What constitutes Mentoring another team?

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by JVN

Okay,
Now define "helps another team."
What if someone repeatedly answers questions about gearbox math on Chief Delphi, does that count?

What if someone repeatedly answers the same questions via email, does that count?

-John

Or what if somebody makes a presentation at Championship about the Engineering Design Process.... just how many teams have you mentored John?

I would count a team as mentored if my repeated help was directed at that team, and it doesn't matter if it is the same question answered repeatedly.

I'm getting the idea there is not a black/white definition of mentoring but it is more of a continuum. At one end are teams that you definitely mentored, at the other end are teams you definitely have not mentored and somewhere in between is a fuzzy area where it is really hard to categorize if your help constitutes mentoring.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

I think this is going to be one of those threads that turns into a hundred posts. It has given me real pause.

I am realizing that what I have been doing the past few years is probably not mentoring, but rather just trying to be helpful.

I am grasping at a "label."

I'm not answering the questions about gearbox math, but could swap in various other topics.

NEHO anyone?

My questions in this thread aren't designed to create a cohesive definition for mentorship, but rather to make people think.

The original poster is asking for help from people in drawing a line in what appears to be a very grey area. Everyone seems to have their own "line" for this sort of thing.

I would encourage everyone to think about their personal responses to the original post. While they're doing that, I'm trying to make sure they have as much trouble as possible drawing that line. Thinking is good for us.

-John

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by JVN

When I said "same" I meant -- the same questions previously mentioned as being answered on CD.
I edited my original post to clarify.

-John

I think asking a series of questions over email is valid as well. If a team is helpful and I repeatedly come back to them for help, I would consider them a mentor.

I think a simple way to test mentorship is to ask "What would it take for me to call a team a mentor?"

edit: A question for anyone in the thead: who does your team consider a mentor and why?

[Alan Anderson]

My thoughts: Mentoring is a personal relationship. To mentor someone requires immediacy and continuity. Teachers are not automatically mentors. Taking responsibility for a bureaucratic task does not automatically make one a mentor. Giving a lecture, showing a process, explaining rules...none of those are what being a mentor is about.

Helping someone to grow and learn, providing a consistent model for behavior, giving someone the opportunity to develop and practice new skills...that's what a mentor does.

I think mentoring another team requires becoming a partner with that team and getting them to the point where the partnership is no longer necessary.

[Siri]

My litmus test for individual-to-individual mentorship might be relevant here:

I am mentoring iff my prospective mentee believes I have helped them grow in ways they wouldn't have achieved as well alone.

Concentrating on the mentee's perspective helps me remember that the value proposition is in what the mentee believes. Of course this isn't perfect, both false negatives and false positives are still possible. I do try to help mentees realistically appreciate their areas of growth (and non-growth), however. I the concentration on growth also helps me distinguish long-term, individualized relationships from (still very valuable) cooperition and general helpfulness.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Siri

My litmus test for individual-to-individual mentorship might be relevant here:

I am mentoring iff my prospective mentee believes I have helped them grow in ways they wouldn't have achieved as well alone.

Concentrating on the mentee's perspective helps me remember that the value proposition is in what the mentee believes. Of course this isn't perfect, both false negatives and false positives are still possible. I do try to help mentees realistically appreciate their areas of growth (and non-growth), however. I the concentration on growth also helps me distinguish long-term, individualized relationships from (still very valuable) cooperition and general helpfulness.

This definition of mentorship requires definition of the word "growth."

What changes need to take place in the mentee to fulfill your definition? What constitutes "growth" and how much of it is required to constitute successful mentorship?

[Chris Fultz]

is the definiton any different for "mentoring another team" than for who you defines as "mentoring your team"?

If someone shows up one night in the build season, explains something, then goes away, would you list them as a mentor? What if they came twice? Five times?

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Siri

I am mentoring iff my prospective mentee believes I have helped them grow in ways they wouldn't have achieved as well alone.

