Apples for the Teacher: A Reflection On Mentoring

When a student from Cape Town’s no-fee university, Tsiba, asked Parr Lamond partner Laura James to be her mentor, she knew it would require more of her than the stipulated fortnightly chat. What she didn’t realise, was what it would give her in return. In this article, Laura reflects on how she became the unexpected recipient of four gifts of mentoring.

My opportunity to mentor began with an email beautifully written to appeal to my sense of community. “I believe that you can provide me with enough insight and knowledge of the business world to help prepare for my future endeavours hence, I was wondering if it was possible for you to consider mentoring me for 2009”, Melissa, a first-year Business Administration student at Tsiba Education, politely implored.
I was flattered, of course, but apprehensive. Did I have (and want to give) the time and energy to be a mentor? Was I the right mentor for Melissa? Could she learn anything from me?! After some soul-searching (and calendar scrutiny), I accepted the challenge. I was confident that my relationship with Melissa – we’d formed a bond when I’d tutored her class the previous year – would be strong basis for our year together.
And so the mentoring journey began, with me believing that this was my gift to Melissa, my way of “giving back”. That was only partly true. As I look back, I realise that our relationship richly rewarded me in four unexpected and delightful ways.

Freedom from performance coaching
Don’t get me wrong, I love coaching and have done it for several years. It’s hugely rewarding to see young, motivated and talented people grow in maturity and skill as they learn to navigate the choppy waters of organisational politics and behaviour.  But the demand for high performance and conformity is always a powerful undercurrent. Mentoring at Tsiba is free from this pressure, as the University values a broader definition of personal development.
I made the early mistake (in retrospect) of asking Melissa to set her mid-year exam goals. Her aspirations were hugely optimistic and, as it turned out, they intimidated rather than motivated her. As we reflected on this, Melissa learnt the value of accurately self-assessing and recognising what inspires her: insights that will serve her all her life. This gratifies me as much – if not more – than if she had achieved her original goal.

Being reminded that a world filled with mini-me’s is not necessarily a better place
Transference is a tricky thing. I had to constantly remind myself that Melissa was neither my younger sister nor me-minus-15-years. I chose to mentor Melissa for the chance to interact with someone different from me; someone to enrich my understanding of the world and the people in it. Melissa’s openness deepened my understanding of her generation and her culture, reminding me of – and challenging me about – my own biases and worldview. For someone whose life’s work is about personal growth, as for anyone who takes on the responsibility of developing others, this is a gift worth the protégé’s weight in gold!

Learning to balance motivation and molly-coddling
Good mentors are supposed guide their protégés in the right direction, encourage them to take ownership of their actions and responsibility for the outcomes. But that’s hard to do sometimes. At what point, I asked myself more than once, can I simply tell Melissa what to do? It would be so much easier! As our relationship grew, that point was stretched further and further. That’s not to say I didn’t care about what she did or how she did it. When our relationship was strong enough for me to resist her subtle requests to dictate her actions, my desire for her to learn was greater than my desire for her to get things “right”. Of course, she made a few mistakes, but her learning was exponential, because she had stepped up and I had stepped back.

Letting me do something I wanted to
At the mentors’ induction, a Tsiba student appealed, “Please, don’t treat us as if you are doing us a favour” and her words could not have been more perceptive. As in any relationship, the balance of power is critical. I knew that I would quickly become frustrated if my protégé lacked follow-through, so I set Melissa two early tasks: to tell me what areas of work she was interested in and to send me more information about what was expected of a mentor. When she responded quickly and with enthusiasm, I knew that mentoring her would be rewarding and was something I wanted to do, rather than something I felt I ought to do. Of course, on the odd Sunday morning I would have preferred to potter in my garden than meet up. But our time together always left me feeling revitalised, because our relationship was a choice we both made and invested in.
Is being a mentor worthwhile? The answer is an unconditional yes. Perhaps I was fortunate in being paired up with someone I like, respect and care about.  Perhaps my previous coaching experience gave me confidence to be a mentor. But I suspect the main reason is that I realised that the old adage about the giver receiving as much as the receiver is true. And what could be better than that?
If you would like to find out more about mentoring at Tsiba Education, email Loyiso Koyana of Tsiba Student Development or call Tsiba on (021) 532 2750.