To be a mentor
Have you met people who, at the first difficulty, do not try to overcome it on their own, but run to a more experienced comrade for help? The senior colleague suggests a solution, and everyone seems to be happy, but the older one was distracted, and the younger one did not earn his own experience.
And then there are people who are seemingly excellent specialists and professionals. But they have low professional self-esteem and they are afraid to take on more than they are now. And there are still people who are hard at work acquiring new information, they need to draw everything with squares and arrows, or even more than once. And not two.
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These people are often united by the fact that at one time they got a bad teacher at school or a bad mentor is already on the career path.
Being a bad mentor is easy. It is difficult to notice a bad mentor, it may seem good and does not understand that he is making mistakes.
The relationship between a mentor and a student can be compared to the relationship of a parent and child. Both the parent and the mentor have a great influence, at the same time both the student and the child may not be aware of and not be aware of whether they have a good mentor or a bad one.
Just as parental mistakes can last a lifetime for a child, mentoring mistakes can reach through their entire professional career. Errors of this kind sit deep, and it is not always possible to reliably determine their source.
How to recover from these errors, I do not know. The same long way, as in the case of parents - awareness of the problem and the subsequent self-control. Therefore, the mentor must understand and accept the responsibility entrusted to him.
The most critical mistake that anyone who has an influence on another person can make is instilling a feeling of inferiority. Being a mentor, in no case can you position yourself in terms of the fact that you, a mentor, a first-class specialist, and your authority are unshakable, and a student - no one calls him No.
Such a line of conduct is a direct path to the birth of a professional cripple.
This often happens if a person goes into mentoring with the aim of shaking his ChSV against the background of young less professional colleagues, with the aim of showing them (and above all - himself) how cool he is.
At the same time, I do not declare that it is impossible to go into mentoring for the sake of my ChSV, you can, of course, but only if your ChSV grows from the idea of ​​teaching and learning, from the idea that excellent specialists come out from under your hand.
Hyper-drug is the same emotional damage as suggestion of a sense of inferiority.
When you are a mentor, your desire to see good results in your work may be expressed in the fact that you will be tempted to overly help the client, or even do everything instead of him, not allowing your own experience to take shape.
In such cases, there is a great chance that, in the end, your student will turn out to be independent, unorganized and inexperienced. And if not lucky, then he still will not realize it.
Thus, over-exaggerating, you risk raising a person who is up to 40 years old on any problem, even with proper training, will run to the team leader in the manner that people under 40 years old live with their parents for fear of independent living.
Let our students learn to solve problems themselves, and only when it comes to understanding that they are completely at a dead end, then come to their aid, suggesting further steps.
Against the background of a previous mistake, it is not very difficult to allow another one - to make the student feel stupid.
There is one cognitive distortion beautiful in its cunning, a familiar “curse of knowledge” to many. The fact is that if you know a certain section of knowledge for a long time and well, then for you this knowledge seems completely understandable and lying on the surface. But when you try to explain them, you will encounter complete incomprehension. The reasons for misunderstanding can be many, from the banal complexity to the fact that your explanations are based on other things that you first need to understand.
Thus, it is easy to come to a situation where you are trying to explain something to a student, but he does not understand, then you become annoyed by this, and the student notices, understands your emotions, and he will sit at home all evening, listen to sad music and think that he is stupid and not suitable for the profession.
The cherry on the effects cake can be that at this moment you decide that you are also a so-so teacher.
But you just need to explain to yourself and the ward the essence of the phenomenon, tell you what is happening with everyone, do not be afraid of this, and draw conclusions based on this.
I personally remember very well how I could not understand the idea of ​​asynchrony, did not understand what advantages it gives and what disadvantages. I was explained once, second time, third time. It seems to be understood, but still very ambiguous.
And now, after a while, for me it seems clear, obvious and lying on the surface.
Another problem arising from the previous ones. There is a beautiful phenomenon called duckling syndrome. I am sure that almost everyone knows about him, but I will still explain: duck syndrome is a phenomenon in which a specialist considers the first technology studied or the instrument studied to be the best.
You as a mentor are fully responsible for telling a new person in the profession that the world is not arranged, that all tools are useful and important, everyone has their pros and cons, and you should not expect that the career path will always go with the same technology at hand.
Otherwise, you will get a specialist who enrolled in the adherents of a tool or technology, and they don’t really like them, in fact, they often gather in groups and discuss that their programming language is the best, and the other languages ​​are jealous.
The above errors can be many, these are only the most superficial, but despite this, they continue to repeat and spoil people's careers.
These things make bad mentors, but let's talk about what good people do.
It is also an obvious thing, but not everyone realizes the degree of importance of feedback.
First, feedback is needed so that the client does not draw wrong conclusions. It works very simply - it is common for people to try to find the answer on their own within the framework of obscurity. A person with low self-esteem will certainly find evidence that he is not doing well, that he is not coping and this profession is not his. Conversely, a person with high self-esteem may begin to fly in the clouds and will cease to develop on the basis of thoughts that he is already quite cool.
