Getting your fellow mentors on board

[Jon Stratis]

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.