple right? I mean the high-point of mentoring relationships is that it is time spent one-on-one. You don’t have to focus on many children and find ways to give everyone equal attention. But I have seen so many times that mentors do the talking part very well, but leave the doing to mentees to figure out on their own. They expect mentees to have a reporting relationship with them. The mentee must come back and share why it worked or didn’t, and the mentor does some more talking after that. Great mentors do the opposite – they make themselves part of the learning journey with their mentees. Take a situation we see often - a mentee needs to get over stage fear. Now we could give 10-20 tips to our mentees, from some internet searching, on how stage fear could be avoided. Or we could think of an activity that invokes equal amount of stage fear in both of us, and try it out together. Like dancing in a flashmob in a mall! I can imagine hours and hours of discussion that could happen after that on what it took to face our fears.

Quoting from Rhodes (2006): “Vygotsky (1978) described a “zone of proximal development” in which learning takes place: the range between what a youth can attain when problem solving independently and what he or she can accomplish when working under adult guidance or with more capable peers. To the extent that interactions with a mentor occur within this zone of challenging but attainable pursuits, the mental capacities of the youth may increase and improve. Within this framework, learning occurs in the context of collective work and the active exchange of ideas, with children “appropriating” from shared activities with more sophisticated thinkers (Rogoff, 1990)”

So here’s the challenge for each of you – understand your current social context of learning with your mentee. And implement one collaborative skill-building activity in the next month. And most importantly, tell us how it goes!

Happy mentoring!

References:

Morrow, K. V., & Styles, M. B. (1995). Building relationships with youth in program settings:  A study of Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures.

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Mentoring is providing “Association”

In childhood, when elders would say, “Make good friends and stay away from bad kids", I used to think who really are these bad kids? I had friends and I really didn't choose them on the basis of whether they were good or bad; they just happened to be my friends. I couldn't tell myself if they were good or bad. I understood bad, in a simple and superficial way, as stealing, blackguarding or maybe lying. My thoughts were not evolved enough to clearly decipher between the two.

Even when I asked an elder to validate what was good or bad, it remained confusing. It seemed that even the all knowledgeable elders didn't have a very clear idea of what is good or bad or one yardstick to judge them all. Then how did these decision-making skills evolve in a child as they became an adult?

I got my answer after learning about the subconscious mind. How your parents,your relatives, your friends, the society you live in, the movies you watch, the stories you read, the moral values you get, impacts your subconscious. It might not be clearly visible in your talks or in your conscious mind, but it is present in your subconscious. This is how it subtly affects your life and your decisions, 

This knowledge or understanding cannot come from a fixed time frame. It’s a gradual process.  All these things, forming one’s conscience can be called “Association”. The conscience largely depends on the values one inculcates and the association one gets in our early stage of life.

Mentoring can be one way for someone to pass on values and conscience to his/her protégé, based on his/her life experiences. Superficially, every mentor almost has same set of goals and curriculum to impart to his protégé, but what makes a difference is how it is put into action. A mentor fills this gap of a mentee lacking good association in his life, which in turn helps in making a good conscience.

For a mentor as well, it is a life changing journey. Because through meetings a mentor’s subconscious mind passes on to his/her conscious mind, which makes the mentor have more firm values and crystallized thoughts.

So be a mentor to bring a change which is not just temporary, but gradual and long lasting!

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Who is mentoring who?

This is a post from Tarun Joshi, our Pune Program Manager. Tarun was a 'Teach for India' Fellow from 2011-2013. He has been working on our new city-program in Pune since May 2013.

The desire to help and get involved in a social cause is increasing. We now want to participate more in societal good than just keeping our free time to ourselves. Why? I think it is because we have seen a drastic change in the standard of living. Compared to our parents' generation, our generation doesn’t worry that much about money, our future and our kids’ futures. And thus we can really concentrate on the bigger issues happening around us, instead of only worrying about our own earnings. This kind of helping, which is not just monetary, but also a hands-on generosity, gives us satisfaction. It gives us a different life changing experience which we had never seen or experienced before in the mundaneness of chasing degrees and jobs.

In my teaching days, one day my school principal came outside my classroom and started asking me about some incomplete admin work. We had a little argument about it. One of my kids Riza came to me after everyone left and said, “Sorry Bhaiya”. Surprised, I asked “For what beta?”. She replied,“Principal Ma'am shouted at you because of us no?”. That small incident for me was a life changing moment. It told me that a small sorry (just to show your empathy) and your humility can mean a lot to someone.