Secondly, the nature of the feedback should be chosen strictly under the student. Shy people will have a hard time reacting correctly to feedback in a negotiation in 1 to 1 conversations, and someone wants to receive a formal response in the form of a detailed letter, someone has enough correspondence in the messenger where you can normally think about the following words and hide emotions, if such there is.
Thirdly, feedback is also needed for you as a mentor. Maybe you should better develop your mentoring skills somewhere, maybe the student sees something that you don’t see.
It all revolves around a simple and understandable principle - transparency. The more transparent your relationship, the easier it is for all parties.
Without progress, it will be very difficult to draw the right conclusions at the end of training. The reason for this is quite simple - without taking progress into account, your conclusions will be based on your memory, and it works differently for everyone, someone remembers good things better, others are bad, therefore the result of your thinking on the subject of student success may differ from very objective strong.
In addition, there is such a phenomenon as the brightness of recent memories in comparison with older ones, therefore, a successfully passed stage or, on the contrary, a conflict, can provoke a greater subjectivity of conclusions.
It is enough just to keep a table where the student’s tasks will be described, your expectations and what was in reality, and generally all personal impressions at each stage of each training day, it is very convenient for future analysis.
Continuing the theme of the development of maximum transparency in the relationship.
Do not hide from the wards your expectations about their success. This is important for the same reason as the feedback - the student’s uncertainty of the goal can serve as an incentive for him to set himself these goals, and if they are already different from the desired ones or not - how lucky they are.
If you feel that you or your mentor make such mistakes, then do not be afraid to talk and think about whether you want possible consequences.
If you are already faced with the consequences of bad mentoring, then I would give advice even to go to a psychotherapist and discuss problems with him, as it may not work out on your own.
I want to emphasize that being a mentor is much more responsible than many people think.
Remember the main thing. You are not going to become mentors just to become a mentor and to scratch your ChSV. And certainly not to realize how cool and experienced you are with novices or juniors.
You do this in order to ensure a high-quality transfer of knowledge, to help a colleague to become more confident and better cope with tasks. By the way, sometimes a strange stereotype is voiced, they say, to be a mentor and train someone in your own company = to grow a competitor, people believe that in this case it is more profitable to isolate knowledge, supposedly it will make you a more valuable employee.
If, teaching Junior the subtleties of the profession, you really think that now he will definitely cause your dismissal, I have bad news for you.
And then there are people who are seemingly excellent specialists and professionals. But they have low professional self-esteem and they are afraid to take on more than they are now. And there are still people who are hard at work acquiring new information, they need to draw everything with squares and arrows, or even more than once. And not two.
')
These people are often united by the fact that at one time they got a bad teacher at school or a bad mentor is already on the career path.
Being a bad mentor is easy. It is difficult to notice a bad mentor, it may seem good and does not understand that he is making mistakes.
To err is expensive
The relationship between a mentor and a student can be compared to the relationship of a parent and child. Both the parent and the mentor have a great influence, at the same time both the student and the child may not be aware of and not be aware of whether they have a good mentor or a bad one.
Just as parental mistakes can last a lifetime for a child, mentoring mistakes can reach through their entire professional career. Errors of this kind sit deep, and it is not always possible to reliably determine their source.
How to recover from these errors, I do not know. The same long way, as in the case of parents - awareness of the problem and the subsequent self-control. Therefore, the mentor must understand and accept the responsibility entrusted to him.
Equality
The most critical mistake that anyone who has an influence on another person can make is instilling a feeling of inferiority. Being a mentor, in no case can you position yourself in terms of the fact that you, a mentor, a first-class specialist, and your authority are unshakable, and a student - no one calls him No.
Such a line of conduct is a direct path to the birth of a professional cripple.
This often happens if a person goes into mentoring with the aim of shaking his ChSV against the background of young less professional colleagues, with the aim of showing them (and above all - himself) how cool he is.
At the same time, I do not declare that it is impossible to go into mentoring for the sake of my ChSV, you can, of course, but only if your ChSV grows from the idea of ​​teaching and learning, from the idea that excellent specialists come out from under your hand.
Hyper-Pharmacy
Hyper-drug is the same emotional damage as suggestion of a sense of inferiority.
When you are a mentor, your desire to see good results in your work may be expressed in the fact that you will be tempted to overly help the client, or even do everything instead of him, not allowing your own experience to take shape.
In such cases, there is a great chance that, in the end, your student will turn out to be independent, unorganized and inexperienced. And if not lucky, then he still will not realize it.
Thus, over-exaggerating, you risk raising a person who is up to 40 years old on any problem, even with proper training, will run to the team leader in the manner that people under 40 years old live with their parents for fear of independent living.
Let our students learn to solve problems themselves, and only when it comes to understanding that they are completely at a dead end, then come to their aid, suggesting further steps.
