While researching mentoring for a special population, we ran across this article. The questions, not restricted to business mentoring, are powerful for self or others.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Five Questions Every Mentor Must Ask
- Anthony K. Tjan
MARCH 25, 2009
One of my partners, Mats
Lederhausen, recently shared with me a mentorship framework, first inspired
by wellness guru, Deepak Chopra, that he’s evolved and used over the years. The
framework is an amazingly simple-yet-powerful set of five critical
questions. As
venture capitalists and advisors, we spend significant
time partnering with portfolio companies and very often find ourselves in a
mentoring role. These five questions, when asked in the order presented, form
an effective diagnostic tool that can provide better guidance to mentees,
employees, or generally anyone with whom you are playing the role of a
counselor. Additionally, they can serve as a self-diagnosis of one’s own
capabilities and opportunities.
Here are the questions:
1. What is it that you really want to be and
do?
2. What are you doing really well that is helping you get there?
3. What are you not doing well that is preventing you from getting there?
4. What will you do differently tomorrow to meet those challenges?
5. How can I help / where do you need the most help?
Let’s briefly look at each question:
1. What is it that you
really want to be and do? This question is about
aspiration and purpose. The reason why someone is doing what they are doing
should come out here. The question is also meant to get at the business goals
and broader aspirations of an individual – someone wishing to be successful in
business so that they can do more to help others, for example. The answer to
question one should surface the driving passion of individuals – what is it
they do or wish they could be great at doing?
2. What are you doing
really well that is helping you get there? This
question helps spotlight a core strength and the person’s ability to execute
towards his/her goal. What is someone naturally good at doing? Detailed and
standardized operations? Leading and motivating staff? Numbers? What is it that
someone does better than the average person that can help her achieve her
aspiration?
3. What are you not doing
well that is preventing you from getting there? This
is about facilitating an honest and critical assessment of the roadblocks,
challenges or weaknesses in a person or company that is slowing their ability
to win the game; to meet the goal from question one.
4. What will you do
different tomorrow to meet those challenges? Questions two and
three help determine whether people are spending the right time on the right
things. Progress cannot be measured just by hard work. Someone may have a great
work ethic, but if he is not focused on the right priorities, then “you’re
making good time, but you’re lost,” as another one of my partners likes to say.
People also have a tendency to practice and repeat what they are already good
at doing. It is human nature to show off your best side and hide weaknesses. As
a kid playing racquet sports, I remember being asked once why I kept practicing
my forehand when my backhand sucked. Use this question to probe whether the person
has the aptitude to change behavior. Will the person practice start practicing
his backhand?
5. How can I help / where
do you need the most help? The answers to the first four questions
matched against areas where you as a mentor have particular strengths,
relationships, or learning resources – should help determine how you can best
help someone achieve the goal.
These questions will help you assess where you
can really help an individual or a company. Try these five critical questions
the next time you are interviewing a mentee candidate, the next time you have a
mentoring session, or answer them yourself as a self-diagnostic. The answers
can help you or your mentees put together a sensible game plan for forward
progress.
This content was adapted for inclusion in
the HBR
Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need.
Anthony Tjan is CEO,
Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball, vice chairman of
the advisory firm Parthenon, and co-author of the New York Times bestseller Heart, Smarts, Guts,
and Luck (HBR
Press, 2012).
More about Tony Tjan today http://www.cueball.com/people/tony-tjan/
Ret. 7-5-16
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