Originally Posted by JVN

What changes need to take place in the mentee to fulfill your definition? What constitutes "growth" and how much of it is required to constitute successful mentorship?

As the old Buddhist proverb (and legendary golf instructor Harvey Penick) puts it:

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

See example here. I believe mentoring is always an eye-level one-to-one relationship. To say that one team is mentoring another implies (at least) one such relationship. A single good relationship of this kind beats any number of mediocre ones.

Suppose your land has a large oil reserve under it, 400 meters down. Are you better off drilling five holes, each 80 meters deep, or concentrating on one hole until it strikes oil?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by JVN

This definition of mentorship requires definition of the word "growth."

What changes need to take place in the mentee to fulfill your definition? What constitutes "growth" and how much of it is required to constitute successful mentorship?

Fair point. I leave this deliberately ambiguous within my litmus test, because I tend to place a (perhaps inordinately) large value on the mentee's interpretation. If they feel they've grown, whatever their goals* are--if they feel mentored--I consider myself to have succeeded positively.

Beyond the litmus though, I guess my next check is that the growth exceeds anything that could reasonably achieved through a collection of lesser interactions. For the purposes of this statement, "lesser" refers to shorter, less personal or less unique (etc?), as opposed to being a qualitative judgement. I'm not sure I'm comfortable defining growth beyond how the individual growing it precieves it (with the possible exception that it doesn't injure the individual or society). While there are certainly trends and common examples in FIRST as with other organizations, I'm not entirely certain growth has a definition beyond the individuals'. All solely my opinion and subject to evolution with further experience.

*I suppose I should add my usually inherent caveats that they have goals I can view as positive and that I don't feel I've misled them/they've been misled.
*And I like the Buddhist reference (@Richard)

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Wendy Holladay

Many times teams are asked who or how many teams they mentor. We always struggle to answer this. We hold many workshops, training, etc. During build season we get a steady stream of phone calls and visits from other teams. So are we "mentoring" all those teams? Does the other team have to realize it as mentoring?

What is your team's definition of "mentoring'? And please be specific.

Why does it have to be complicated? Can't you just call up all the teams that come to your trainings/workshops/etc. and ask "Did we mentor you?" Seems to me like that solves a lot of potential sticking points, as I'm sure the number of teams mentored plays a reasonably big role in judging awards. I know this leaves a lot of grey area, but it also offloads the responsibility from your team, and FIRSTers in general seem like people who give credit where it is due.

On the other hand, even if there was a lot of knowledge transfer going on people often have fragile egos. However, I'd much rather they learn something and miss out on the credit than cheese them off.

[JaneYoung]

I can offer an opinion based on what other area teams have labeled us. They have labeled us a mentoring team. I think the reason that they have labeled us as such is because we respond (to the best of our ability) to requests for help, assistance, sharing of knowledge, and hands-on training. That can be formal or informal. It can involve one person or several persons. It can take one brief session, several hours, or more. It can be local or it can involve travel. It can be a phone call, an e-mail exchange, a workshop, a training session, or a one-on-one meeting to help problem-solve or brainstorm. I think of us as a go-to team for any type of help that we can provide or offer, even though we have just sort of evolved into that role. A lot of it is done quietly and there have been a lot of times that we don't all know what all we are doing. I have been making requests for all of us to better document our work but none of us seem to follow through very well with that request. To add, the mentoring involved can be in the technical and non-technical aspects of building a team and/or a community.

I guess that is my roundabout way of suggesting that your team take the time to document your work with others. By documenting your work, you are better able to determine what you are doing. And, as has been suggested - contact the teams that you have helped and ask for their input regarding the mentoring side of things.

This is a good topic.
Jane

Additional thinking: Several of the teams that we have mentored through the years have become, or, they are in process of becoming, mentoring teams, themselves. It's a process of paying it forward and it is a very rewarding process. It's also fun to work together towards mutual goals such as off-seasons, group demos, and with developing training initiatives and camps.

