This article suggests 7 tips for successful virtual mentoring.

Tip 1: sharing information

Whilst in face to face mentoring sessions people can often quickly establish rapport through picking up on voice or facial expressions and mirroring body language. This can be harder to do via telephone or video conference which is why in virtual mentoring it is recommended the individuals focus on building rapport early on by sharing as much information about themselves as they find comfortable. In his book “Everyone Needs a Mentor” Clutterbuck suggests using some of the following questions in order to tap into the emotional personality of the mentee/ mentor.

• What do you care passionately about?
• What are you most proud of in your career?
• What do you enjoy most about your work?
• How would other people describe you?
• What is your biggest ambition in work, outside of work?
• Who do you admire and why?

Tip 2: don’t jump straight in

In addition it is often good to start each virtual session in the same way you would start a traditional face to face mentoring sessions asking after health and families, the weather (if you are British) etc before jumping straight into the first agenda item. In some cultures it can be seen as very rude to go straight to business

Tip 3: cross-cultural awareness

Speaking of cultures by mentoring virtually there is a high likelihood that individuals will be mentoring someone from a different culture be that international, gender, generational or regional. In this case the potential for stereotyping, which can reduce the effectiveness of the mentoring relationship, is high. It is therefore key to spend some time in your virtual mentoring pair exploring each other’s culture. How is time viewed, what are the rules (written and unwritten), how is power shared/displayed, how do people view hierarchy and responsibility, how open are you with your emotions, how are decisions reached in that culture? Share some assumptions you have about your mentor/mentee’s culture, on what basis is that assumption made and how accurate is it? For example:

• My assumption is that your culture sees organizations as very hierarchical where the boss is right and you don’t contradict of challenge him or her, is that correct for you? Tell me more about that.
• My assumption is that you have a very optimist attitude because you come from the USA where people have a very “can do” attitude. Is that true for you?

Tip 4: telephone manner

In virtual mentoring be aware that you may have a different tone of voice, body posture and manner when on the telephone or video conference as opposed to when talking to someone face to face. The difference is less noticeable in generations who grew up with universal access to mobile and internet phones but can be quite marked for those who did not. Try to ensure your telephone or video conference style is as relaxed and natural as your face to face style.

Tip 5: don’t be afraid of the silence

Another difference is the degree to which individuals are comfortable with silence on the phone. A few seconds face to face silence when you can see someone planning to articulate their thoughts and feelings can be easier than the same amount of silence on the other end of the line. In fact in western society people change radio channels after 4.5 seconds of silence – hardly enough time for a reflective sigh. Remember Nancy Kline’s assertion that the head that contains the issue also contains the solution – pause and let the silence continue – there is thinking going on.

Tip 6: learning log

Another aid to maintaining and building rapport remotely is for the mentee to keep a learning log (covered in the Mentoring Skills Workshop) and to share highlights and reflections via email. This not only helps to maintain continuity between sessions but can also stimulate quality questions at the next session as the mentor will have had time to digest the content. This log can help both the mentor and the mentee to spot patterns or repetitions that they may not have picked up in the speed of face to face conversations. Using the occasional text to check-in or communicate a success can be a real boost for both mentor and mentee. In the middle of a grueling business trip getting a light hearted “Thanks for listening – I tried out what we discussed and it worked!” can be as uplifting as the mentee getting a “Well done” in response.

Tip 7: generous listening

Finally when mentoring remotely remember it is as important to listen respectfully and generously as if the person were in the room with you. That means turning off other phones/ blackberries and refraining from checking emails – typing on a keyboard is not silent and can be heard on the other end of the line.

With email, texts, telephone, Skype and video conferencing and the global nature of our businesses today having a virtual mentor/ mentee can be as interactive and as beneficial as having one in the next office.

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1. 1.       Metaphors

Metaphors which are a symbolic non literal representation of a situation are a great way of encapsulating a situation, gaining an insight or seeing something from a different perspective and generating more creative ideas. We use metaphors unconsciously all of the time in everyday conversations such as “He was cool as a cucumber, over the moon, ready for battle”. The person isn’t really cool as a cucumber, or over the moon, or ready for battle. The expressions are images, partly for dramatic effect, and partly because metaphors are an easy way to convey meaning.

Asking someone what they think they should do engages their intellect. Creating a metaphor to describe a situation engages a different part of the brain. Suggesting a metaphor or better yet asking the mentee to come up with a metaphor to describe their situation opens up the possibility of a different insight. For example:

“What kind of team would represent the team you are currently in? A sports team (which one)? An Arctic exploration team? A quiz team? A formula 1 team”

Now how would that team deal with this issue?

