Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

I have been mentoring teams in varying capacities for a few years now and feel like I have gotten a decent grip on working with the students. The other adults on the team however are a whole other spicy meatball. This has become more apparent to me now that I am at the top of the mentor totem pole for my team. Please don’t take this as me throwing my fellow mentors under the bus. The problem I believe stems more from my leadership style and inability to articulate some things.

I have my philosophies on what the division of labor and decision making between students and mentors should look like. I call this “The Oldest Question in FIRST.” There are plenty of threads on this, so I am not looking to flog that particular deceased equine any further:deadhorse: . The problem I am running into is that I have mentors on my team that are all at different points on that continuum. My question for the more experienced mentors out there is twofold:

1. How do I quantify things so as to better articulate where I think we should be on this as a team?

2. How do I go about either making my case and getting the other mentors on board with where I stand, or at least get them to arrive at a consensus on the issue that they feel they can live with?

Apologies for the wall of text.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

Honestly, your first mistake was starting this discussion on CD and not with your fellow mentors.

Your second mistake is not having this discussion with them now. Talking to the Internet means people can (and will) respond with "LOL... HAR HAR... MENTORS BUILD ROBOTZ" or "On my team, we have the students turn all of the screwdrivers".

And discussion with your fellow mentors does not mean just talking to them. It means asking them to talk to you and listening as they explain their methods and concerns.

EDIT: To be clear; teams should be having the discussion about the role of mentors and students as regularly as is productive for the team. It's important to have an understanding of what it means to be a team.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

Great post. Getting a cohesive unit of mentors is one of the most critical and challenging things for a team. I'll give some ideas, but they are by no means perfect.

I'm not sure how invested your mentors are, but for most groups the most important thing is fostering that investment. Just like students need to feel ownership and excitement on the team, so do mentors. Keeping them involved in the planning process, even just keeping them informed of the short-term and long-term plan, is important (and something I still struggle with). Second, make sure they are working on projects that they are passionate about. Even if the team doesn't need a new flag, letting a group make one can foster that passion.

Once you have that passion, having a big discussion about where the team is headed (with concrete dates, milestones, and goals) can help galvanize support. Now, everyone won't agree on the same path towards those goals, but that is probably a positive. Use your experience to push for your plans, but be open to the ways that they want to do things.
As far as quantifying, you could try quantifying those goals. Something like "Our goal is to go to DCMP. To get there we need twice the driver practice. To get that we need to design freeze in week 2. To get that we need to finish prototyping major mechanisms by week 1.5." Then put the question to everyone "how to we rearrange resources to improve prototyping, so that we can go to DCMP?"

Basically, quantify individual things in terms of completing a goal. Once the other mentors are invested in the team, they will be more likely to work with you towards a consensus that they can live with.


That's my take on it anyway. Not sure how clear it was though, so feel free to ask any questions :)

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

What works for us pretty well... We have the team student officers decide the workgroups for the season, we then have a meeting and let mentors decide which workgroup to join. We tend to get all basis covered by letting students pick the groups and where they want to be as well as the mentors. We kind of self police to make sure each group is strongly represented for a season with key students and a strong mentor in that area or two. For returning student mentors we allow them to be floaters to help any group that needs help, since they came from the prior actual team environment and get it.

I think both students and mentors should be in areas the want each season not where they are told to be.
Also during the season each mentor has autonomy along with the student officer over what happens in a specific group (we don't step on each others toes). There is some cross- help but mostly each unit does their own thing to deliver the final bot and gameplay.

This is our fourth year and out of the main mentors the groups are pretty consistent as new ones come in they pick and can bolster/replace. In some areas we force change like finance. In others its semi-permanent and voluntary.

Size wise we are fairly small... 30+ students 8 mentors

This year we are pretty solid with students and mentors, its challenging though because this being out 4th year the original Freshman will graduate... so we are trying to bolster continuity this season and find new strong student leaders and need to find new drivers for next season and beyond.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

The conversation with the other mentors is what spawned my post, not the other way around. The problem I run into is I am having a hard time sharing my thoughts with them due to the distance between my brain and mouth. Additionally, they are all good about sharing their opinions (which is awesome!), but I'm running into problems getting that conversation to a conclusion. Lots of talking, not much listening to each other or coming to conclusions going on. How do I play referee between the grown ups?

I realize this thread will probably attract some her-dur posts, but I'm hoping to find the toad of truth in the swamp of posts.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

^^This. And this discussion should not be limited to just mentors (though having some mentors-only discussions before the whole team discussion is a good idea).

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

Sorry, a bit reactionary on my part. CD is a mess for this time of the year.

In seriousness, it sounds like you need to come up with a decision making process with the group of mentors. "Hey guys, I've noticed we have a hard time coming to conclusions so here's my idea for how we can do that". It can be as simple as "quick verbal vote" or dictatorship-like-final-call-by-lead-mentor if you've got one mentor who is making decisions. I suggest some kind of happy medium with a tie-breaker rule or decision-tree.