The student is not stupid
Against the background of a previous mistake, it is not very difficult to allow another one - to make the student feel stupid.
There is one cognitive distortion beautiful in its cunning, a familiar “curse of knowledge” to many. The fact is that if you know a certain section of knowledge for a long time and well, then for you this knowledge seems completely understandable and lying on the surface. But when you try to explain them, you will encounter complete incomprehension. The reasons for misunderstanding can be many, from the banal complexity to the fact that your explanations are based on other things that you first need to understand.
Thus, it is easy to come to a situation where you are trying to explain something to a student, but he does not understand, then you become annoyed by this, and the student notices, understands your emotions, and he will sit at home all evening, listen to sad music and think that he is stupid and not suitable for the profession.
The cherry on the effects cake can be that at this moment you decide that you are also a so-so teacher.
But you just need to explain to yourself and the ward the essence of the phenomenon, tell you what is happening with everyone, do not be afraid of this, and draw conclusions based on this.
I personally remember very well how I could not understand the idea of ​​asynchrony, did not understand what advantages it gives and what disadvantages. I was explained once, second time, third time. It seems to be understood, but still very ambiguous.
And now, after a while, for me it seems clear, obvious and lying on the surface.
Duckling syndrome
Another problem arising from the previous ones. There is a beautiful phenomenon called duckling syndrome. I am sure that almost everyone knows about him, but I will still explain: duck syndrome is a phenomenon in which a specialist considers the first technology studied or the instrument studied to be the best.
You as a mentor are fully responsible for telling a new person in the profession that the world is not arranged, that all tools are useful and important, everyone has their pros and cons, and you should not expect that the career path will always go with the same technology at hand.
Otherwise, you will get a specialist who enrolled in the adherents of a tool or technology, and they don’t really like them, in fact, they often gather in groups and discuss that their programming language is the best, and the other languages ​​are jealous.
The above errors can be many, these are only the most superficial, but despite this, they continue to repeat and spoil people's careers.
These things make bad mentors, but let's talk about what good people do.
Feedback
It is also an obvious thing, but not everyone realizes the degree of importance of feedback.
First, feedback is needed so that the client does not draw wrong conclusions. It works very simply - it is common for people to try to find the answer on their own within the framework of obscurity. A person with low self-esteem will certainly find evidence that he is not doing well, that he is not coping and this profession is not his. Conversely, a person with high self-esteem may begin to fly in the clouds and will cease to develop on the basis of thoughts that he is already quite cool.
Secondly, the nature of the feedback should be chosen strictly under the student. Shy people will have a hard time reacting correctly to feedback in a negotiation in 1 to 1 conversations, and someone wants to receive a formal response in the form of a detailed letter, someone has enough correspondence in the messenger where you can normally think about the following words and hide emotions, if such there is.
Thirdly, feedback is also needed for you as a mentor. Maybe you should better develop your mentoring skills somewhere, maybe the student sees something that you don’t see.
It all revolves around a simple and understandable principle - transparency. The more transparent your relationship, the easier it is for all parties.
Accounting progress
Without progress, it will be very difficult to draw the right conclusions at the end of training. The reason for this is quite simple - without taking progress into account, your conclusions will be based on your memory, and it works differently for everyone, someone remembers good things better, others are bad, therefore the result of your thinking on the subject of student success may differ from very objective strong.
In addition, there is such a phenomenon as the brightness of recent memories in comparison with older ones, therefore, a successfully passed stage or, on the contrary, a conflict, can provoke a greater subjectivity of conclusions.
It is enough just to keep a table where the student’s tasks will be described, your expectations and what was in reality, and generally all personal impressions at each stage of each training day, it is very convenient for future analysis.
Disclosure of expectations
Continuing the theme of the development of maximum transparency in the relationship.
Do not hide from the wards your expectations about their success. This is important for the same reason as the feedback - the student’s uncertainty of the goal can serve as an incentive for him to set himself these goals, and if they are already different from the desired ones or not - how lucky they are.
If everything is already bad
If you feel that you or your mentor make such mistakes, then do not be afraid to talk and think about whether you want possible consequences.
If you are already faced with the consequences of bad mentoring, then I would give advice even to go to a psychotherapist and discuss problems with him, as it may not work out on your own.
I want to emphasize that being a mentor is much more responsible than many people think.
Total
Remember the main thing. You are not going to become mentors just to become a mentor and to scratch your ChSV. And certainly not to realize how cool and experienced you are with novices or juniors.
You do this in order to ensure a high-quality transfer of knowledge, to help a colleague to become more confident and better cope with tasks. By the way, sometimes a strange stereotype is voiced, they say, to be a mentor and train someone in your own company = to grow a competitor, people believe that in this case it is more profitable to isolate knowledge, supposedly it will make you a more valuable employee.
If, teaching Junior the subtleties of the profession, you really think that now he will definitely cause your dismissal, I have bad news for you.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/456732/
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