2. Fun

When was the last time you had fun at work? Played, laughed – the type of laugh that causes tears and a pain in your side – if you have not done this in a while spend a few hours with a five year old! Creative thought is often preceded by so called right brain activity such as sound or imagery which stimulates a connection by association. When we are enjoying ourselves, when we are playing we are more creative, more imaginative. In your next mentoring conversations rather than jumping into solving an issue start by playing some music, take in photos of happy times, bring along a game you used to play as a child – and play it, take a walk together. An adult like a child needs to feels safe if he or she is to play creatively but doing something like this takes a little courage. Do it anyway. Once you are in the “play zone” ask yourself how this could relate to the team dynamics you are struggling with or the deadlines you are facing. From this play perspective what is possible about the issue at hand?

3. Curiosity

A mentor’s role is to be curious about what is going on rather than being an expert in any one field. Curiosity is like looking at the world afresh through new eyes or through the eyes of a child. Try adding “I’m curious” before asking a question. It reduces any perceived judgement that might be hanging in the air. Encouraged by the Mentor’s curiosity the mentee can also get curious.

“I wonder what makes this team environment especially good for me.”

“What do I want to know that I don’t know now?”

“What would my 80 year old self advise me to do right now?

“How does this fit with my plans, values, and way of life?

“What support do I need to make this project take off (notice metaphor in this question)

4. Intuition

Intuition or sixth sense is not something we often trust – our working culture trains us to rely on hard, reasonable data in order to make decisions or follow a course of action. We aren’t used to listening to let alone acting on our intuition or encouraging other’s to follow theirs. Mentoring conversations are incubators for creativity – for sharing our own intuition and teasing it out from others. Mentors can pose questions such as “I have a hunch that…., my intuition tells me or I have a sense that” if they feel there is more behind what their mentee is saying. Alternatively they could push the mentee to articulate their own intuition.

“What does your gut/ heart/ instinct tell you about this situation?”

“What would you do if you had 3 seconds to decide?”

“If you knew the answer  – what would it be?”

5. Failure

Stimulating creative thinking and failure sound like an oxymoron. Surely failure is about defeat, lack of success, a shutting down rather than a building up of ideas. However an unwillingness to fail stifles great ideas. A fear of failure kills many projects before they have even begun. Lots can be learned from what didn’t work – sometimes more than can be gleaned from basking in the glory of what went well. The problem is we don’t create enough opportunities to fail in order to have those moments of insight. And when we do fail we are too busy trying to bury it and move on before anyone notices. In your mentoring conversations try exploring the last time you failed. What did you learn? About yourself? About others? About the world? What will you do differently as a result of failing?

And if you have never failed or have to go way back to play school or kindergarten to think of an example it means you are too far in your comfort zone and that is not a place of creativity.  If that is the case then your homework is to go out and try something that you will probably fail at on your first attempt. Oh and smile while you do it, think of a metaphor to describe the experience, apply that to your wider world. See how creative you can be!

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a)      “Conversing” with your computer screen

b)      Having actual face-to-face conversations?

You always remember a great conversation (with a person rather than a computer!). Think of the last great conversation you had. Who was it with? Was it planned or spontaneous, with someone you knew or with a stranger, at work, at home, at a dinner party, on holiday? What did you learn about the other person, their culture, values and norms? What did that make you reflect about your own world view? Conversations have the power to change our thinking, change our course of action, and even change our lives if we engage in them fully.

One thing to try today at the office:

As you walk around the office today notice the balance of people having face to face conversations and people sitting at their desk “conversing” with their computer screen. Often people treat email as an alternative to a conversation – it isn’t! In fact when things get difficult or you reach an impasse sometimes all that is missing is a conversation. Stepping outside your day to day list making and action taking to have a conversation creates different networks, relationships and ideas.

So how do we create the conditions for having powerful conversations and how do we engage in them fully. In her book Time To Think Nancy Kline says “…the best conditions for thinking are not tense, they are gentle, they are quiet, they are unrushed” She goes on to say that “…when you are listening to someone much of the quality of what you are hearing is YOUR EFFECT ON THEM. Giving good attention to people makes them more intelligent. Poor attention makes them stumble over their words and seem stupid”

Getting to a powerful conversation: 5 techniques

1. Generous Listening: First and foremost a powerful conversation involves, as mentioned above, listening well. Mentoring conversations are a safe place to practice developing your conversation skills. When a person knows they will not be interrupted it is magic – it enables their mind to roam free, to soar, to make believe, to chase ideas wherever they go. If you can create that relaxed atmosphere by listening well while someone thinks in your presence they will think well.
2. Enrolment ¹: This involves engaging with people and generating excitement, enthusiasm and a sense of ‘aliveness’. For example: “That project team you worked in sounded fantastic, what was going on there that made it such a good experience for you?” . Following it up with “What elements of that previous project team would you like to bring into your current role?”
3. Acknowledging ¹: This centres on the mentor and the mentee saying out loud the qualities or values that they experience in the other person, this must be genuine and honest for it to have impact. “It can’t have been easy to challenge the team in an open forum – that took real courage” People love to be acknowledged and you will notice an immediate impact on the quality of your conversation by doing this authentically.
4. Championing¹: This is where you recognise the potential and capability within the other person and remind them of what you see. “I know this feels difficult and I know you can do this – come on”. It is about reminding the person you are talking to of the strengths you see in them when they are lacking in confidence or self belief.
5. Challenging ¹: This involves getting the other person to stretch beyond his or her self imposed limits and shake things up a bit. In the spirit of maintaining a non tense atmosphere challenging like this involves the person who has been challenged having the opportunity to put forward a counter offer that is greater than they would have initially thought of.  The exchange could look like:

“I’ll enrol on that programme next year”

“I challenge you to start it within the next 3 months”

“I’ll research short and medium term learning options this month and talk to my line manager about my capacity for taking on learning in addition to my day job”

Is the voice in my head bothering you?

