Mentoring: Reverse is the new forward

Mentoring: Reverse is the new forward

Today while watching the India Vs South Africa match my 11 year old son asked me “how come all of a sudden Paytm has become so big?" The question took me back a couple of year’s when my son then 7 year old asked me for my credit card so that he could buy an online game when till that day I had not paid online to buy an application. Upon being pushed by him and questioned ‘why not’ I decided to learn about online payments and challenged self to let go of my old notions shrouded in fear of online fraud. Once I embarked on journey of online payment there was no looking back and am sure that has been a similar story for many of us. 

It made me search and learn the new ways of doing thing and a whole new world opened up which unlocked many new idea beyond digital world and into my own domain of Human Resources. In my line of work I also needed to understand how my internal and external stakeholders were changing and what was it that was important for them. I knew time had come to acknowledge that I needed a young person to guide me. I unofficially appointed my young colleague as my mentor and thus began my journey.

Reverse mentoring is a topic which excites many and at the same time eludes many. My own reverse mentoring experience has clearly showed to me that days of traditional mentorship where in information flow was unidirectional with older or senior person telling younger or junior person how to succeed and helping the mentee to network with few other seniors folks are over. Today’s business challenges need young millennia’s ideas. These cannot be overlooked and reverse mentoring is one of the ways to bring those ideas in forefront with perspective.

If you are still reading, it clearly means you are interested in the idea. Before you embark on the journey, let me list a few pointers from my experience for you to consider:

Need to be ready- Mentee (senior person) has to know that it is not only about learning but can be an opportunity to solve real world problems in non-traditional ways. It requires for mentee to be open to being challenged and also to be able to critically view his/ her approach to things and thoughts. Simply put “mentee should be ready to be pushed out of one’s comfort zone”

Choose a Curious Mind as Mentor- Pick up bright people with curious bent of mind who display voracious quest for knowledge. People who are good at sharing and take pleasure from discussions. Someone who is not afraid to ask the old mentee “to dissolve the box let alone break it”.

Be Honest – Both the parties needs to be absolutely clear of what they are in for and why. It is important to talk about differences since different generations have different views, paradigms and even different communication styles. State the rules of engagement ‘openly’ and work towards establishing ‘trust’

Business Challenge- One has to be cognizant of the fact that this relationship needs to bring in ideas to solve business challenge. Mentoring needs to be productive, add value and build new perspectives for both otherwise this has potential to very quickly degenerate into a fad that is good to talk about

Be prepared to teach- Ensure mentee  teaches the mentor (young person) through his / her experience, build perspective for the young mentor thus benefiting both. This can be done by putting ideas into systems thinking without judging and shutting down. Ensure that young mentor gets business knowledge, learns how to distill it, values the connections and is able to build the picture by translating the information into valuable strategic capability

Don’t make it too formal- Start with a conversation and build into a relationship characterized by respect, sharing and fun. Remember it is not another HR exercise focused on documenting, capturing ideas in a format etc. for then you run a risk of over structuring it and killing the essence

Cut the Ego- Ensure ego is cut down by both Mentors and Mentee. Mentee should let go of the “I know it all , been there done it attitude” and Mentor should not become vain by virtue of teaching a senior leader . It is never about us versus them from either persons perspective

Your organization does not have a formal program? It doesn’t matter. A sure but small first step is to take time to hang out with young people. Ask them those questions you are struggling with and listen. You might just be surprised. 

In the end all I can say is that reverse mentoring is an opportunity to co-create something that will potentially be superior in value.

* Parts of this post have been published in Economic times as part of a self-authored article by me.