So who is mentoring who? We enter this sector thinking that we are changing things, but instead end up getting transformed ourselves much more. It is said “You have not seen/done enough until you have had one life-changing epiphany". So have you had your life-changing epiphany yet?

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Guest blog from Kavya, one of our loveliest and most committed IBM mentors

Mentors have always had a very big influence in my life. It is because of people who believed and appreciated the unique in me that I pushed myself harder than I would have and achieved a lot more than I thought I could. One of my mentors once said “Be like a postage stamp. Stick to something until you get there.” And that stuck, one sentence made a world of difference and I’ve lived by it ever since. It was a simple sentence that he had no intention of greatly impacting me but it did. As time passed and I looked back connecting the dots, I started realizing how much value all my mentors had added to my life. At that point, I knew I had to go out and impact more youth to ensure that I gave back what I received.

I started my mentoring journey when I was in college by mentoring juniors and peers who needed help or emotional support. I realized it was not easy. It became an emotional responsibility and I knew I had to equip myself better to handle them. Iread up a lot about mentoring and a few NLP sessions helped.

When I joined IBM, there were a plethora of community service activities that we could be a part of. I chose Mentor Together because I felt it aligned with what I thought was my idea of giving back to the society by empowering the youth.

I mentor three lovely girls all between the age of 13-15years. Each time I meet them it is a learning experience for me. I have learnt to be patient, kind, genuine and optimistic from my mentees. Though they come from troubled or disadvantaged back ground they do not allow it to dampen their spirit in anyway. It is great to see how interested and keen they are to learn and absorb everything that I tell them. The fact that they do not blindly listen to everything I tell them but question, analyze and assimilate is proof of their potential.

When I met my girls, building trust was imperative to our relationship. I took a while but I garnered their trust by being open about my life, my trials and tribulations and my insecurities. I did not present myself as the know-it-all but as a work-in-progress. I assured them that I am in it to learn from them as much as they are in it to learn from me. This paved way for strong relationships that my mentees and me absolutely love and cherish. I realized there’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.

My winning moment has been when one of my mentee who used to be very distant and not open about her feelings opened up to overtime. We worked together and our relationship grew stronger. She began to trust me more. Instead of fretting about life and her future she began showing confidence in herself and started making plans for the future. She laughed more often and held my hand more often. Then suddenly one day she came up to me and said she wants to be like me when she grows up. She wants to be educated, learned and equipped to make a difference in someone’s life like I have in hers. I cannot forget the joy that little girl brought to me that day.

It made everything worth it.

For the aspiring mentors out there I can only tell you, mentoring can be an extremely challenging albeit a thoroughly rewarding experience. The impact you have on that youth’s mind may shape his/her outlook to life.

My mentors made me an optimist and a dreamer of improbable dreams. I hope to do the same for my mentees, and so can you!

Kavya Gowda is a Program Manager in Global Marketing in IBM India. She started mentoring 2 girls in March 2012 in our program at the Navajeevana Home in East Bangalore. She recently took on another mentee. 

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Closure in mentoring relationships

"I never thought I'd have a mother after losing mine". This was what one of our Mysore mentees said about her relationship with her mentor in a pre-closure meeting. When our Mysore co-ordinator Smitha told me about this, it was one of those moments where you feel immensely happy and then sad the next moment.  Anyone who has read this blog would know that building a relationship is really the end-game of Mentor Together. When we have a mentor with a deep connect with his/her mentee, positive outcomes are guaranteed. I feel it is because positive relationships stir a natural yearning to be happy and do good.

I was sad because our mentee was reflecting on her year of mentoring and her mentor was moving from the formal relationship (and the intensity of meetings in that) to a more informal one. I have always struggled with questions of closure - so what next for this mentee? Will things regress for her? Have we made her dependant?

Here's my more positive theory on closure (developed in a punishing yoga class today no less; yoga ftw!): closure is actually one of the most important things in mentoring, because without it a formal mentoring relationship will never get the chance to become a lifelong relationship.

What do I mean by that? There's always a period of intensity in mentoring, where a close relationship and 'tipping point' experiences will bring about  positive development in a mentee. That intensity will go away, but in that ebb the mentee gets space to reflect on who they are and make empowered choices. Those choices will actually bring a mentor and mentee closer, in a newer kind of relationship that is more equal. 

