6 Ways To Make The Most Of Your Mentor

There’s a lot of discussion and healthy debate around the formalization of mentorship. It’s certainly something we enjoy discussing at Asana, where one of our core values is “investing in ourselves, each other, and our efficiency.” We believe that through continuous mentorship, you’re not just developing personally and professionally; you are also contributing to the success of your company. It’s a win-win-win.

This all starts with acknowledging that you’d like help with your career. Once you’re there, the next step is to identify the individuals whose advice you think would be valuable. This could be someone on a different team at work, a peer who has experience in an area you’d like to explore, a higher-up whose work you admire, or someone from a different company or industry entirely. Just like any other relationship, the mentee-mentor partnership requires attention and work – and as you invest, it will evolve with time.

Here are some tips for making the most of your mentor-mentee relationships:

1. Come prepared.

Whether that’s with questions, a specific issue you’d like to discuss, or some recommended reading, this is your time. Showing up with a loose agenda will help you make the most of everyone’s time.

2. Establish a cadence for your meetings.

Being mindful of one another’s time is important in establishing the frequency and length of your meetings. Pick a cadence that works for both of you and that will ensure you have enough to talk about. Standing coffee every other Friday might sound nice in theory, for example, but that may or may not a) work for both parties’ schedules and b) leave enough time between interactions to reflect or work on your discussions. Once you do find a good routine, recurring calendar invites can be a good way to normalize your check-ins (although if your mentor prefers to meet ad hoc or your schedules require a more flexible meetup plan, that’s perfectly ok too).

3. Know that there are (at least!) two kinds of knowledge you can acquire.

As Cliff, an intern manager and engineer at Asana, puts it: “One type is raw domain knowledge – because, no matter how extensive your own documentation, there is always going to be different knowledge living inside the other person’s brain. The second – and more useful – thing you can learn is how to discover that domain knowledge in others. Your mentor will show you the tools, where the documentation lives, and how to read it. As you get more practice doing this, you’ll rely less and less on others’ help.”

4. Jot down goals and milestones.

These might be things as abstract as improving your communication skills, or as concrete as presenting a business proposal to your manager. Whatever it may be, having and documenting your goals is important. It helps you know what you’re working toward and measure the success of your mentor-mentee relationship.

5. Don’t automatically limit your relationship to a strictly professional one.

Rachel, an Asana engineering manager, points out the value in learning from mentors in more ways than one: “My mentor initially helped me with communication and career planning,” she says. “Then we moved into better emotional self-awareness, which has a significant impact on my personal life and on my work. I’ve learned to distinguish between when I believe something because of an emotional attachment I have to a certain project versus due to genuine technical and product needs.”

6. Never stop evaluating the relationship.

Like most relationships, mentorships can ebb and flow based on where you and the other person are in your lives. You can also have more than one mentor if you feel different people can work with you on separate areas of growth. Some questions to consistently ask yourself when thinking about your mentorship: Are you receiving the kind of feedback and time you’re looking for? Are you still learning? It’s definitely possible to “outgrow” a mentor or for the relationship to run its course. And that’s ok. It just means it’s time to seek out a new mentor – and to consider becoming one yourself!

Asana is a partner company of Jopwell.

Image courtesy of WOCinTech Chat via Flickr