Paving the Way

Introduction

James: A few years ago, Claire, a friend from the Cambridge tester meetups, asked if I’d be her mentor. I said yes and we collaborated for around 12 months as she took stock of her role and career direction, and worked to get to where she wanted to be in both. We blogged about it in Don't be a Prick.

Then, last year, I found myself doing the same thing with a colleague from my team at work, Yasemin. We’ve just ended that relationship and now we’re blogging about it too! (Thanks to Claire for suggesting we should.)

Yasemin: Two years ago I moved from Turkey to Berlin. I know that I thrive on learning new things and challenging myself with joy, and what better way to do that than in a new culture, language, and company? And it has been an adventure: I've had brain surgery, taken a journey of self-discovery, explored new opportunities, and really pushed my limits. 

One of those opportunities was meeting James. I watched him work for a year, observing how he inclusively engaged with people and eagerly shared his skills and knowledge. I knew that I wanted to learn from him.

And so, without fully understanding what it meant, I asked him to be my mentor. Was mentoring being a boss? A city in Ohio? I had no idea. If you're still reading, chances are you know more about mentoring than I did at the time.

Both: We agreed to try an open-ended arrangement with no particular schedule except for a monthly diary in a shared Google doc. We also said that we were open to feedback on the relationship, that we would always assume good intent, that our project was not a secret although we would respect each other's confidentiality, and that we were free to end it at any time.

Yasemin

When it comes to our agreement, I want to remind both my brain and you of what I had hoped to achieve through our relationship. I wanted to reinvent myself from scratch, make meaningful contributions to work, expand my knowledge on various topics, approach problems in new ways, increase my self-confidence, push my limits, and better understand my feelings about work.

Looking back, I must admit that these goals seem quite broad and vague. In hindsight, I wish I had set more specific objectives for myself. However, I did make significant progress in one area in particular: improving my data-driven vision with the help of James.

I now feel much more comfortable using data when coding, implementing, testing, or presenting my ideas. This has allowed me to approach my work with a calmer mindset, resulting in more thoughtful and conscious outputs.

There were certainly times when I felt demotivated and unsure about my progress, but James never gave up on me. His relentless drive to create something useful every day inspired me to keep pushing myself. And in the end, I was able to achieve the promotion I had been hoping for. I did!

I am delighted to have taken the resilience of the human spirit as my guiding principle while observing James. He never seems tired while explaining his own ideas or beliefs. No matter how seemingly small or insignificant they may appear to the outside world. It is worth telling again and again. And I am grateful for the deep level of existential analysis that our mentorship has led us to.

James's guidance and mentorship have made a significant impact on my personal and professional growth. I am truly grateful for the things I learned from him and the wisdom he imparted if I was able to get them. 

It might look like just statements but please be reading with your slowest and most emotional voice.

Here are the key takeaways from our mentorship:

• Offer and ask for support whenever necessary
• Ask well-defined and explanatory questions without fear
• Prepare yourself before asking questions
• Give and receive actionable items and suggestions
• Take structured, concise, and well-worded notes
• Learn how to write effective tickets
• Learn how to make effective presentations
• Gain a broader understanding before starting anything
• Write clear code and provide explanations when necessary
• Encourage others and be encouraging
• Be direct but wise when dealing with issues
• Develop resilience in problem-solving
• Have fun while working

I must confess that I enjoy the poetic touch, so I will conclude this part with some words that perfectly capture my growth mindset:

Yasemin continues to show how much she wants to grow herself. She is like a sponge for suggestions and ideas. I feel comfortable offering her ways to try to do things, knowing that she will take what works for her.

You already guess who said this :)

James

Looking back at our agreement I see that I only wanted to help Yasemin to achieve what she wants, and I’m very happy that she now feels she did.

I’m also happy that I was able to adapt to, and be guided by, what she wanted and needed at different stages. I played the role of  mirror, reflecting her feelings back to her in a truthful way; I reframed scenarios looking for a personal win; I empathised with her and I shared experiences that were related to hers; I prepared so that I was ready to give feedback on her performance in presentations or as a facilitator if she wanted it; and sometimes I offered it without being asked.

I felt safe to offer unbidden feedback because we had, and continue to have, a strong sense of shared trust. It feels safe to discuss any topic in our conversations and that includes things we thought might be difficult, such as interactions with our team mates. While being keen to empathise, I did not want to let our conversations slide into sessions where we slag people off behind their back.  

I reflected a little on the context I tried to set when we interacted:

• Not judging
• Empathising
• Listening
• Praising
• Making suggestions not demands
• Framing scenarios not making assertions about them
• Sticking to all agreements
• Doing more than the bare minimum
• Being explicit about the range of acceptable outcomes

That last one is interesting, and I found it valuable in the years I spent as a manager. 

To give a couple of examples: after 12 months of mentoring I suggested reviewing our arrangement and I was clear that I would be happy with whatever Yasemin decided: stay the same, change any aspect, or stop completely. When we discussed writing this blog post I said that we could finish it and she could still decide that she did not want to publish it. 

This takes the pressure off and makes a safe space to work in. In this case, we can have an open collaboration intended to benefit Yasemin, without her needing to worry that our goals are misaligned or that I will be upset with where we end up.

Our arrangement has cost me very little. Our meetings for mentoring itself were infrequent, and we pair often anyway. Where I was proactively taking notes in order to provide feedback I’d have been present anyway. I did some occasional research, but rarely enough that it would show up in the noise of any temporal accounting.  

I liked the regular diary as a driver for reflection and introspection. As we end this relationship it’s also evidence of change, something that it can be difficult to see in the moment. By sharing the diary we also get to see more deeply what the other person is thinking. Without it I might have missed out on this lovely and poetic feedback:

I am really glad that I have James on the team as a friend and a mentor. He's always pushing me to the edges that I did not think of. He paves the way for me to shine. 

Reflection

Yasemin: If it was going so well, you might ask why I’d want to stop?

I see I achieved my goals. I feel strong confidence in what I do. I know exactly what I desire from my work: a safe learning environment that's free from negative pressure and ambition. I was inspired by James about doing my best every day and can still be inspired. Those were a sign for me to stop, for now. I'm confident that if I require support in the future, James will be there for me. This fact is based on our mutual trust.

I'd not do anything differently when I looked back. Probably I'll miss my mentor and my friend dearly. Only for this reason, maybe I should have moved on. Like James's namesake, James Clavell, said:

All stories have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning.  

Now it is time to give back to the community. 

James: We stopped when Yasemin decided she didn’t need the formal arrangement any longer. At a meta level, I don’t think I would do anything differently next time. My aim was to behave in a way that was beneficial to Yasemin and acceptable to me given the context at the time. I’d do the same again with someone else, although the specifics would be, well, specific to that situation.

Although I do try to tailor my approach, I know that I am just less compatible with some people. Yasemin suggested, from her observations, that good people for me to work with will:

• Accept help and feedback
• Take action from learnings
• Want to improve themselves

If we add something about being prepared to engage in self-reflection I think that’s probably right. I guess it's also just about the dream mentee!

I want to end by congratulating Yasemin on what she's acheived here. She decided she wanted to make some changes, worked out what kind of changes she felt she needed, looked around for support, took the huge step of asking for it, engaged with it in ways that suited her, made her changes, and then found another challenge.

I may have paved the way to some extent, but it's Yasemin that walked the walk.
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