As a bonus, one handy trick for these types of discussions (and really all types) is to never assign ideas to people or associate ideas with people. It's not "her idea" or "Timmy's idea"... it is "an idea about XYZ". This helps to remove personalities from the decision making process and causes people to look at ideas dispassionately.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

This has been an issue for us at various times over the years. We are fortunate in that I have been the co-head or head mentor for the entire time of our team, and my co-head for the past eight years and I have very similar philosophies. That said, we have had somewhere north of 60 mentors work with our team and this problem does come up.

#1 suggestion: Listen first. Have a meeting with the mentors. Consider having two or three student leaders as well, but only if you think they won't be intimidated or feel like they are being made to choose between mentors. Lay out your issue, that you think that everyone needs to be on the same page as to the proper role of mentors on the team. Listen to everyone's input and try to focus on the common ground. After you have listened lay out your concerns. It is not really any different than developing a vision for the operation of any organization. If you want it to work well you need to get people to buy into it. Focusing first on the common ground is an important part of cooperative bargaining, which is a good model to try to emulate.

#2 suggestion: Keep the lines of communication open for students. They need to know that mentors will listen to their concerns.

#3 suggestion: If you feel like their is a distance between your brain and your mouth, make sure you right up your concerns before a meeting. And then talk through them at least once on your own. Or even better share what you wrote with someone not on the team who can give you feedback to see if it makes sense. It is always amazing to me how much better I feel about meetings when I prepare what I want to say ahead of time.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

I can’t tell from your post if you have mentors that need development of specific FRC skills (learning about how FRC works as a program, understanding and using common parts, etc) or if they are trying to change the direction of the team to suit their ideas and goals.

Have a mentor meeting and tell each mentor what your expectations are for being a mentor. Basic ground rules – and keep it clear and concise. How much help do you expect the mentors to provide? Do you want a mentor built robot or a student built robot?

At the risk of sounding cliché: Business plan – 1, 2, and 5 year goals. You need to have this in all the mentor’s hands as soon as they come on board. These goals can be fluid year to year but not mid season. This is where the team is headed for the current and future year. This is where your vision for the team needs to be enumerated.

Good CEO’s do not get down in the trenches. They hire good people and entrust them to get their jobs done. Your responsibility as the lead is to get your mentors the skills and tools needed to do the job you want them to do. Empower them and accept that their approach may be different from yours. It shouldn’t matter as long as they get to the goal that is set. Resist the urge to get hands on or direct mentors to one specific path. I can’t tell how many ‘training’ seminars I sat through encouraging me to ‘think outside the box’ only to be told by higher management “the way we do it now works just fine and we’re not changing”.

Hope this helps. Good luck

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

TLDR - different interaction methods are good, respect your fellow mentors enough to trust them to be decent people.

Why do all mentors have to have similar philosophies in mentoring?

As a student on RUSH I was lucky enough to be exposed to a variety of mentors with a variety of styles and philosophies when it comes to mentoring. Some were more hands on, others were more sarcastic, yet others had other styles. I naturally gravitated towards working with mentors that worked with my personal style of learning.

To me, I have a style of mentoring in line with my personality, asking (or telling me) to do something very different than that is going to be a very unpleasant experience and, in my experience, counter productive. Sure, your fellow mentors could all try to be nurturing, kind, and hands off (if that's what you want) but that may be counter to their personality which increases stress on them. Couple that with the fact that some students may learn better with other approaches and it stops making sense to mandate mentoring styles.


On 79 and 125 I respected (most of) my fellow mentors. I assumed if they were interacting with a student a certain way they either knew the student reacted well to that sort of interaction OR that the student would ask someone else for help if it bothered them. Really I think what you're missing isn't knowing your mentors but respecting them as adults and professionals and trusting them to do what they think is in the best interest of the students and the team.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

I'll second this.

Additionally, if you are "top of the mentor totem pole", and you state that many different mentor styles/philosophies are encouraged on your team, I think you'll find you welcome more people than you turn away with your inclusive policy. On the other hand, dictating a laborious set of rules/guidelines that goes well beyond FIRST's standards for mentors will almost definitely turn away many adults.

One caveat, I do encourage all teams to have all of their mentors YPP certified. I know, YPP isn't a catch-all, but it is supported by FIRST and a great addition to a mentor's tool belt.

-Mike

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

Inconsistent mentoring philosophies drive students away (we lost at least four a few years ago on this). They don't have to be identical, but they can't be too disparate. If you don't have a common purpose, you don't have a team.

I've been trying to compose an answer. ^^This is what I was going to say, though I would not have been as eloquent. The most charitable explanation of the issue is that we had different (incompatible) ideas of what "inspiring STEM 'n such" means.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

My experience is quite literally the exact opposite.

And they DO have a common purpose - inspiring STEM 'n such.