No theory like one you can prove using your own life story!  When I was 20 and trying to figure out how I could do more for my city and community, I met Dr.Rajeev Gowda very randomly in a conference. He had a lot of ideas on youth empowerment that he wanted to get off the ground immediately, and so I joined him with some others to make them a reality. Those were heady experiences. I was supposed to join Goldman Sachs in their graduate program, but took some time off to do career exploration events around Bangalore. It was a period where he mentored me closely by pushing me to expand my leadership skills. When I did eventually start my first job and got into the grind of it, I felt suddenly cut off from those anchors. I finished a year at work and then went onto graduate school, which again brought on even more space between me and the original mentoring circumstances. In that year in the UK, I evaluated the things I had experienced after finishing college - volunteer work, work in a bank & graduate studies in finance. The experience of leading something that helped young people was the most cherished of them. I started working on the blueprint of a youth mentoring NGO with friends in Manchester, and came back to start it in September 2009. I spoke to Dr.Gowda about my plans soon after I came back and he was surprised that I had decided against the corporate path so early into things. I asked him to sign on with me as co-trustee because mentoring was something we had ideated on together when we first started the career fairs; he readily agreed. A research grant that he raised in 2010 helped me do some very important early work in understanding the field of youth mentoring. It was different from when he first guided me. I had taken some independent decisions and he was helping me as a peer because he saw value in them. And that relationship has continued and grown!

I'm going to Mysore in a couple of days and I know I'm going to see some mentees very worried about their formal mentoring coming to a close. I'm going to tell them that when I moved away from my first formal mentoring experience, I realized I had it in me to actually start Mentor Together. I can't wait to see what they do!

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Relationship -> Impact

Our Mysore program is our longest, continuing partnership. We started working with the Government Girls Home in May 2010. Last evening, I met one of our first cycle mentors who had visited her mentees recently. Her stories of their interaction reminded me that through the mentoring we have struck up relationships that mean a lot to the girls.

But the mentor was clear in her view that in these more sporadic interactions she has now, post the formal program, she isn't offering anything substantially valuable.

I think that is our number one challenge right now. After the intensity of the formal program, how can we continue to provide value to our alumni mentees through the mentoring network. I would love if mentors could continue formally for more time, but I've generally found they prefer taking on the more informal relationship after a year. I envisioned the alumni network as a model where a mentee could broadcast their needs to a large and trusted network (online would be perfect), and any mentor could respond and assist. For our Mysore girls, there is no other way of making them part of a network, than bringing a continuous stream of people to them. Much tougher to implement. But something has to be done, as we will have more mentees join the alumni group very soon.

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The ones that get away

How do you explain a young girl, who you thought was the brightest and most ambitious in her cohort, deciding to drop out of school and run away from the Home, because she is convinced her future is in marrying a wine shop owner courting her? That initial "What was she thinking?" quickly becomes the much more complex "What made this seem like a good decision for her?". If we don't populate the inner most world of experiences and thoughts that make these decisions seem right for our mentees, we will only come in to do the post-mortem of why, how, when. That's for someone writing and closing an administrative process. We need to live these out with our mentees.

I always get very nervous when mentees say in reviews, "Oh, I learned about decision-making, assertiveness. It was all very good". For me 'learned' is a euphemism for "I agreed along with you on things that everyone generally considers good and bad behaviours, but it hasn't really sunk in deep enough for me to think about or use in actual situations". After this incident in Mysore, my paranoia has just grown.

How can we start navigating this complex world of adolescence, made even tougher for our mentees by their histories of family disputes, neglect, abuse etc.  

This mentee's story, ironically enough, gives us an entry point. It's too close to home for our mentees to dismiss as someone else's story. What I'm hoping our girls realize as we try to have honest discussions about this, is that when you're in the throes of complex and new emotions, it's not so simple to know what is right and wrong. You may feel like you're up against the world and no one understands you. You need to be honest about acknowledging that you may not know what to do. That will open you up to moderation by multiple points of view (hopefully across a continuum), which is always better than a decision taken in isolation. 

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Part 2 of the Radio Indigo interview.

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A radio interview in the Namma Bengaluru Foundation show on Radio Indigo. This is a little dated. From March 2012. Was interviewed along with Phani, the always smiling founder of the incredibly successful Redbus.in. 