[rachelholladay]

We (here at 1912) kind of have this idea of what it means to really mentor a team and we wanted to see if we had the right general idea. (hence the posting of this question by Wendy Holladay)

Instance 1: We meet a rookie team at kickoff. They come to our Jumpstart Build, which is one-day event on the Saturday after kickoff where new teams came with a kit of parts and leave with a driving chassis. We get maybe one email or phone call from the team during build season, but other than that they ask for little assistance. We play with them at competition, see how much the kitbot from Jumpstart has changed (or some cases, how much it hasn't). Would we like to say we helped them out? Yes. Would we say we mentored them? No, not really. This scenario has been the case with many teams over the past few years.

Instance 2: (based on real team) Our regional director puts us in contact with a rookie team in the fall and they come to our build space so that we can show them the basics of robotics, give an introduction, answer questions, etc. They also attended our Beta Test presentation to learn more about the controls system specifically. We see them again at kickoff and at Jumpstart, where they stay a little but longer then most teams. They call us a few times during the build season for questions, so we keep in touch. We help them a lot during competition to get all their stuff together to compete. Would we say that we mentored them? Yes, perhaps?

[JaneYoung]

Rachel,

I was here editing my post and caught yours following mine, very quickly. My immediate thought is that you have a clear understanding of what your team is doing and you have answered your question.

That's a very simple response but I don't think mentoring needs to be that complicated when thinking about it. If your RD contacts your team and asks you to work with a rookie team in the manner in which you did, that is definitely a signal to you that you are considered to be a team that can help or can mentor another team. As many of us are aware of, rookie and pre-rookie teams are not always receptive to help, support, and/or mentoring and even those of us with the best of intentions are challenged by the refusals of help. Those of us lucky enough to have teams that appreciate and welcome the help, support, and/or mentoring will have an incredible experience and we are better teams for it.

Jane

[ebarker]

Starting with the basics:

Definition of Mentoring
Mentoring is a developmental partnership through which one person shares knowledge, skills, information and perspective to foster the personal and professional growth of someone else.

What is a mentor?
A mentor facilitates personal and professional growth in an individual by sharing the knowledge and insights that have been learned through the years.

What is a mentee?
A mentee is an achiever–”groomed” for advancement by being provided opportunities to excel beyond the limits of his or her position.

Generally speaking I think helping another person (or team) learn or do something as a single act constitutes 'aid'.

If you help a person (or team) move along a developmental pathway from point A to point B, then that is much more along the lines of mentoring. Mentoring is much more a journey than a single act.

For example if you help a new team ( or inexperience veteran ) move through season, asking the right questions at the right time, warning them of pitfalls, helping them make good decisions and prepare properly, in a way such that they own the process, and you are "wise counsel" then you are mentoring.

Technically speaking helping a team navigate a problem from point A to point B, at a single event or on a single day might meet the definition of mentoring. That would be the narrowest example for my way of thinking.

Question: What differentiates a teacher and a mentor ?

Teachers follow syllabi and rubrics. It tends to be very structured and results tend to be grades earned, not the lessons learned.

Mentors don't have rubrics, only results. Learning happens in fits and starts and there are 'learning moments'. Ambiguity abounds and there is often a lot of uncertainty and unease about what is next. The mentor guides and the mentee learns.

For us, a working definition of mentoring demands that the interaction occur over an extended amount of time, not just a single day. These other interactions we call training or just plain old helping. That is our definition.

"Satisfaction is really expensive, being a mentor is a remarkably inexpensive way to get some ..." Woodie Flowers

[JohnChristensen]

I may be a little conservative, but I really don't think most of what gets called mentoring in the FIRST community is really mentoring (speaking team to team mentoring). If the line between where your team ends and their team begins is getting blurry then I think you have crossed the line into mentoring. I had a local rookie coach last year call me with her questions throughout the build season, the team even brought their robot to our shop to use our bridge before bag and tag. I never considered this interaction mentoring. Did my team offer advice when needed, parts when in need, and shop time? Yes, but I don't think we mentored them, this was gracious professionalism.