What makes a good mentor?
Teachers are mentors, co-workers can be mentors, and supervisors and leaders can be mentors. Essentially, everyone can teach you something. Often by design and sometimes by accident, everyone can contribute both positively and negatively to who you are and what you do. These are a few more lessons I have learned from many “teachable moments.”
Never tell someone they are just an employee. This might be one of the most demotivating statements a senior manager or owner can make. When I was told this, I swore I would never treat someone with such disrespect. Finding people who care, who are motivated, and who consider their organization to be a part of them is rare; making this statement will make them question their desire to remain.
Just because you don’t make a decision doesn’t mean a decision isn’t made. I have met many people who are afraid or unable to decide; usually, the opportunity has passed before they make up their minds. Abdicating a decision is a decision.
Just because you are the only one who thinks the way you do doesn’t make you wrong. The problem with conventional wisdom is that it is based on a rear-view mirror perspective; innovative and forward-looking organizations learn from the past but aren’t prisoners of it.
I would much rather be us competing against them than them competing against us. A bold statement and one I used many times to motivate my teams, both in sports and professionally. I was mentored to believe that believing in your people and training, effective training, was one of the most important keys to success; often in competition, training makes the difference between winning and losing.
When coaching a team or developing people, everything is about the small things. Positive culture and building people are primarily due to paying attention to the small things most people miss. In coaching youth sports, I learned everyone’s name in the first practice, the players called me Paul, not Mr. Wagenaar; I spoke to them, not at them, I asked what they thought and listened. My teams, whether children or experienced professionals were encouraged to do everything as a team from shaking hands at the end of a match, to everyone sitting together, intermixed, at organizational meetings.
Head-on isn’t always the best way to solve a problem. There are subtleties and nuances to appreciate when working with people and the problems they face. Few people want a solution imposed, many want the chance to solve the problems themselves and usually it involves coaching, support, listening, and understanding.
How a pause can be a powerful tool. A pause can give the impression of consideration, it can give time to consider, and it can allow for consequences to occur; a pause used correctly can influence decisions and thoughts more than words could. I use them all of the time when dealing with customers/clients, staff, and people who are upset.
Be early. All of the successful people I know are early, perhaps they, like me, work too much; however, being early allows you time to prepare, time to get ahead, and time to ease into the questions and problems the day brings.
Always ask yourself, “Is what you are doing, adding value to your organization. I used to have this message taped to the wall in my office. If the answer is no, why are you doing it?
If you don’t know ask. As a leader or manager, it is okay and likely even healthy if you don’t know the answers to every question. Your team should feel empowered to help you and they can lead sometimes too. You don’t have to and shouldn’t want to be the smartest person in the room. Thank you to Bruce for teaching me this lesson.
It’s okay to be wrong. A business owner once said to me that she couldn’t wait for me to be wrong sometimes because then I would be humbler. Two lessons, maybe I was too arrogant and that was a good wake-up call; second, she just needed to pay attention because I was wrong and wrong a lot. As a leader, I always did my best to look at the facts, to consider alternatives, and to make the best decisions I could in the time I had; but I wasn’t always right. Allow yourself to make mistakes but learn from each one and try not to repeat the same mistake.
Listen to your people when they are brave enough to tell you are wrong. If understanding that it is okay to be wrong is important, listening to your people tell you you are wrong (respectfully) is as important because they might be right. It takes courage to tell a leader you think they are wrong and your reaction to the comment and to the person is being watched by everyone. I have seen this many times and encouraging and listening to others makes you and your organization strong.
When you make a mistake, own it. People respond better when you take ownership of your mistakes whether academically or professionally. Admit it, don’t blame or make excuses, learn from it, and move on.
You are more than your job. I am dumb because at times I have forgotten this lesson and I know entrepreneurs and other leaders who have missed this lesson too. It is okay to be dedicated and work hard; but balance, is important, and your job, your family, your friends, and your life are too.
People are dumb, at least some of them, including us. We all have confirmation biases, things we believe because we either don’t see or don’t accept contrary facts. We need to appreciate seeing the things we won’t see; be aware of it and compensate for it.
Never fire someone in your office and never talk too much. Ending someone’s employment is sometimes necessary and it should never be easy because if changing someone’s life is easy then you do not have any compassion. Regardless of being difficult, there are times when there are no other choices and a leader cannot shirk their responsibility; however, be as kind as possible, be respectful, don’t make excuses, don’t say more than what is necessary, and allow them time to compose themselves. Using a private space, other than your office will help accomplish all of those things.
It is the relationship you build with people (yours, customers, suppliers) that is your legacy. People respect leadership, not power. The very best leaders I have met are also very good people. At company events they are the last people in line for meals, they care, they listen, they hear, and their actions match their words. This is much more important to them than the power they wield.
They miss you but not for very long. When you leave an organization you will realize just how quickly you don’t matter anymore, the bus moves to the next stop and it’s not that you aren’t important, it’s just they are on a different path.
Always take the high road. In all things, always do the best you can, and don’t give in to retaliation or getting even; in my experience, be the better person; no matter how badly you want to respond in kind to how you have been treated.
The most valuable person isn’t necessarily the most talented or the one who works the most hours. The most valuable person is often the person who shuns the spotlight but who sets the bar for your organization in motivation, reliability, and dependability. My lesson to you is to make the effort to see those people, every great organization has many of them.
It’s aim, ready, shoot. A consultant once shared this line with me because I was always too quick to shoot first, making decisions solely based on my instincts. Many times these instincts were correct; however, by accepting his tutoring my ability to make better decisions soared because I was better prepared (ready), I chose my targets better (aimed), and when I shot, (shoot) I achieved my goal more often.
Keep your powder dry. A lawyer shared this teachable moment with me. His advice was to “think before I spoke and to pick my spots for timing” for maximum effect. This ability to “de-center” myself has served me well and helped the organizations I have been part of because it allows me to hear and appreciate other perspectives, and it can be for you too.
It’s never one person’s fault. As a society, we seem to have a huge need to have someone to blame. Rarely can anything bad be totally one single person’s mistake. Like all mistakes, accept it, correct it, learn from it, and move forward.
Share the credit. Just like blame, when successful, it is not just you. When your organization or you achieve success, look for people to thank – somebody helped you get to the point you are now, it costs nothing to acknowledge them.
A leader proves their value when everything is flying to shit. Being poised, calm, proactive, thinking, and taking action is what your job as a leader is, step up and lead.
Improve incrementally. Quantum leaps in capacity and capability are possible; however, most improvement happens through training, mentoring, developing, and nurturing; and this happens incrementally. Whether in coaching sports or teaching people of any age, continuous improvement happens incrementally.
It’s okay to be fired or to quit a bad job. Nobody finds it easy to experience either; however, it happens; it has happened to me, likely it will likely happen to you. When it does, it won’t matter how you got to that point; what will matter is what you do moving forward from this point. Moving forward will be easier when you put the termination behind you, like any mistake or bad experience: what did you do right, what did you do wrong and what will you do next.
You are the product of a systematically racist and colonial-influenced world. The lesson is to be aware of what you have been guided not to see. Appreciate your privilege; if you have lived in North America and have enjoyed benefits that are not universal; become an anti-racist, become an anti-ableist, and strive to enable equity, diversity, and inclusiveness in everything you do.
“So what”? If you have read to this point, this might be the most important teachable moment in this blog. What value can you take from my thoughts and words? In a career that has taken me to so many places I never expected and has exposed me to the influence of so many really good and some really bad people … so what? What can you take from this post and use for yourself, what will help you to live a better life, to do better at your job, and to help you achieve your goals?
Thank you,
Paul.