I recently had the opportunity to mentor a future leader within the fire/EMS services, and it got me thinking about how the advice I was offering was just as much for me as it was for the other person. In helping someone else, I realized how many similarities there were between this future leader and me at various points throughout my life and career. I started wondering, “Had such mentoring been available, especially in the arena of people skills, how much more of a positive influence could I have had throughout the years?”
What is mentoring?
The process of mentoring or coaching is quite simple—you utilize your education, experience and exposure to offer another suggestions about how to be successful in a variety of situations. Generally speaking, a mentor is older, more experienced and senior in tenure to those whom they mentor. However, nothing says the senior member cannot be mentored by the junior member.
There are several things that must occur prior to mentoring someone, though. First, is the agreement to enter into the mentor/mentee relationship. In other words, the other person has to allow you to mentor them, and you have to agree to mentor them. Without this explicit relationship, you are training the person rather than mentoring them. When we mentor, we have active learning with engagement and continual (positive) feedback. In training, we may present the information without the person being actively engaged, and there may not be consistent or positive feedback. When we mentor, we are emotionally invested in the relationship and the “growth” of the person. When you mentor someone, you are training, but you may not always be mentoring while training.
Focus on the person
We train on processes, but we mentor people. Do not fall into the trap of only focusing on process; put people before process, ALWAYS. As former President of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres states, “Instead of trying to make a better robot, try to make a better man.” This is the true power of mentoring. In developing the person, we promote the process because the mentored individual is able to see what needs to be done, how to accomplish it and how to engage others.
Now, do not get me wrong, I am 100 percent for effective training. I love training and will train until exhaustion sets in and then some. However, I recognize, through self-evaluation and organizational assessment, that far too many organizations fail to spend any measurable amount of time developing their people as they do supporting their processes. There must be balance, as both are equally important.
Why mentor?
Mentoring is a beneficial two-way street. As the mentee, you are introduced to new ideas and concepts. As the mentor, you get a sense of pride in knowing you are paying your experiences forward. You also have to keep yourself current in regards to the information you are providing. You also make the organization stronger. Further, mentoring can inspire change and growth in both people. In mentoring someone else, I had an “aha moment” that looking back, I wish I had done more mentoring and less judging along the way; I think we can all relate to this.
Final thoughts
I would recommend that you mentor a somewhat likeminded person. Remember, mentoring is about coaching others to success, not changing their opinion to match yours.
Mentoring does not have to be a formal process within a system. We all know that mentoring occurs on a daily basis in the fire service; however, when it is informal, a lot of good people can go without the benefit of a mentoring process. I had a lot of great tactical mentors, but I had no (true) people mentors. When I was a young company officer, a driver-engineer once told me that tactics are relatively easy to teach; it is the people who are the hard part and, thus, require most of your attention. What he meant by this was quite simple: We can teach tactics and decision-making to a good degree of confidence, but we need to learn to relate to, manage and lead people the right way. I often look back at this conversation and a few like it and wonder how much more of a positive difference I could have made if these were not just passing conversations but part of a long-standing mentoring relationship.
Stay low, stay safe and train everyday!