I'm not talking mentors who are at odds, I expect them to behave like adults. But things like level of hands on, tone of voice, and the like. For example - I expect students to either know how to do something or come and ask, I don't have a lot of patience for people who sit and do nothing because they don't know how to do it. I tend to treat students as adults until they demonstrate they can't be. I trust them to do their job or find one. Other mentors have a different approach to student interactions - they hover more or perhaps are a little less blunt.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

I kinda agree. Disagreement is good for the soul but it does need to be constructive disagreement. You don't want to encourage cults of personality around mentors and having students take sides (or maybe you do if that's how your team runs).

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

I do agree with this. Think of inconsistent in terms of incompatible. So if it is a question of a warm, fuzzy and outgoing vs. gruff and quiet approach, no, not all the mentors need to or should be the same. If it is a question of "I design the robot and tell the students exactly what to do" vs. "the students design the robot with guidance and feedback from the mentor" then it can cause a lot of problems on a team. I am not arguing here about which of these is a better approach, but we have had problems like this in the past when new mentors joined our team expecting one when we were doing the other. Mostly the mentors adapted to the team culture. But not always, and when they didn't it caused them, me and the students a lot of stress.

So if/when you meet with the other mentors you need to identify which differences are differences in style that you can live with or even celebrate and which are differences in philosophy of operation that you can't.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

Mentor cohesion is critical for teams, and can be hard to achieve. I've found that every mentor comes in with their own preconceived notions and those can be very, very hard to change. Some people are just more hands-on than others, and that expresses itself as being on different points of the mentor-built/student-built spectrum. The real key to getting everyone on the same page is communication over the long term. You won't get there overnight, but if you can create a common team culture over the next few years, you'll find that new mentors coming in will adapt much more quickly.

When I think about it, right before kickoff is really the wrong time to try to address these sorts of issues. If you get people together for a meeting to discuss it, some will feel like it's an attack on them and how they work, and could react negatively, causing issues for the team that carry into the season. Really, the right time to start addressing it is at the end of the season, allowing you to work on progress during the off-season, then reassess after the next season.

Instead of tackling this as a discussion of mentor-built/student-built, I would go after it as a discussion of team leadership. Work with the mentors to create a leadership structure within your mentor group. For my team, we basically have our faculty advisors on top, and then one mentor leading each of the primary areas, and the other mentors working with them. This type of leadership structure allows for natural mentoring within your mentor group, helping people get on the same page.

Next, bring in your student leadership. Establish (if you haven't already) a leadership structure for the students and empower them to guide their mentors towards the level of involvement the team needs. Putting that power into the students hands, and ensuring (through individual mentoring/discussions when needed) all of the mentors respect it, helps to reduce friction within the mentor group and allows your team leadership to act in a united fashion.

Above all else, expect progress to be fairly slow. Creating a team culture doesn't happen overnight.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

Lots of planning ahead before meetings may help here. Coalesce your thoughts outside of the meeting, write them all down concisely, and then discuss that with the group.

For coming to a conclusion, the best thing I have found personally is to not talk much, but try to distill down opposing view points in your head while others are talking. At some point speak up with something like "it sounds like X and Y are the leading plans" and move the discussion to X and Y's pros and cons. After enough discussion people should be receptive to the "well we need to just pick one, see how it works, and re-asses while we are in process".

If there is enough support for an idea, even if you don't agree with it, it may be best to go with that. Having multiple people feel like they are meaningfully contributing may be more important than doing something the way that you think is perfect.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

Thank you for the feedback so far. I run into the problem that I have mentors in the "students can hold the screwdriver and watch while I build a robot" camp, the "mentors are just there to keep you from hurting yourself" camp, and everywhere in between. In the past few years everyone just kind of did their own thing and we found ourselves somewhere in the middle (which is where I want to be anyway). Not being on the same page causes conflict, but not to the point that we don't function, and GP still prevails in our interactions.

I think I need to play the "benevolent dictator" card since leadership by committee isn't getting decisions made. I need to make the best decisions I can with their advice of the other mentors in mind, and go with what I think everyone can live with. I also liked what I read about writing my thoughts out before presenting them. I know that I am a better writer than speaker.

In other words, I need to introvert less hard.

Re: Getting your fellow mentors on board
 

First you need to decide exactly what your team is. A social club that builds robots on the side? A competitive whose primary goal is to win competitions or outreach awards? An educational tool to teach life skills? Completely student run? Completely mentor or coach run? Student run within parameters set by the powers that be? Most team are a mix and all have their merits. Decide what you team is. Having a business plan or a mission statement is a useful tool, but don't let it box you in.

You also need to decide what motivates your mentors to want to devote time to the team. If a mentor wants to do something with their hands, then you need to provide an outlet for that. The team coach is a mix of carnival barker, cat herder, and director.

While our coach has the final say, our team at the mentor level is mostly by consensus, but a few things are by executive fiat. Having to following school policy is an example of a non-debatable. Establishing a team handbook is also useful. Once a decision is made, make a policy and don't keep revistiting it. When having meetings, have an agenda with time allowed for discussion. At the end of the allotted time stop discussing and make a decision.