We speak about the new Global Shapers community of the World Economic Forum (that we were being inducted into), how we got into our respective careers etc

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No routine versus Too much routine

There's something interesting happening in our Bangalore and Mysore programs. In Mysore, we had to introduce routine into our girls' lives and publicly audit it. In Bangalore, we're having to step away from the excessive routine in our mentee's lives and delicately position ourselves as a different breed of adults. All work-in-progress. Here's a report.

Our Mysore program is based at the Balakiyara Bala Mandira Government Home. It's really easy for us to build relationships with the girls. They don't have anyone focus on their individual needs, feelings, dreams etc. Several go a full year without meeting their parents/family. They want someone to check-in on them.  

What has been more challenging is moving the mentoring towards the more instrumental continuum of mentoring relationships. From practicing English to improving hygiene, mentors were finding it hard to keep mentees to their word. It was a difficult position for mentors, because punishment or strong rebukes were out of question.

We needed to make our girls realize that there was no shortcut to achieving things - regular practice of small activities was the key. We found the answer in public accountability. The girls, individually, took a lot of pride in having mentors. It was public knowledge how many meetings each one had. We had to change the focus to pride in doing things in the mentoring. Public knowledge of what each pair was doing.

We put these sheets up on a wall in a room that leads to the main room where we often congregate. Each mentor and mentee keeps record of what they're doing in meetings. Mentors are free to give out 'stars' to mentees. We encourage mentors and mentees to spend time learning about what other pairs are doing, especially picking up good ideas others have for activities. 

  I visited the Home after 3 weeks, last weekend. This time, I was mobbed by a group of girls who insisted I come and see what they had been doing in their meetings, via these sheets. Before we would exchange notes only on how many meetings they had had. When I would broach the things they should have completed, but didn't (things I'd know from the mentor logs), there would be averted eyes and some excuses. This time one mentee even lamented that her mentor has not yet made any entries, and it was unfair because she has done so much! :) 

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Our mentees from the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement PremaVidya program in Bangalore are a very different lot. They come from low-income families, were identified for their academic potential and given scholarships to attend a pre-university Science program that they could not have accessed otherwise. It's a rigorous program. Our mentees are extremely tuned to instrumental activities in the academic sphere - assignments, exams, tutorials. The biggest challenge here has been to get them to tap into what they really want to do in the mentoring. Mentees have been seemingly too eager to do skill-building activities.  But we realized that they called it 'mentoring homework'. The horror! Now in addition to piles of chemistry, physics & math homework, there was mentoring homework.

We needed to do a pivot. We've asked mentors to try and do everything collaboratively in meetings. Research in mentoring has shown that doing any skill-building activity collaboratively helps in building the relationship much more than mentors instructing mentees to do it themselves. This group needs no more homework. We don't have any doubts that they know how to complete tasks. What our mentees need help to tap into is their natural internal motivations, when there are no tests or ranks to be got.

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Eternally hustling

The first time that a chance meeting with someone led to a brilliant partnership for Mentortogether, I remember telling myself I need to figure out how to regularize this. If I can eliminate the hustle (I was just starting out at that stage), I will have arrived.

Wrong.

I've realized that you're never too settled to cold-call, capitalize on chance encounters or send emails asking for something where you don't have a footing.

I cold-emailed a friend of mine Ashwani early in March 2012 about any possibility to spread the word about Mentor Together where he worked - Google. I knew Ashwani through a group of perennially globally-dispersed friends, brought together on random Wednesdays by happy hours and our love for spicy american corn. We hadn't spoken much about either of our jobs (which is why I would say it was a speculative email).  But I needed a new network to find mentors, so I wrote in a simple enquiry email asking to be connected with Google CSR.

He set-up a call with their 'Diversity and Inclusion' manager Keerthana and suddenly boom - as they were telling me what they wanted to do,  I realised excitedly that it was something we had been planning to do (for some months), but I hadn't even asked them about  - a workplace project!.

Last Friday, 20 of our Bangalore mentees from low-income families began a truly exciting 4 week project in the Google Bangalore office with Google engineers as their hosts. Google wants to make the internet as relevant for these kids as it is to the existing millions who can't live without it. The project is explorative, learning-centric and bi-directional - traits underpinning any good mentoring relationship. The Google team haven't treated our kids with kid-gloves or a heavy-handed "I'm the adult" here approach. They're giving them room and the tools to grow. 

Our mentees are just loving the experience until now. One sent me a message yesterday saying - "I forgot one thing : thanks for everything". Aww. A reminder to never stop hustling because the next super, mutual-value partnership is waiting for my email to land in someone's inbox!