There is another conversation that goes on sometimes continuously and that is the conversation we have with ourselves. More often than not it’s not a powerful conversation but a disempowering conversation and goes something like: “Why did you do that? It didn’t work last time, when will you learn, dumb idea – STUPID!” or words to that effect.

Often we can be our own worst critic; we get into negative challenge mode and get stuck. Next time you “hear” yourself taking to yourself like this – pause. Ask yourself if you’d talk to a colleague, a friend, a loved one, a child the way you are talking to yourself and try to change the conversation in your head to one of enrolling, acknowledging and championing. It is powerful stuff; a quote from Gandhi captures the essence of this.

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviours. Keep your behaviours positive because your behaviours become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny”

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In previous articles we have talked about initiating the mentoring dialogue. But how do you make it stick? How do you keep the motivation of both parties going? Here is a quick 3-point check for motivation levels:

1. The best bit. Having met with your mentee/mentor a few times, is there a favourite part that you look forward to? For example, the anticipation before the meeting, the stimulating dialogue during the session or the reflective or animated mood it leaves you in?
2. Have you met with your mentee/mentor when you said you would? At this stage 6 months into the programme the ideal would have been to have met 4-6 times. All of us are busy but the expectation was to meet 8 – 12 times over the year – are you honouring that commitment?
3. Thinking and planning ahead. With the holiday seasons approaching, vacations, celebrations and the constant demands of work will attempt to derail your good intentions. Have you aligned your mentoring conversations with what is currently going on in your working world to help keep them on track?

Your honest answers to the above questions will give you a sense for the motivation to mentor (or be mentored). And if the answer is that you need a little nudge, here are five things you can do to make mentoring moments motivating.

1 Individual Development Plans (IDPs)

IDP’s are due by the end of the calendar year.

• Consider stretching your IDP so that it includes something of your own personal aspirations.
• Share it with your mentor or mentee and explore how you could rack up the volume.
• Setting aside the limitations of budget or time (just for a moment) in an ideal world what would you put on your IDP? If you are struggling with this then think back to a time when you were learning and having fun. What was happening, who was there, what conditions were in place, how did you make that happen? Now how can you incorporate more of that in your current IDP?

2 Appraisals

“The consummation of work lies not only in what we have done, but who we have become while accomplishing the task” David Whyte. Crossing the Unknown Sea – Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity

As you complete your appraisal form:

• Reflect not only on what you have achieved, but how it has changed you. Who are you becoming in this world of work?
• Your mentoring conversations are a great opportunity to practice your appraisal conversation – what legacy do you want to leave in our current team? What requests do you want to make for the year ahead? These are all great things to discuss or role play with your mentor.

3 Try not trying

This sounds like another Chinese proverb but according to John Whitmore in his book Coaching For Performance what it means in the context of mentoring is:

• Noticing that which is stimulating and interesting in the mentoring conversations you are already having, rather than trying hard to think of interesting, intellectually stimulating topics to discuss at the next meeting.
• The more attentively we listen, the more curious we get, the more we hear, the more interesting the conversations becomes. Try and see what happens.

4 What gives your life meaning?

Abraham Maslow, an America psychologist in the 1950’s, studied mature, complete, successful and fulfilled people and as a result devised his “Hierarchy of Needs”.

• At the bottom of the pyramid is Food and Water, the next level concerns Shelter and Safety.
• Once these are met individuals focus on Belonging – to their tribe, community, team and then we seek the Esteem of these other people.
• The last two steps involve the need for Self Esteem and then Self Actualisation which is the need for meaning or purpose in our lives. Maslow saw this last step as a continuous journey until we cease to be.

Mentoring is a tool on the self actualisation journey – a conversation in which people in the corporate world may explore corporate ethics and values, the profit motive and how it relates to their own search for meaning in their life and work. How aligned is your work’s purpose with that of BP as a whole?

5 Growing Your Confidence as a Mentor

As a result of the conversations you are having you will be growing in skills and experience in mentoring. Specifically the key things that will help you to increase confidence in your mentoring ability are:

• Honing your listening skills and learning to trust your intuition.
•  Enjoying acknowledging the accomplishments of your mentee and championing them when they face challenges.
• Recognising as a mentee that you able to bring real issues into your mentoring conversations and gain insights as a result.
• Reflecting more on your own role in the dynamics that surround you and feeling more confident in tackling them.

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